I had two conversations today with really fantastic and interesting people.  (No, I'm not buttering them up...I really think that.)  One of them took place in person over breakfast and the other was on the phone at the end of the day.  My behavior during each couldn't have been any more different.  In person, I'd like to think I have a clear train of thought, I'm focused, responsive.  Visual communication, to me, represents a safe set of boundries... you can't really go wandering off phyisically or mentally because you are bound by not only the propreity of locking up with someone face to face, but by the constraints of real observation.  There is a face in front of you...its a constant throughout your conversation and it acts as an anchor.  A good chunk of your brain focuses on that face and nothing else.  On the phone, you are cast off into the churning sea of the day's images and soundbites...unteathered by an opposing face, free to drift.  I feel like I make less sense when I can't look at a face.  My mouth is moving, but I hear myself drowning.  Someone throw me an eyebrow or a chin!  Anything to hold me in place!  Text is fine.  I've always loved text.  Even as far back as Prodigy chat rooms, I always found text to be a focused and expressive form of communication.  There are words on the screen and I'm supposed to look at them.  It's like a track...one of those hand trigger car racing games.  Very easy to play as long as you don't go too fast.  So, if you ever ask to get on the phone with me, just know that you're probably going to get the short end of the stick in terms of all the possible ways to communicate with me.

Just wanted to put it out there...  Plans are in the works for a cross country trip the first two weeks of July.   No, I probably won't be driving the 'Stang...   one because I don't want to put her through that, and two because I get such crappy gas mileage.  :)   Also, I plan on coming back and I'm going to just make this a one way drive.  So, I'll probably just be running a rental car into the ground instead.

So, if anyone has any suggestions on routes, stops, etc...   please feel free to tag them for me.

I tagged some kind of a run flat, steelbelted James Bond bike tire system the other day and now I'm thinking I should seriously invest in that. This time, I'm on the subway again with a flat BACK tire. Goddammnit.

My 89 year old grandmother called me this morning and left a message.  GotVoice promptly e-mailed me an MP3 file of the message and then I made an avatar out of it.

One of my favorite things to do in the city is to enter the Times Square subway station on 42nd between 7th and Broadway and sprint to the waiting Shuttle train. On Tuesdays, I leave the office at 5:20 so I can catch the 5:35 Metro North Train to Fordham to teach class. Crossing from the bottom of the escalators to the Shuttle involves slipping through the fast moving crosscurrent of people exiting the back of the train. It makes me feel like a running back... not a power back, because I can't just plow through these people, but more like Barry Sanders...bobbing, weaving, highstepping... :)

You cannot stop me, you can only hope to contain me.

Shri knows why...  the rest of you, I'll tell some other day.  :)

I got into a good conversation with a friend the other day and we were talking about constructing a perfect day.  I think it says a lot about someone.  Here's what my perfect day would be like (within the limits of my normal experiences...  no hunting spider monkees in Fiji, b/c I've never been there and couldn't identify one if I saw it):

It is summer in New York City...  about 85 degrees with a light breeze.  I wake up at 8, pack my bag and jump in the car.  The top goes down and I drive into the city...  over the Brooklyn Bridge, across Chambers Street and up West St. to Pier 40.   I arrive a few minutes after the opening of the Downtown Boathouse and help get the kayaks out onto the dock.

The regulars start coming in one by one.   They get the little safety talk from Vincent, who is 90-something, and I help them get into their boats.  Every now and then, I go out for a paddle, knowing me to follow up a conversation with some pretty girl that started at the dock.  I'm just a social guy, you know.  :)   

The regular volunteers make their appearences throughout the day... some to stay, some just to say hello on their way uptown or out for the day.  Everyone who comes out of the water asks to stay in longer and all of the people who have never done this before can't believe it's free.  They linger to talk about the boats and the water and how much has changed about the West Side over the years.

Around noon, we get a pizza delivered.  We also get a surprise visit from a kayaking regular, who used to come down with her husband almost every weekend.  She brings in her arms a great excuse for not being down lately...

By 2:30, I start heading out with things in order and other volunteers around to cover the rest of the day.  I head uptown in the car to Central Park, luck out with a spot, and pop the trunk to break out my softball stuff.  Glove, bat and cleats in hand, I make my way to the Great Lawn's northern fields, 7 and 8, just beyond the oval.  Enclosed by a stadium of trees, it's a great place to play.  There are no sunbathers to get in the way, but you can see all those folks on the lawn enjoying themselves with frisbees and blankets.  But for now, it's gametime.

I'm playing on a team that has never come once came together... a mishmosh of people from various teams.   Ideally, I could recreate some of those last hardball games I played when I was 19...   with my best friend Brian closing out his pitching career and me behind the plate on the receiving end of the slowest, most frustrating curveballs you've ever seen...  but I'm trying to be realistic with this day, so instead we're playing softball and I'm bouncing from third, to outfield to first.  It doesn't matter where I play in the field, as long as I get to hit.  I lace six singles to center and right field on six consecutive pitches--the only six I see in the game, which I actually did once.   That's my kind of day at the plate.

Afterwards, I walk over to a NYSC on the West Side to shower up.   Back in the car, all the way back downtown to Battery Park for dinner at Southwest NY.  In all honesty, the food isn't even that great, but I just love sitting there after a long day in the sun, watching the sun go down.  I guess it would be a date...  someone I could share a great conversation with and feel comfortable and relaxed with... to just enjoy the moment.   I love that spot.

Ok, so I'm realizing that my perfect day has a lot of driving in it.  I don't mind it one bit, especially b/c there isn't any traffic in my perfect day.... but ridiculous as it may seem, it's back up to Central Park after dinner.  By now, they've cleared the softball fields and some good friends have secured a spot on the Great Lawn for the New York Philharmonic's Concert in the Park.  That's one of my favorite things to do all summer.  Nothing like fruit, cheese and cookies on a blanket with classical music, friends, and fireworks after.    Man, I love fireworks... 

And at the end of the day, it would be nice to wind up at home, turn to someone and say, "Wow, that was really a perfect day...   You know I had those six hits on consecutive pitches."

The market crashed or something yesterday.... or so I heard.

It really is amazing how far I've gotten away from paying attention to public markets.   I'm a finance guy by background, and when I was in college, I rode the boom and bust like everyone else. 

But, when I graduated in 2001 and took a job in the private equity group at GM, I started to get away from it... focusing more on pricing multiples when we were doing buyouts than anything else.  By the time I got to an early stage VC firm, what the public market did from day to day was just a distant memory. 

Now that I'm on the product side...  who knows.  I just toss the max amount allowable (hey, its pretax, why wouldn't you?) into my 401k, set it and forget it.   I don't really believe I can "beat the markets" so I allocate based on risk tolerance.  I guess as a homeowner I'm investing more in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn real estate than anything else at the moment.

Following the public market, to me, is a fulltime job, and I just don't have the time anymore.  I pop on TraderMike every now and then just to see what he's up to, but man, that's a lot to keep up with.  Not for me, not anymore.  Sorry markets...   I'm on autopilot.

If you've seen it, or have the soundtrack, you'd get it.

Do you know how hard it is to get a bike on a rush hour express train? I was halfway...couldn't go back.

Just FYI, I'll be heading to SXSW Interactive on the weekend of March 9th. 

It looks like I'll be arriving late Friday night and staying through Monday.

If anyone wants to meet up, let me know...   I've set up a wiki page for me to keep track of what I'm going to...  I'll add more as I get closer.  Please feel free to add your name if you want to meet up.  The password is fordham.  Does anyone know when they're actually going to post the times of these workshops?  Do they run all morning in tracks repeatedly or are they just given once?

I buy Gilette Good News razors...have been for years. My dad uses them, so they were the first ones I tried.

Duane Reade knows this, because I use their loyalty card, so Gilette bought the opportunity to send me a free Fusion five blade razor.

If it works, both companies will know about it.

They didn't ask to use my data, but I'm glad they did. Next time I shave my head, I'll let you know how it goes.

So, for some reason, I'm a little more conscious of being alone this year, even though its actually a rarity that I'm actually dating someone on Valentine's Day.

Being so swamped with work lately, I started to think that maybe what I'm looking for in the woman of my dreams is the same as what I look for in a good social Web 2.0 app.

Hear me out!

1) First off, low barrier to usage. I don't see myself registering and giving all my data beforehand. Whoever I wind up with is going to slowly seep into my life and get me hooked over time. Call it the New Dating Deal.

2) SMS and IM notifications... I really hate the phone, so she's going to need short form message capability.

3) Voice enabled... She needs to be outspoken, especially to be able to talk over and interrupt me. I get very excited about what I'm into and can too easily drown someone who is too quiet, even if I'm really interested in them and want to know about them.

4) Doesn't require too much money. I'm lucky that my career has kept me in a comfortable living situation, but I've never taken any of it for granted. She should appreciate whatever she has and be able to make do in rich times and in poor. Money doesn't buy happiness or a successful startup necessarily.

5) Uses AJAX...Small superficial changes should not require her to completely refresh her pages...she should be able to change on the fly without a lot of fuss...go with the flow

6) Tagging... She shouldn't easily fit into one static category...she can have many seemingly random traits and be many things to many people.

7) Open APIs... She plays well with others and is selfless and giving.

8) Uses OpenID...She's true to who she is in all situations.

9) Skinnable... She can dress up for a party and lounge around in PJs with no makeup and feel comfortable and functional in either attire.

10) Rounded corners. I'll be honest...I like a few curves in both my dates and my Web 2.0 app UIs.

So first off, I'm so tired right now...    Its 3AM in my world, yet West Coast time is only midnight.  Couple that with the fact that I'm only on 5 hours sleep that finished around 5:45 AM this morning, and, well... sleepy sleepy soon.

But I did want to share a few thoughts...

First off, Jamba is like at least 20% cheaper here.  I think that singlehandedly explains the difference in startup activity.

Second, why didn't anyone tell me that MikeCrunch was so tall?  First time I met him in person and I couldn't help but stand on my toes a little... and I'm 5'11''.

Third, the sandwich I just bought only cost me $4 but it took like 25 minutes to make.  CA: Cheap and slow.  NY:  Expensive and fast.  I guess you get what you pay for.

Four, I really hate turbulence.  Left right, not so bad.  Up down, not so good.   I nearly tore off the arm rest, Total Recall style.

My blog has a post on February 8th, 2004, but actually, I really didn't "get it" until April 8, 2004, when I left a comment on VentureBlog... my first blog comment on the blog of someone who was doing this as a somewhat professional exercise.  Up until then, I didn't know that anyone was blogging anything other than relationship issues and their trips to Cancun. 

I was just looking for a reason to keep writing...  because I had written a book for college freshmen that never really went anywhere because it never got published.  One day, I'll e-book it or something. 

Who knew what it would turn into.

I don't know the best way to celebrate a blogiversary, so I'll just do some highlights from the last year of blogging... my favorite posts and some red letter days.

So, let's see....

I changed jobs...  that was probably the biggest thing.

Starting nextNY was huge, too, but that was sort of an accident.  I'm very lucky to have met all the people I have from this group.  Watch out for these people this year... I think they're primed to make a very big impact on NYC.

I broke up with television.  This post was funny, but only I seemed to think so.  This one, too.  Kerri and I got attacked by a bird at USV.

I shorted Second Life.

I debunked Guy's quiz...  funny, b/c I'll be seeing him at CommunityNext on Saturday.

I started teaching a class at Fordham, encorporating these how-to intro posts.

I pondered MySpace Tom's death, too...  but people seemed more interested in the bird video.

We gave $550 to charity for the Superbowl Wiki...  that felt good, as did my Christmas plan.

Oh and the Pillow Fight was fantastic.

So thanks everyone...   I appreciate your comments, links, feedback... and offline or digital friendship.  May your startups succeed, your posts get tagged and your Voki speak highly of you...soon, very soon.

Damn, it's cold here. 

My little Firefox weather plugin is just mocking me.

"Now: Sunny, 9F" with a little picture of a sun.

It should say:

"Snot: Frozen, 9F-in' degrees" with a little picture of an ice cube.

  Puba in her bed 
  Originally uploaded by ceonyc.

My dad just called.  We had to put our family dog, Puba, to sleep.  I'm going to go for a walk or something soon, but for now, I'll post.  I just put up a Flickr badge on the right with Puba photos as a little blog memorial.  Feel free to trackback or comment with your little pet stories or whatever if you'd like.

We had Puba for 14 1/2 years.  She was a bichon-frise (white fluffy ball of fluff) and she was the best dog ever... hands down.  I've never met another living thing that loved to be loved as much as this dog did.  She'd lay on her back and let you rub her tummy for an hour.

Originally, I wanted a rabbit.  Brian's dad raised rabbits and it seemed like rabbits would make cool pets.  Of course, I really wanted a dog, so by asking for something ridiculous like a rabbit, I got a dog.  We got Puba from a private owner in Staten Island named Bob Amato.  Maybe he'll Google himself or Google Puba and we'll find out, because we probably don't have their contact info and I'm sure they'd want to know.  Puba was about six weeks old when we got her, and she was the runt of the litter.  Her mother had abandoned her and the Amato's had to bottle feed the dog and she almost didn't make it on her own.  A few weeks after we got her, they called us up and offered us a new dog plus $1000, because they missed her.  My dad was ready to take the deal...   funny how yesterday, he was thinking about how different and sad his mornings will be now, because he spends so much time with the dog in the morning when my mom's at work.  Of course, it wasn't long after that he good hooked on her, too.  I think letting the dog lick his face was pretty much the turning point... plus the few grand he needed to put down to get the dog cataract surgery.

She had cataracts before she even turned six months old. In fact, she was kind of a lemon.  She had a small trachea, too...  they all do, so she'd choke sometimes.  She also had two ACL surgeries (you'd think she would be doing more than sleeping and eating to sustain such injuries), a skin allergy, and an overbite.  Three months ago, she fell down our basement steps.  She also fell down the front steps, too, when she was younger.  And stepped on?  Oh, I'm sure we've stepped on her a hundred times.  She didn't know any commands.  My mom swears she knew "stay" but I think it was just pure laziness.  Sometimes, she'd sit for a cookie... but only for a cookie.  She'd also require a cookie to do her business in the backyard.  I wish someone gave me a cookie every time I had to do my business.

She loved my grandmother, too... she'd wet herself as soon as she came in.  (The dog, not Nana, although Nana got pretty excited, too.)  Yeah... the bladder didn't work too well either.  One time, my parents were away and I was dog-sitting.  She wouldn't climb stairs... only fall down them, so she sat at the foot of the stairs and whined for me to come down.  I dragged my blanket down and went to bed on the couch with her so she wouldn't be lonely.  It wasn't too long before I felt warm and wet...   I suppose my blanket didn't have her scent, so she need to make it her own.  Some thanks.

I never fed her from the table, though, but I'd always give her unsolicited food at random times, so she wouldn't learn to beg rudely.  She liked grapes and she'd like a plate of leftover omelet for an hour.

My parents are pretty crushed... obviously they spend more time with her after I went to school and moved out.  In fact, I'm pretty sure they love the dog more than the love me, but then again, the dog probably has a better disposition than I do anyway.

So that's it.  Puba died...   I guess there isn't much more to say.

Oh wait... actually, there's one more thing.  When she was younger, she'd run around the house like a wild woman if you riled her up.  She'd run in circles and behind our couch (the day she got too big to do that she got stuck back there) and then through the fabric skirt and under our couch in the porch.  Then, we got a new couch that went all the way to the floor and that was a surprise to her as well, but a lesson learned quite quickly.  Its going to be really quiet in my parents house now.

Right now, it's 6:37AM in New York.  The skies are party cloudy and it's nine degrees.

That's right. 

Nine.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine...

Welcome to snot freezing on the inside of my nose weather.

I made myself a chicken parm sandwich to eat for dinner at work, but of course, I forgot it in the fridge on my way out. So, when I showed up at Track 103 to take the train up to Fordham with two minutes to spare, I got hungry. Panini stand right across from the track. Sah-weet. Dude, you got about a minute and a half to get me a panini. Go pay now, he says, and I'll get it to you. Pay...pay...shoot...four bucks on me. Credit card. Well, the woman behind the counter totally dropped the ball on the credit card machine. Fumbleruski. Fumblaya. Final seconds ticking down. Sorry, gotta bag it. Abort! Abort! Just get me the credit card back. Dropped the panini and bolted. Shoot...train leaving. I ran up to it anyway. By the back door, the ticket taker gave me the nothing I can do but shrug like a doofus look. Damn you..its still 5:37!!

Enter the pretty girl. Man, sometimes, I wish I was a hot girl. Ok, so we can pee standing up, so we've got that going for us, but being an attractive female is like having the Force.

*Waves hand*

You will check out my legs and open the door for us.

I think I'll check out your legs and then open the door for you, despite previously shrugging off the bald guy.

I wish I had that panini...or my sandwich.