Finals is upon me. I have many things to do so perhaps I will not write as much as normal. Finals are shaping up like this. Receive take home final monday night, presentation tuesday, Wednesday final day in burbank (internship) Paper due saturday, reading done for Hong Kong course which is saturday as well.

I perhaps have some job news but it is way to soon to even write it, but I figured a tease was worth wile, since i did sign a Non Disclosure Agreement…

Ok back to studying- and all I can concentrate on is how few finals I have left in my life!

I wear reading glasses, this may not surprise you but spending 8-13 hours a day on this machine is not so great for your eyes. Since I go to private health insurance in January I have been quickly getting my health check ups, dental cleanings, and eyesight all checked up so I do not have to pay full price. I had my eyes checked recently and moved up one lens in the left eye. Not bad since both of my parents wear glasses, and have for years. Also last time I had my eyes checked was just before college started… So today I go to pickup the glasses, as they have been holding/adjusting/fitting them for the last 10 days doing who knows what at a snails pace. This is the tale-

I walk into the office, its completely open except for one sitting couple of a super obese balding lady and a nurse who is taking down her information. The reception area has 4 people behind it all of whom are intently staring into their paperwork. One looks up and asks me to sign in, I say that I am just here to pickup some glasses, and that I don’t really see a need to take up space on the sign in sheet. She assures me it is important, so I sign in, and she asks me to go sit down. I politely decline. About 5 minutes later another receptionist asks me to have a seat, I say no thanks I am just here to pick up some glasses and she gives me a look that says I am way more knowledgeable than you ever could be, and that white stuff on your clothes confirms that you are an idiot, so SIT DOWN NOW! Well the white stuff is chalk I just returned from climbing, and no, you are a receptionist you have no idea who I am. Oh well I keep standing. About 10 minutes go by with me standing, and the receptionists are now getting ancy, they keep glancing at me, then at eachother, and eventually somebody asks me to please have a seat again. I again decline and now have a challenge to stand until I receive my glasses. A transaction that should have taken about 30 seconds. 15 more minutes go by. I have not been standing for 30 minutes and I still have no glasses, 4 people sit in front of me too busy with their paperwork to reach over the counter and pass me my glasses, and then the silence breaks, somebody comes from arround the corner picks up the clipboard and asks me to come with her. I fell excited that I stood the whole time and made the receptionists feel strange, by not following the rules of sitting.

She leads me back to a desk area, and asks me to sit on one side, I comply and out from her pocket she pulls a glasses case, and from inside my glasses emerge. She moves to the other side of the desk, and opens the glasses. I reach for them, but instead of handing them to me she opens them and motions to put them on my face. This seems a bit strange to me but whatever, I decide to not push the issue, and lean forward to accept the glasses on my face, across this massive desk. Well as I lean forward, the leans forward as well, and we end up well inside eachothers bubbles. Her chest is about 10 inches from my face, she proceeds to place the glasses on and in Crystal clarity I am now enjoying a full field of vision of her chest. Not a bad way to test glasses I thought, she is not satisfied, so she removes the glasses, bends them a bit then we repeat the chest stare with or without the glasses test again. At this point she is satisifed and sends me on my merry way. Her portion took perhaps 1 minute.

So for the takeaways, 30 minutes standing, 1 minute getting glasses. Not a good use of time. But the vision test was way more fun when boobs were involved, and yes the glasses do make a difference at a close distance, and made my day.

I have a new theory about relationships. This theory involves amount of love and time, where time is measured in days, and amount of love is measured in a scale up to 100. 0 is indifferent 100 is madly in love (bordering on stalker). There is a scale below for your enjoyment.

Relationships take 2 people otherwise its unhealthy, that aside, It seems to me that one person always goes from indifferent to 70-80 immediately. They just bypass from the rest of the levels internally without communicating them in about a week. This is not so good, because the other person is still at 20. Not ready to commit to a large leap, or worse totally unaware. Now when person with 80 love brings this up to 20 love a problems ensues. The problems ensue because 80 is not willing to back down or at least wait until 20 steps it up. This differences will undoubtedly cause a rift in the relationship that will be unable to be overcome and undoubtedly a split occurs, although clearly both people still like the others company. Love is strange…

0- Indifferent

20- friends

30- I like you

40- I dream about you

50- We should date

60- Date exclusively

70- It needs to be official on facebook

80- We need to have “us” time once a week

90- Text me all day or else I will get worried

100- Stalker

So my redhead middle name “The Man” cane back from Singapore for a week in the states. This is his first time back in over 1.5 years. I cannot believe how long it has been since he moved away, it is definitely not the short term adventure I thought it would turn out to be. Congrats to him for grinding a living out in a foreign land for so long.

But either way it was Great to see him and associated parties, friends, family, parents, bla bla bla. There is no giant life altering update here other than he used the official title of “girlfriend” for his swiss-german speaking ladyfriend. We drank some beer that we both share a love for Natural Light! and enjoyed an evening on the rooftop patio at the parents huntington beach house. Friends are great, because even if you go a while without talking to them you can just pick up where you left off and let the good times roll.

In other news I am getting excited because my friend from santa barbara is scheduled to have a baby just after thanksgiving. So maybe scheduled is not the right word, but i figure its like a cake, sometimes its done early, or late but either way the little tyke is a thanksgiving baby. Her pregnancy has been hard with a lot of rough interactions with a baby’s daddy who is about as useful as a fart in a jar. She is a champ for the things she had to deal with, I know i would have given up long ago in her situation.

Internship still rolls on: good learning experience, because of the many failures. At the moment I do not want to work for my direct boss, so I am seeking employment opportunities elsewhere.

I enrolled in my final set of courses at the Drucker school and was accepted into the course Doing Business in Asia intensive study abroad course in Hong Kong. I just booked a ticket it was only 800 round trip (thats insane cheap) super excited to go, now I need to get the logistic part done for materials prepped, visas printed, travel plans, and all that good stuff.

So recently I got paid for my website abilities. I split up this income in my traditional manner and ended up with $100 to donate to charity…. Now the hard task of a philanthropist sets in, so many problems in the world which am I to help solve?

Did I head on back to my old mainstays, Catholic charitys, Lance Armstrong, or a friend in need- No. I tried something different that I have been meaning to try ever since I heard about it from some friends at school. I decided to make a micro-finance loan that earns no interest, and enables capitalism to help people who are interested in working their way out of poverty instead of receiving a handout. This excites me for many reasons but mostly because in all likelihood the loan will be repaid and then it can be returned. Actually the current rate of loan repayments through this particular site is 98.04% this is greater than the current commercial loan repayment rate of the USA.

So here is how it worked- I popped on over to www.kiva.com and proceeded to do something that only the internet and a bunch of cool nonprofits could provide. I loaned $100 to Jhonatan Ortiz who lives in La Paz, Bolivia. Kiva partnered with local charities who disperse and service the loans. Paypall makes all this happen without transaction fees since it also sees the good in helping people.

Here is the profile of Mr. Ortiz and what he plans to do with the money.

Jhonatan works in a company that distributes perfumes and where he works independently. He lives with his parents in the area of Pampahasi in the city of La Paz. The loan requested will be used for the purchase of perfumes that he will distribute independently to improve his earnings and quality of life. This is the first time he is asking for a loan with IMPRO as he is eager to better himself through it.

I could have gone with something like helping rice farmers in cambodia purchase fertilizer for increased crop yields, or tin roofs for roadside stands, but this project was on the top of the screen, and my funding was just enough to fund his loan, since about 5 other people were donating to him as well. So I picked it.

I will keep you posted on how it turns out.

Here is a link for how Kiva works: http://www.kiva.org/about/how/

I was raised by both of my biological parents who are still married. I have two younger brothers. I enjoy cold cut sandwiches. I like do it yourself projects because they afford me a healthy appreciation for many things. I admire my grandfather and want to have a garden like his when I grow up. I climb fake rocks and cycle on a weekly basis. I have a firm handshake and I like craft beer.

For reasons of identity tracking I have not used my name on this site. I have used nicknames for others, and friend for most. This post was inspired by the film Public Enemies, where John Dillinger falls in love with a girl in about 2 minutes, then asks her to drop her life and run away with him. She replies but I know nothing about you. John proceeds to give a speech that is short, manly, and effective since she ultimately decides to love him. The above portion is how I would describe myself if you knew nothing about me.

On saturday I went to Drucker Day. An annual event that celebrates the life and influence of Peter Drucker. The event was large and attended by about 700 people, including alumni, current students, community at large, high profile speakers, bla bla bla. Today I removed the notes from my binder from the event and wanted to share a bit of them with you, these notes are from a speech delivered by Jim Collins.

For those uf us that are under 30 we grew up in a global anomaly. We were raised in a period of global stability never before seen, with unbroken prosperity for our whole lives. Good for us, perhaps bad for the planet. With frightfully few hardships in our lives, this leads us into dangerous territory. Unlike our grandparents, and all those before them we have never had to deal with ferocious instability. The reality is that we have never had to deal with race riots, depression, world wars, conquering countries, quarantines, epidemics, and all manner of instabilities on a large scale. This leaves us inexperienced for whatever is next, and in the global village that communicates at the speed of light, fights battles with non-armys and individuals, stability will be a pillar that crumbles quickly.

With instability comes danger, and with danger there lies a tremendous opportunity. As professor Uyboco used to say “crisis” in Chinese idiogram is made up of 2 characters: Danger & opportunity. We must prepare ourselves to capture this opportunity through new advances of everything. Businesspeople like myself will have the opportunity presented to us to create corporations that are “not evil”, and enable people to do well and also do good.

The take away was a call to action to run the world. And to run it well. When you have completed your time at the helm of the world, we also need to have planned to have only 1/3 of our lives complete, so we dont just rot in front of a tv, but instead become a great and effective philanthropists. Most people are donating time, talents, and treasure this is well and good, however we will are striving for greatness and therefore need to be focused on how effective we are as well.

Today was great, it was the best day I have had in about 3 weeks. (Yes I do keep track of that sort of thing) My day started off with waking up early expecting to sit for 2 hours in traffic to get to the internship. Today it only took 1.5 hours! And on the way there I listened to a funny audiobook that kept me entertained the whole time. Once I arrived, my favorite parking guard and I had a friendly chat, lamented about homework, and waking up early, I left with a big smile knowing that my plight is shared by many.

I have a friendly chat with my boss before we head off to the meeting. I dance with the computer at the meeting, editing on the fly, and just generally being impressive with my skills, and proficiency. All is well in the cosmos, and the meeting so we start chatting, and somehow we get on the topic that todays google image is the 40^th anniversary of the muppets, and I mention that today is also the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall (thanks thomas friedman- world is flat) we talk about priorities, and how on earth i know something like that, since i was only 3 when it happened. After we talk for a bit, the meeting ends 10 min before noon and I head back to class, 45 miles away that starts at 1.

I make it to class on time, receive a test, and get an A- on it. This is great news since the test is worth a huge portion of our grade. I am content, class is boring, but in the second half i contribute many good points and earn my participation for the day.

After class I jet off to CK to meet a friend for Thai Tea, she does not show, nor answer the cell, so I take a walk over to Tally. I enter the store with a basket of clothes I won at a raffle on drucker day. The merchant tells me I can exchange them for 150 of store credit. I look about and ties cost 200. Things are not looking particularly good. I try on a jacket thinking i know the price of a jacket, and 150 off seems resonable, the merchant comes over and helps me find a proper color in size 38. It looks good, however I glance down and the cost is 1018 dollars. I kindly say this is way out of my student price range and give the jacket back. He says on the contrary, this jacket is 70% off, and with your 150 discount it is actually a reasonable 200 jacket after tax, this is great news, he chalks up the jacket, and then I pay with plastic.

I am feeling great, I just scored a Blazer for super cheap! I then decide my friend is not going to show, and go back to purchase a Thai Tea. On the way there I get a text saying that a classmate has come funds for me from work i have completed, as well as petty cash reimbursement. I purchase 2 Thai Teas to suprise my classmate with one. I walk into the office and there are 2 people in it. I offer the Thai Teas to them and graciously one loves boba, the other loathes its sticky, sweet balls. I gift the thai teas to them and do not accept their offers for cash. I say that they are a thank you for all the hard work these people put into drucker week. One individual leaves, and I get paid, sweet, this cash and check had been coming my way for about 3 weeks now so having closure was nice.

While in the office we are chatting all friendly, and the individual laments that there is all this open wine that was opened at the formal dinner friday and is going to go bad unless somebody drinks it. I offer to help, and end up with 5 bottles of wine. SCORE!

I have now rescheduled with my thai tea buddy to come over after dinner and enjoy the free wine so we still get to have our conversation. Today was a good day, and tomorrow, I am going rock climbing, then golfing, then to a dinner party, then get to play cashflow boardgame! Life is soo good to me.

So this weekend I went over to my old roomates birthday party. The Rodeo boys now live in a new location, and have new roomates. Seeing them was great, they are still awesome and still very much the same people as before which is nice. The house they now live is was a typical guy house, dirty floor, same silly dogs, bar on the carpet, pizza boxes in an overly full trash can, a real guys house. The garage is what interested me most. You can certainly judge a lot about a man about his garage, much in the same way you can judge him by what he keeps in his pockets.

The garage at the rodeo house is ultra manly, here is a rundown of what is inside. A race-car. Yea. A full size Lotus race-car with one seat, no windshield, candy-apple red, delicious fast, and not so pristine so you know they actually use it. They Also have a racing Ducati, no lights not street legal, painted yellow. They have a mini motorcycle that has been painted to look like a replica of the larger ducati. They have a huge import street legal bike, as well as many mountain bikes. They have about 10 surfboards or all shapes and sizes. They have a fridge for beer. With a freezer full of meat they killed themselves while hunting. The garage contains boxes of ammunition, toolkits, and hunting gear. There are saddles, bull riding equipment, work boots, gear to climb telephone poles. There are 2 anvils, and the associated hammers and knives and rasps needed by a ferrier. And the piece de resistance, is a forge! No joke they have a forge its a metal box connected directly to a propane tank with asbestos insulation used for heating up horseshoes that then get hit with 1.5 pound long handle hammers on top of an anvil. This is seriously manly. The walls have posters for Jack Daniels, as well as half naked models (who cares if they are photoshopped they look good on the posters).

This garage is the ultimate mans domain, I can only hope to one day have something only remotely this cool. Until then i will daydream about my future garage and the activities that will take place there…

Yesterday I went to a concert. It was a local bands first performance. The venu was a dive bar in Anaheim, with mild s&m paintings on the walls, and loads of stickers of past bands. The patrons had tattoos, beer-guts, and I did not fit in at all. I was wearing a Drucker school polo shirt tucked in, my friends did also not fit in, but just because mostly because we were not fans of nectomantics, or having silly haircuts.

Before the first band plays there is a short boy who comes up in the stage area and introduces himself as an amateur stand up comedian. He is wearing a button up short sleve shirt, that is appropriately sized, jeans, and shoes that look like they are made of the skin from dead hoboes. His hair is black, super thin, greasy, and falls into his face. He has a nervous tick where he talks just a bit too fast, and then pauses to fling the hair out of his face when he needs a moment. He begins his routine, and profanity spews from his mouth like water from a fire hydrant hit by an armored car. There is no stopping this torrent of unnecessary non value added profanity that is screamed into the microphone only to blast our ears in a decible that just makes you uneasily think about how much hearing you are losing because of this garbage. His routine is brutal. His first joke is greeted by complete silence, nobody even chuckles. The comedian becomes more nervous, and trys to laugh it off, he tries some impersonations of the joker from batman and then things just get creepy because people are now associating him with that psycho. Nobody is laughing he is screaming profanity and things are looking dyre.

He asks for audience participation, if anybody has a birthday this month, silence builds and I decide to help him out. I say my friend has a birthday on the 14^th (this is a true fact). He chuckles, then asks if anybody here does, gets no response so he calls me up to give me a gift. The present is a Hanna Montana picture book. Im thinking this is awesome, but he should have made a joke of this. Oh well his loss. He then asks again who has an upcoming birthday, only I respond again, he scoffs at how not close it really is, but not having any options calls me up again, and give me another gift. This present is a single trojan condom.

Now I have the pleasure of standing in the back of a dive bar listening to local music holding a hannah montanna picture book, with a single condom, the only thought i can think of is wow I must look like such a child molester. My mind also contemplates the strangest gift ever received by a stranger, this has to be it. Condom- probably unwise to use if not purchased yourself, what if he poked holes in it, 18 years of child support is just not worth the risk or the price of a new one.

Hannah Montanna- too big to fit in your pocket, too strange to use, just creepy to be seen with at night, unless it is a joke.

Together- wow I probably would be questioned by the police, taken overnight, then released in the morning just so they sleep better knowing kids are safe.

Some take aways- local bands are never awesome, dive bars are always seedy, gifts that are not usable are called garbage.