I came to realize a few days ago that I don’t have many close friends where I’m at. In fact, I’ll soon be left with zero. A good friend of mine here (the others have left the area over the years) has just accepted a nice job offer out-of-state. In his situation, it’s not about the money as it is about learning new skills, career advancement, etc. Tomorrow night, he and his wife, and I are going to a nice restaurant to celebrate his new chapter. And while I’m really happy for him, it’s kind of sad to see them go, as this may signal the beginning of the end for me here.

While I’ll still continue to have good relations with my coworkers at work, it’s still not the same since a lot of us are at different points in our lives (i.e., most are older, married, or divorced with kids, etc). I’m not the type to want many friends to begin with (prefer few close friends than many ‘lukewarm’ friends), but I realize that these things happen and i’ll just have to adjust.

Today I almost got into a car accident at a parking lot. I was going through the center lane at 20-30 mph (picture three parallel lines running east to west, and the widest (though shortest) lane being the perpendicular bisector) and luckily, I saw a gray PT Cruiser at 2 o’clock heading pretty fast in the parking lot (40mph or more)…we were on a collision course. I slammed on the brakes (almost sudden stop…the investment in my after-market brake pads and premium tires paid off) and the PT cruiser brakes and stops right in front of me (i.e., if I hadn’t stopped at that time, she would’ve blindsided me). The driver starts mouthing something and points at something behind me. I’m guessing she thought that I missed a stop or a yield or something, which I’m pretty sure I didn’t (i looked back and saw nothing and plus, it would’ve made more sense to have signs for cars in her lane, since I’m in the main artery. But it didn’t look like there were any signs in the lane that she was in…but only an idiot would drive that fast in a parking lot and then have the gall to make it seem like the other person should’ve stopped or yielded.

Poor parking designs such as these are potential death traps. Luckily, I’m a lot more defensive-minded in my driving and my car has good brakes and tires now.

As for the offensive-minded driver. They should revoke her license and make her take an IQ test. If she doesn’t score at least 80, she shouldn’t be allowed to drive. My rant for today.

I’ll soon be applying to graduate schools. It’s interesting to see that most schools are evaluating students on the basis of several criteria (they’re explicitly listed for the recommenders to rate from a scale of 1 to 10). Many of which I suppose make sense if you’re looking for the stereotypical business leader, such as “creativity”, “confidence”, “analytical ability”, etc. However, some qualities that I feel are important, are not there. For example, I’ve seen some schools ask the recommender to rate how ‘confident’ the student is, compared to his or her peers. Now, conceivably, with this type of format, an arrogant asshole could score a perfect 10 for “confidence”, and the admissions staff would not know of the flaws, unless the recommender explicitly mentions this somewhere else in the application. Interestingly, humility is not usually one of the qualities asked by the admissions staff, since I feel humility is more closely associated with success than confidence is. I’m likely more confident than I am humble, which is something I know that I need to work on.

But I think this reflects the current trend of many hotshot CEO’s getting hired not to be lead, but to take care of the bottom line and inflate values of their stocks. And business schools may be unwittingly supporting this in their want for someone that, at least on paper, can fit that mold.

I used to be notoriously ’slow’ when ordering at a restaurant. A lot of times, it was because I just didn’t know what I wanted. Everything either looked good or didn’t catch my eye.

Or so I thought.

A couple nights ago, while trying to sleep, I came to realize that I probably knew more or less what I wanted to eat. Except that whatever I was looking for, just wasn’t on the menu.

That goes for a lot of things. Not just stuff at restaurants.

Today I saw a mother and her two kids get into a Mercedes Benz that was parked in a handicap spot and drive off. Inside the car was a handicap decal. At first, I couldn’t figure out why they would need that decal, since they seemed to walk to and get into the car just fine. Until it dawned on me that some people are handicapped in other areas.

I had a debate with a coworker yesterday about nails. I don’t know about other places, but apparently, where I’m at a lot of women get their nails done every 3-4 weeks. I made the comment that if I see someone with nails done, that tells me they’re probably not musically talented or know how to play musical instruments (the product of the shitty public school system).

At any rate, I don’t find fake nails to be sexy or anything. It must be a status or cultural thing that I just don’t get. It seems so fake or artificial to me. People might as well get fake teeth and paint them certain colors every month or so.