Diwali Cocktail Party

November 8th, @ Chakra Beverly Hills

my stand-off

2:33AM on a Saturday night in North Scottsdale at my best friend's house. I come back from swimming with the kids to find a boot on my vehicle. Yes, a boot on my vehicle in a private neighborhood. A boot on my vehicle placed, not by the City of Scottsdale but by the private security company. Something new to me since I had been parking there for 12 years. I wasn't forewarned already. And they're supposed to boot after 2AM but why would you boot a vehicle between 2AM and 2:30??? You boot overnight parking at like 3 or 4 not after 15 minutes.

I don't want to go into the whole thing but basically we called up the guy and had a 2 and half hour standoff with this idiot guy. I still to this moment dont know what his motivation was. I don't know if we was pissed at the world and this was his payback or if he thought he was following the rules.

He couldn't get a hold of his manager, he tried to extort me under the table. We went through the whole cycle anger, negotiating, pleading, anger, etc... If you've ever read the Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway, you know what the struggle is like. I wasn't sure if I could win but I knew I had principle on my side so I stuck it out! Guess what! I got out of paying anything for it and in the end I had to respect the guy no matter what because he pushed me to my limits.

Drunk Indian Elephants

They must be punjabi.

GAUHATI, India - Six Asiatic wild elephants were electrocuted as they went berserk after drinking rice beer in India's remote northeast, a wildlife official said Tuesday.

Nearly 40 elephants came to a village on Friday looking for food. Some found beer, which farmers ferment and keep in plastic and tin drums in their huts, said Sunil Kumar, a state wildlife official.

They got drunk, uprooted a utility pole carrying power lines and were electrocuted in Chandan Nukat, a village nearly 150 miles west of Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya state, Kumar said.

"There would have been more casualties had the villagers not chased them away," said Dipu Mark, a local conservationist.

The elephants are known to have a taste for rice beer brewed by tribal communities in India's northeast. Four wild elephants died in similar circumstances in the region three years ago.

India's northeast accounts for the world's largest concentration of wild Asiatic elephants with the states of Assam and Meghalaya alone estimated to have 7,000 of them.

"It's great to have such a huge number of elephants, but the increasing man-elephant conflict following the shrinkage in their habitat due to the growing human population is giving us nightmares," said Pradyut Bordoloi, a former forest and environment minister for Assam.

current events

2 big things going in the US right now and my world. The World Series and the fires that are burning down Southern California around me.

If anyone wasn't suprised that the Red Sox crushed tonight than you haven't been paying attention or you're most likely a Rockies fan. I don't have anything against the Rockies but I do have a grief with their fans. My team, the DBacks got straight destroyed by the Rocks but we weren't that good to be honest. We showed all our weaknesses that we had and it was quite embarrassing for me knowing how much better our team had played and since we did have the best record in the entire National League by just being good when the game was on the line. But Rockie fan is obnoxious and cocky and way over their head in this series. Your dream dies in a week Rockie fan. I was already a BoSox fan before that and even more so now.

These fires are crazy. The last 3 days I've felt like I've been on Mars from the Sun being blocked out by the smoke. Even though the closest fires are at least 50 miles away the ashes are falling down in LA and it was about 90 degrees today, I have no idea why. I want to say its because of the fires but I don't know the natural weather answer for that.

It's sobering when you realize that the people are losing lives, losing homes, losing all their memories. What would I do if I had to run in and grab whatever meant the most to me in a matter of a few moments. I have way too much shit and I would lose ALOT of memories. Damn! I just bought a big screen LCD TV too!

Pray along with me for rain, the safety of the heroes out there fighting the fires and protecting our communities in the material sense.

i got it from my momma

I am extremely proud of my mom and my family and my family's friends for putting together such an amazing weekend of ceremonies for the temple. And not only that, I challenge any temple that has a website this dope. Mucho props to DishUncle.

http://hindutempleaz.org/

My MBA just went up in value!

Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine rank MBA Entrepreneurship Emphasis #11

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11, 2007 - The College of Business Administration of Loyola Marymount University was named among the best in the nation for its undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship programs by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine. The undergraduate program was rated 10th best, up from 13th last year. The graduate program was rated 11th.

“We teach our students to believe in themselves, we give them the skills to take the first step and we show them how to learn from their failures,” said Fred Kiesner, Conrad N. Hilton Chair in Entrepreneurship.

Joining LMU in the top 10 of the undergraduate rankings were Babson College in Massachusetts and the University of Arizona. LMU’s undergraduate program was ranked higher than other well-known national universities, including USC and the University of Notre Dame. LMU’s graduate program ranking at 11th marked the first time that the program has appeared in the top 25. Colleges and universities were ranked based on evaluations of faculty, students, academics and outside-the-classroom support and experiences. More than 900 institutions were surveyed.

LMU’s entrepreneurship program was launched in 1972. The university was one the first in the nation to formally teach entrepreneurship.

The rankings will be published in the November issue of “Entrepreneur” that hits newsstands on Oct. 23.

still bitter

Yes, if you read my last blog then yeah I still have some venting to do. People still don't understand why I care so much. BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE DOES. Its a trait I got from my mother. A significant characteristic where I must follow through and make sure that people and things are taken care of.

People don't get me. Yeah I'm passionate, what else would I be? Dr. Kiesner (http://www.lmu.edu/Page22948.aspx) inspired me to be passionate and a leader and a problem solver. And I know that most people are apathetic and don't want to commit to things. I am committed and I have thought things through. So listen, I have a system for doing things even though it doesn't look like it. Just follow my system. I tried to imagine a world where I didn't care. So say for instance, I wasn't as active or involved with my business because of my partners. Well first thing, we never would have started it, I was the one that pushed it. Second, we never would have opened the website, I was the one that have the vision for e-commerce. Third, we would have went out of business in the first 6 months if I didn't take care of the customers. No one else cared to do that.

If you think I'm bullshitting or viewing with my blinders on, I know what I'm talking about. Yes I am, but I do know that I am the straw that stirs the drink and things might get done without me........ I just never waited to see what that would like.....

FUCK THE WORLD

No one really wants to help you, no one really cares. And anything you have to do you have to do it yourself. I'm sick of it. Don't ask me for anything because unless I get something out of it I'm done. People have taken advantage of my good, generous nature for way too long and I'm officially over it. I could make a list here of everything but I'll just get even more frustrated than I already am and considering I already feel helpless, I have to do everything myself and all that does is make me even more bitter and scarred.

Leave me alone.

You can try and be a leader but if no one follows you, you know what you are? Some fucking asshole standing alone looking for something that isn't coming.

the BUT

I have to bite this from How I Met Your Mother from tonight. Damn, i haven't said bite in forever. To use it in another sentence, 'y u gotta bite my style'. So I wonder what would or do people say when they try and set me up. Because I'm sure its the same some stuff, hes cute, hes funny, smart, sweet, he dresses good, and comes from good family and is religious and hes not a FOB or a nerd (in the most popular definition). But what about the other half. Because its getting to that age where if I was a girl I would ask whoever was playing matchmaker, 'why is thie guy single then? whats the BUT'

It's hard to turn that inside and really look at yourself from others viewpoints at to what your negative qualities are. So I'm going to make it funny for my own entertainment.

He's clumsy - expect if you eat out, he will spill on himself. Its a genetic thing that he inherited from his mom. (FYI there is a downside to big boobies)
He's a yuppy - falls in love with classics and fads and gets too involved and sentimental, nostalgic over things like.... Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and Amoeba music store and the beach or the Ken McDonald Golf Course or THE SPOT(see nerd blast from above).
He'S a Metrosexual - he does kind fancy his clothes and his eyebrows and how his butt looks in jeans all those things that men shouldn't pay that much attention to much less worry be concerned about.

eh, eff it I'm out. see ya in daygo

way too long

I hope I don't miss out on a chance to blog cuz I got a ton of things I wanted to talk about. But I will get a great chance this week in San Diego on my down time, I hope....

great poem

Numb
by: Anisha Meha Vasani

If I have no love
I will have no hate
but if I sacrifice love
I will have no fate
how do I live
if I have nothing to give
an empty heart
plays my part
I dont want to exist
in this reminisce
Void of emotion
Lack of notion
nothing is everything
something is anything
no heart, no mind, no soul
Existence is my role

the big bang theory

i love nerds... and YES i am nerd and will always be a nerd and if you ask me about politics, sports, comics, movies, physics, time and space theorems, music, pop culture, geography, history, or anything, etc, etc you will get at least a semi-nerdy response. this show is pretty damn funny...

my next analogy

Finding the right job/career and finding the special someone is pretty much the same thing. In both pathways I'm very hesitant of permanence even though thats what I'm looking for all along. I'm not ready for the definition in both areas, I like knowing in the moment where I belong and relish the future possibilities. But in both cases you do your due diligence. You look at all the factors but hopefully we can make both decisions with our heart.

And to my shattering disillusionment I've realized that only so many are lucky. I don't know where life is taking me and I'm just enjoying the ride. I mean if people really look and see the life that I had the tremendous opportunity to live, I am the luckiest man on the planet. I really believe that. That's why I get arrogant.

Ok it's late and I have to chauffeur my kid brother around to check out colleges in LA. Remember the one of the best quotes I've ever remembered. 'the squeaky wheel gets the oil'

my birthday

so much to say but can be summarized by john mayer when he surprised us all and came on stage with dave and said this...

'i am who i am because of dave matthews band'

amen brother....

i'm 26

Now that I'm on the back end of my twenties trying to figure out where the hell the time went, I realize that these years should be celebrated.

That's an entirely different philosophy than what I had about 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago I wanted to forget this day and buy myself in the ground just get away from it. I don't think many people like the idea of getting older because then we start questioning our lives. We see how things didn't turn or how we got to where we were and maybe we don't like it. I'm indifferent about my own life right now shockingly.

When I over think it, I have a million reasons to hide from the world for a day and pity myself. But really? I don't think that's who I am. I'm older, I'm wiser, I'm tougher than a year ago. Life isn't so bad and career-wise things are in a great place.

I try not think about where I was a year ago at this time. I had a good year last year and now I'm in my 26th. I still have a lot to accomplish and a lot to experience. I think one thing I learned this past year is you can't get too high or too low because you don't know what's around that bend.

I'm going to take the day off tomorrow to do whatever I feel like. I think my own world is ok with that. Since I've been slaving away I think I can retreat for a weekday to enjoy my solitude. Maybe I'll get a massage or drink beer all day and watch old tv re-runs.

I know I got a good year coming up.