Rain ponchos, Hank Paulson, rock hard chicken and more!

Rain-wise, Boston was just as bad as New York this weekend, if not worse. Which made for a pretty depressing commencement for the jolly good fellows at HBS, not to mention hellish flights in and out of Logan.

On the plus side, the rain had an equalizing effect as one and all were dreadfully outfitted in the plastic rain ponchos. More highlights:

Speeches were underwhelming. Undergrads got the Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane, but none other than in-the-headlines Hank Paulson, ex-Goldman Sachs CEO and HBS alum, addressed the B-Schoolers on the 1st day. But the prestigious speaker failed to captivate. Said one attendee: “it seemed like he prepared [the speech] on the plane ride over.”

To all the hard-charging i-bankers out there, Paulson had a particularly relevant message to you: never forget about maintaining a work-life balance. So next time you just got to get out of there at 4:30 to catch the Metro North, you know who to cite.

Next day’s HBS Dean Light was heavy on the praise in his speech. Think the word “tirelessly” (as in, “working tirelessly”) was used about 5 or 6 times…

Rain played a very big part in the festivities, as guests were left out in it. First it wasn’t so bad, tempting many to remove their clear plastic ponchos and close the umbrellas. Boy was that a mistake!!!

Lunch consisted of some very tough chicken. Nevertheless, edible enough for one person to take it to go. (See pic.)

Loudest cheering goes to Section C, at least from this impartial observer.

Others took solace in the fact that some guards looked even more miserable than everyone else.

This year 907 graduates joined a network of 64,000 HBS grads. That’s what I call a network.

907 names is a lot to go through, but not for the name announcer/show stealer who surprised the audience at each turn with her vigorous pronounciations.

Reception was relocated to the gym, which felt kind of high schooly, but everyone was in good spirits, not only because of the plentiful kabobs and rice paper-wrapped shrimp, but because it was truly time … to take the ponchos off.

Congrats HBS ‘06!