Things I Learned At The Marshall Halloween Party

Oct 29, 2005 in B-School

Life is a series of lessons, often painful and traumatic. It’s at times like these that we need to write down the lessons we learn so that we don’t have to undergo these trials again. Simple, clear lessons can often be distilled from life’s most awful experiences, and set down, for review as we all strive and grow.

Of course, sometimes those lessons come from alcohol, friends, and excessively loud music. Then they’re just fun. Here’s what I learned at the Marshall Halloween party. Read on…

The Me Stress Test

Oct 25, 2005 in Otherwise Uncategorized

One thing about me, if you know me (and are lucky enough to come by my apartment and spend some time in front of my Outlook), it’s easy to tell how stressed out I am by looking at a few simple metrics. These metrics are:

  1. What I’m reading
  2. How may e-mails there are in my inbox Read on…

Downtown LA (In Black & White)

Oct 21, 2005 in Photos

I haven’t shot black-and-white film since college, but, now that I’m back into photography, I’ve been itching for the chance. Well, itching and fearing it; it’s very different to shoot black-and-white than it is to shoot color. With color film, you’re trying to reporduce the world as it is, or to highlight certain juxtapositions of colors, while, for black-and-white, you’re more interested in shapes, lines, tones, and patterns. This is a different task, and, hardest of all, requires a set of thought processes that are very different from the visual thought processes that one uses when going through the world. Read on…

Día de Fiascos

Oct 20, 2005 in B-School

Today was an interesting day, a day that offered me a unique range of the experiences avaialable at business school. Or — in another way to look at it — I got to build up my bad karma, then reap the rewards. Read on…

Back on Top

Oct 19, 2005 in B-School, Food, Spurts

I got back on track tonight with a win in the cooking competition. My Thai Beef Noodles turned out tasty — I believe the flavor was described by one of my competitors as “very smooth.” Read on…

2-3, 2-3, and Now 3-1

Oct 13, 2005 in B-School, Food, Spurts

I love to compete, so it’s no surprise that I’m in two Fantasy Football leagues and one weekly cooking competition; I like to win, too, which is why it’s a little bit surprising that I’m 2-3 in both leagues and, now, have dropped from 3-0 to 3-1 in the cooking competition. Read on…

First Flu of the Season

Oct 12, 2005 in B-School

I thought it might be important for you, the two members of my reading public, that I post before I die of what may in fact be the Deadly Avian Flu (certainly, I am regularly exposed to a bird).

Actually, this is a pretty miserable thing I’ve got, whatever it is. Congestion, fever, aches — sounds like a flu of some sort. I can’t believe it so early in the year, I’m usually one of the last people to get the flu. While everyone is getting sick in November and December, I typically last ‘til February or even April, when people just think I’m making up this whole “flu” thing. Read on…

This Entry Has Nothing To Do With Sarajevo

Oct 8, 2005 in Otherwise Uncategorized

Apparently, my friends thought it was about time I got out of the house, ‘cause Christie came all the way down from a vacation in Santa Barbara to drag me out to the Franz Ferdinand show at the Greek Theater last night. Read on…

A Bite Here, A Bite There

Oct 7, 2005 in B-School

One of the things we do a billion of here in b-school is informational interviews. The goals of these interviews are typically to learn which skills we need to broadcast in order to get into an industry, as well as make a contact in the industry who can later point us to jobs. I always try to tack on to that a few questions about how I can get the most out of the remainder of my MBA education. The guy I was speaking with on Wednesday had what I’ve come to realize is an excellent insight: there’s not enough time in an MBA to learn everything you’d like, but that first class in an area outside of your concentration will give you a lot more learning than that fifth class inside your concentration. Read on…

Tarred With The One Brush

Oct 4, 2005 in B-School

Something sometimes happens in b-school, something that scares me as someone who’s seen it from the outside. In b-school, there’s group projects in every class; and, every now and then, there’s a group member who doesn’t contribute. News of this individual’s worthlessness in a group spreads quickly, and, soon, if you mention that person’s in your team, you get snickers from other hard-working people. Soon, wherever you go, that person is known as a Bad Team Member. Read on…

I'm a Bad Democrat

Oct 3, 2005 in Ye Olde Politicks

Um, yeah. I have a confession to make. I’m a lifelong, vote-the-party-line Democrat. I think the Republican party is an evil, reactionary, racist, corrupt party. But I don’t think that Bush’s nominee for the Supreme Court is all that bad. Read on…

I Live In a Town Filled With Stars

Oct 2, 2005 in Otherwise Uncategorized

Today, I went to the supermarket — by which I mean Payless Produce, Halal Carneceria, and 89¢ store — earlier than usual, and ended up waiting in line quite some time next to a woman who claimed to be the mother of WWE star “Chris “The Master” Masters”:http://www.wwe.com/superstars/raw/chrismasters/. She was dressed for the place, in a ratty, off-the-shoulder, hot-in-1992 print sundress, to go with her probably hot-in-1988 boobs, which were rarin’ to pop out of that thing. With big, cheap, dark plastic sunglasses — probably to hide her pinpointed, tweaker pupils — overtanned skin, overeprocessed, brittle-looking long brown hair, and sexy-in-1990 pink lipstick, she leaned in too close to tell me the following, which I swear is all verbatim: Read on…