If you even have the slightest notion that someone might be down at Boathouse, you'll probably be right. So the Fordham Young Alumni whitewater trip got washed away (after we drove halfway to Jim Thorpe, PA), and I wound up in my apartment as the sun started to poke out. It was around 12:30 and I thought, "I wonder if anyone is opening up now that the sun is out." So, I hop in the car and decide to take a look. No surprise at all... Taino, XL, and Zia are preparing for a trip on their own, and Victor is hanging around as well. I asked Taino if he had another spot and he looks at me, points to the river and goes, "We have the whole river.. there are thousands of spots, but if your boat isn't ready in about 3 minutes, we're leaving you here." So I rush to grab a kayak, life jacket, skirt, pump and paddle float... and a paddle of course, and in no time, we're on the water paddling north. The sun didn't stay out too long though, and there was a pretty brisk wind coming off the shore. The water was incredibly choppy, and I had one of the longer kayaks, which would ride up a wave and then flop back down the other side with a big splash as it came down off the peak. It was a blast, and we paddled up to 66A, right by Chelsea Piers. We got out and sat around on the pier for a big, but when the skies got even darker, I suggested we get back on the water--plus I was getting cold, because my swim shorts were wet. It was a lot warmer in the water, actually. It took us no time at all to go back, and in fact, the toughest thing about going back was trying to keep the waves from pushing you sideways. Every now and then, you'd fishtail b/c the wave was pushing you faster than you could paddle. So, while we didn't get to go whitewater rafting this morning, I got to go splashing around in the Hudson in a kayak.

There are few places in the world left uncharted, but there are many lives yet to be discovered. You can't really go to a place that hasn't yet been walked upon by many, but you can be lucky enough to have someone open up to you in a way they have not done with others. These are the times in my life I feel I have discovered real beauty in this world. There are no souveniers to be bought to remind you of these moments, and no digital pictures to be taken. I can only hope to visit these places within the hearts and minds of others again, to bask in the warm glow of their inner light. There are 8 million people in this city, and if you can get to know a handful of them really well--well enough to know their hopes, dreams, and fears, you should consider yourself very lucky. We too often fail to make other people secure enough to confide in us, and other times, we fail to confide in others enough to let them into our world.

Get out there and visit someone's life today, or you'll just wind up "sitting around in Terra Nova."

Ok, so this one is going to be a private equity related blog, so all my friends call go back to sleep...

I was thinking yesterday that there's a role that many larger LP's, especially people who are particularly focused on access or co-investments, need to carve out and put a person on. While most groups have a INVESTOR Relations person, no one seems to be filling the role of INVESTMENT Relations person. The primary job of a partner at a firm, in my opinion, should be investment screening and decision making. However, in a world where tons of money is being thrown at the asset class and access is an issue for some, there seems to be a need for someone in the group to focus on marketing themselves to GPs, as opposed to LPs. Now, sometimes that role isn't necessarily marketing, its just managing the role of being a good, value added LP. Like, for example, yesterday I was on an advisory call for Ignition Partners. It turns out that one of their new projects is a perfect fit for another firm that we're looking at, and there's a partner at that firm that has extensive experience in the space, not to mention a geographic proximity to the entrepreneur. I asked the Ignition guys if they were talking with this other group, and they weren't, buy they were interested in the introduction. I made the introduction, and their entrepreneur will be visiting with this other GP soon. Points to GM for actually having something valuable to add to their investment process! (as opposed to just playing the usual LP role of beating the GP up about fees) I got to thinking, and there are tons of ways LPs can form great relationships with GPs. One other area I think is key is just the regular communication. One of the things we'd like to institute here is to do regular calls with our GPs regarding particular sectors of expertise, what companies they've done in an area, what opportunities their looking at, and what their strategy is--in addition to hearing a little bit about which partners are focusing on it. Of course, we regularly keep in touch with our GPs, especially with regard to co-investing, but not necessarily around more formal reviews of different sectors. Sometimes, just being a well informed, knowledgeable LP is being value added. This way, when fundraising time comes around, you don't need to reinvent the wheel, and you know the spaces, the strategies and the partners all very well.

Some LPs have other aspects that make them a value added LP. We try to maintain a connection to the GM IT group in Detroit and help our investments leverage off of good introductions--as you can imagine, navigating the GM infrastructure for purchasing on the IT side can be a nightmare. We have helped make introductions to the right people before, but admittedly, you can never do that kind of thing at the expense of the time you should be spending making good investment decisions. Yet, it does give you a lot of intangible value to a GP, which helps on the co-invest and allocation side.

Upfront access makes this an issue, too. Its not just about being a value added LP when you're in the fund, but getting into a fund in the first place is even more important. How long will it be before LPs start hiring placement agents to start placing them into funds? Its nice to have the luxury of being at a firm that has been investing in private equity for 25 years, but for new entrants, its going to be tough during the next go around. Without examples of how you can be a good LP, how can one group differentiate their money from another? I think there is something to be said for having someone in your group tagged with the responsibility to promote yourselves as an investor, maybe even more so than having a client relations person. If you can promote yourself as a good investor and get access to top performing funds, you'll get the clients you want whether or not you have a good client relations person. Of course, it would be nice to have both. :)

Priorities and goals for the remainder of 2004...

1) Get book published, either through the publisher its at now, or on my own.
2) Get into Stanford's MBA program.
3) Start career guidence blog/website for college students.
4) Spend more time with friends and less with acquaintences... maybe host some dinner parties to combine this one and #7. Nothing like synergies. Dude... I could even combine it with #5!! wooooo
5) Buy a better digital camera and start capturing more of the best moments of my life... encorporate photos into blog.
6) Solve the laundry backup problem in my apartment... probably best done by actually paying to have it done.
7) Go back to cooking more and eating out less.
8) Finish third in my fantasy baseball league... The Jesuit Outcasts will win money this year!!

There is so much out there that I don't know and it overwhelms me. That is probably the single most important piece of knowledge I have gained by getting into reading blog feeds. Jeff the Intern (www.galaksy.com) got me into FeedBurner after I mentioned to him that there were lots of VCs and technology people writing blogs. I downloaded it two weeks ago, and I'm hooked. Moreover, I'm hooked on just collecting more feeds. Today, I found a Fordham grad (http://calacanis.weblogsinc.com/) who founded the Silicon Alley Reporter. Turns out, he also practiced TKD (www.wmaa.com) with the club I went to that got its start at Fordham. Every new feed/blog I've found begets another two or three interesting blogs. The growth of interesting people you can get connected to is exponential, and all of these people have tangential interests--many in media and entertainment, technology, politics, etc. So, you could be reading some guy writing about Bluetooth, and then bounce over to his blog adapting a kid--because these are all real people with real lives. I don't have enough time everyday to explore all of the subjects I find interesting and read the thoughts of all the people whose brain's I want to pick. Part of the issue with reading blogs is that there's no limit to what you can read. When you pick up the Times, you can read it cover to cover and that's it. You're done. There's no more to read. With the internet, you can click around forever. How do you know when you're done reading blogs when every blog has a link to another interesting article they found and links to four more bloggers?

I'm sorry, but this is just fantastic... No wonder Puba is excited about the expiration of the assault weapons ban. :)

Pup shoots man, saves litter mates
PENSACOLA, Florida (AP) -- Nice shootin', Rex!
A man who tried to shoot seven puppies was shot himself when one of the dogs put its paw on the revolver's trigger.
Jerry Allen Bradford, 37, was charged with felony animal cruelty, the Escambia County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday. He was being treated at a hospital for a gunshot wound to his wrist.
Bradford said he decided to shoot the 3-month-old shepherd-mix dogs in the head because he couldn't find them a home, according to the sheriff's office.
On Monday, Bradford was holding two puppies -- one in his arms and another in his left hand -- when the dog in his hand wiggled and put its paw on the trigger of the .38-caliber revolver. The gun then discharged, the sheriff's report said.
Deputies found three of the puppies in a shallow grave outside Bradford's home, said sheriff's Sgt. Ted Roy.
The other four appeared to be in good health and were taken by Escambia County Animal Control, which planned to make them available for adoption.

Carla Allocca is getting married. Carla and I dated in the eighth grade. We were thirteen. Clinton had just been elected and the S&P 500 was at 422. The Nasdaq? 634. Google did not exist, and Jay Leno replaced Carson. The Real World made its debut. The Mets would trade David Cone to the Jays for Jeff Kent and Ryan Thompson. It feels like yesterday. Bizzare.

They're going to start dropping like flies now. Rachel and Vanessa will probably be next, although I'm pretty sure at this point I won't be invited to those weddings. Who else? Ryan maybe? Jen Bailey?

So my career nearly took a wild turn this week... I got a call from Liz in Fordham's Career Planning office. We worked together on the mentoring program and she was calling to tell me that she was leaving to go work for Seton Hall.

Now I had said before that I would love to do Liz's job... she's the Assistant Director of Special Programs or something like that, she she has a lot of relative flexibility in terms of new things she can come up with and run. Admittedly, what I'd really love to do is to run a career group, but if I were to jump early and make a switch, hers is the kind of job I would switch into, rather than to an employer relations position or something where I don't get as much student interaction.

When she called, I got very anxious. I wasn't really prepared for such an opportunity to arrive this early--although I knew she would probably leave Fordham within a short period of time. I just didn't expect it to be a year after she started. Without hesitation, though, I asked her to transfer me to Angela, who runs the office. I made up some excuse like I need to get back to her about something. I didn't know whether or not it would be rude to get right up in there and start circling around her job like a vulture, and when Liz is concerned, I can never figure out when I'm being obnoxious or not, so I figured I'd play it safe. As soon as Angela got on the phone, it just poured out of me:

"I just spoke to Liz. She told me she was leaving. I'd like to be considered for that position."Angela seemed pretty surprised, and her first response was, "Do you know how much it pays?" Now, I'm well aware that I'm not going to make private equity money working for a university. I've already mentally waged that battle and talked myself down to a certain level. Pace had a similar position open earlier in the summer, and their guidence on the website was 44-56k. That's a big stepdown, but its doable. Having no reason to believe that schools would be different on their payscale, I said that I had some idea of where it was. Well, turns out there is a difference--a pretty significant one. This job was going to pay 32k.

"Hmm... wow... 32. Jeez.. I wasn't really expecting that."

So 32k pretty much takes the job off the radar screen. I would have taken in the low 40's, but for someone with three years experience in finance and a whole bunch of student experience, that's just not a reasonable salary. Now, Deirg, who will probably wind up applying for this job, would argue its reasonabilty compared to the scale that she gets paid now, but her salary's not reasonable either. Just because that's what people are getting paid doesn't make their salaries reasonable. No one with a college degree two years out of college in NYC should be making less than 40... ideal maybe, but that just seems fair.

Anyway, this leads into my longer discussion of the day--the fact that Fordham shortchanges for the same position relative to Pace. This has been one of my biggest pet peeves with this school as an alumni for years. Like the Mets, Fordham is willing, time after time, to shortchange themselves to satisfy the short term, without thinking about the long term. Take the Yankees, for example, who went out and got Jon Lieber, even though he was going to be on the shelf for year, so they could have him for the year after. Geniuses.

Fordham, on the other hand, constantly shoots itself in the foot worrying about the short term. Take this job, for example. Career planning, whether a liberal arts school likes it or not, is probably the most important department within the university. No matter what kind of education you are given, moral values you are endoctrinated with, social lessons you are taught, if you can't develop a platform on which you can take those lesses to the outside world--be it with via a career, a calling, graduate studies, etc.--that's all going to go to waste. What someone is able to turn their education into more directly impacts a student's impression of what they got from school more than anything else. Show me a student in a really crappy job that they hate who really feels like their school really prepared them well for life.

Not only that, someone's career success, especially in the near term, strongly dictates whether or not they are going to give back to their school. If you are living paycheck to paycheck and just scraping by, or you don't really like where you've wound up, how likely are you going to want to contribute back to the unviversity, versus someone who feels like they hit the ground running in an area that they like.

That being said, that fifteen grand a year that Fordham will save each year definately doesn't help them in the long term. They couldn't afford to keep Liz on, and that's just going to happen again and again. Regardless of whether you can get someone quality in that role for that pay, you have to admit that the turnover it creates is disruptive to the group. I mean, GM went through this thought process with the private equity group. We're not being spun off just so we can make more money--its about retaining the best people and a group that works well together. In the end, being cheap on salary hear affects student impressions of the group as a whole. Since no one ever polls the alumni base, they don't realize it, but I would love to see what the numbers look like on the Career Planning group... and its not just Fordham. University's on the whole are much more apt to put money into their basketball coach than they are into the departments that touch the everyday lives of students.

This happens in other departments in universities around the country, as well at Fordham... with the financial folks that students seem to have issues with every year regarding their financial aid, bills, etc. to the residential life group--whose farewell to the students comes in a room damage bill. Think about it. When you leave the school, the last thing you get from them, after four years of paying 35k a year, is a bill for 50 bucks for some piece of damage you have no way to defend yourself against, and no way to see if it ever got fixed. You just feel taken by it... in a way that definately irks you enough not to make you want to give back to the school. If I were in charge of a school, for any damage bill $50 or less for seniors, I would send a note to the student saying, "There was a small amount of damage repaired in your room (note here that we should only be billing students for repaired damage not assessed damage). It has been our privilage to be a part of your education, and so we are waving this charge so that we can maintain a positive connection to you going forward as a member of the alumni community. However, we are still incurring this cost to do repairs and, would instead, appreciate your continued support of the University by means of a donation as an alumni for this amount."

First off, I think people would be blown away by that move... in a positive way and I think a lot of people would respond with a donation. Secondly, what you lose in fines, you gain by not losing future donations because people are pissed off about small amounts of room damage that just never get fixed. In addition, in the case of someone who does donate, wouldn't you rather have that money coming into the University as an alumni donation than a room fine? Room fines dont' count for anything, whereas getting that number up of how many alumni give back is critical to the ratings of the university.

One move Fordham has made along these lines is not charging for transcripts anymore, which follows the same logic. There's no need to keep nickel and diming people over their lifetime, which only goes to hurting the steam of potential donations.

Finally, and I've been harping about this for years... the biggest misstep I can see currently is the alumni directory. A few weeks ago, I got an online notice saying that they are publishing a physical directory and they wanted me to update my contact information. ???? What year is this??? An actual book. Who the hell is going to use this? Oh, it comes in a CD, too? This is utterly ridiculous. My HIGH SCHOOL has a searchable online directory that allows me to find people in my industry, people that went to the same college as me, etc. Its such an incredibly useful tool to stay connected to the university and for career connections. So many schools are moving in this direction and it blows my mind that we're still printing out a book that will be obsolete fast. They can say its a cost factor, but if you just made an online directory where you can look up all the same information, and only gave those Fordham alumni that financially support the school access to it, I think a lot more people would give back.

But you know what...  I still love Fordham, and that's why I complain.  You don't complain about things unless you have high expectations.  I still got a wonderful education, met great people there, and had access to lots of fantastic resources.  If I didn't love the school and think it was a great place to go, I wouldn't be complaining about it.  I mean, where else can you get a real campus in New York City?  Perhaps Columbia...  but I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to throw baseballs around their stuffy greenery.

Alright. That's all I have for now. I think they should do an alumni forum--the same way they have a student speakout, or at least, had one. People could come and ask questions about the direction of the school, give feedback, etc. I think a lot of people whould show, and if nothing else, it makes people feel like they care about the direction of the university.

Oh, and by the way.. its starting to get kinda cold out. I've been waking up to like 60 degree temps... and my apartment keeps pretty cool, so I think its even less than that. We're starting to talk about when the last day at the boathouse is... 10/15. brr.... That's got to be cold when you get out of the water.

I spent the day in Breezy Point. For those of you who don't know where or what that is, I looked it up:

">A neighborhood in southwestern Queens, Breezy Point lies at the western tip of the Rockaway Peninsula; it includes Rockaway Point and Roxbury. The area remained undeveloped until the early twentieth century, when the Rockaway Point Company rented tent sites for about $20 a summer to visitors, most of whom were Irish. By the 1920s, a colony of residents owned bungalows on rented land. In 1961, the firm of Northern Properties bought for $17.5 million all the land west of Jacob Riis Park (except for Fort Tilden) to erect a high-rise development for a population of 220,000.
Residents formed the Breezy Point Cooperative and paid $11.5 million for the land. Construction began on two fourteen-story apartment buildings but ceased when the city announced plans to acquire the peninsula for parkland in 1963; the unfinished apartments were demolished in 1978. The city's plans to condemn the entire neighborhood were opposed with particular vehemence by residents who had taken pains to make their cottages habitable year round, and a compromise permitted all to remain. Land owned by the city was incorporated into the Gateway National Recreation Area in 1972, and property of the Breezy Point Cooperative was excluded from it. In the mid-1990s, the community had about 2,800 houses, with an estimated population of five thousand year round, and twelve thousand during the summer.

Alright, so now that that's out of the way, I was there because I got an invite from James Pastore. Sometimes, I forget his first name is James or Jim or whatever, because he's always been Pastore to me. He went to Regis with me, and he was my counterpart goalie in our class in the hockey club. He was better than I was, but we had some good games when we faced each other, and when we played against each other in gym. Anyway, we didn't really hang out much when we were in school, until we got together to sit at the same table with Pagano and V at the Prom, with our respective dates. Anyway, since then, we've tried to keep in touch, especially after we graduated college. He went to Stanford Law and I saw him in SF when I went out there with Charles, and now he'll be back in the city. Anyway.. that's who Pastore is.

So, as for Breezy today... its a really interesting place. A lot of Pastore's friends are living in the city or not in Breezy anymore, but they seem to come back to the beach for the weekends. The beach has basically kept this group together, and captured the best parts of what growing up in Brooklyn or Queens, wherever Breezy technically is. Its just a very down to earth kind of atmosphere, maybe not blue collar, but civil servicey, anyway. Its a small world, and Manhatten seems thousands of miles away, just the way it felt growing up in Bensonhurst before I went to Regis. Yet, that atmosphere is gone from where I grew up.... nothing kept us all together, and so we're scattered all over the place. There's no reason to go back, although I will try to make it to the 18th Avenue Feast tomorrow night. (I just finished yet another jar of peanut butter... can't get enough of this stuff.) Anyway, we basically spent a few hours by ourselves on the beach throwing a ball around and not doing much of anything, and then we bumped into some of his friends, a few of which turned out to be people I knew. Jeff Kein was there from Fordham, as was Jamie Jordan, who I know going all the way back to when we were in high school. I couldn't place Jeff at first, because he was so out of context for me at the time. I have to say, talking to Jamie was interesting. I mean, my memories of her are from pretty much when she was about 14/15, and now she's going into a PhD program at NYU for Communications on her way to becoming a college professor. She seemed much more mature and went out of her way to sit down and talk to me about what I was up to, even though I'd hardly spoken to her in the interim. Its odd to think of all of these people from across my life becoming adults, finding themselves--especially someone like Jamie who I always thought was kind of immature. It was nice to see that I was wrong, at least for a few minutes today anyway.
I also bumped into this girl who went to one of my career talks at Fordham. Funny enough, I was kind of eyeing her when her and her friends were playing volleyball. Come on.. its bathing suit time at the beach and, well, I'm a guy... can't help it. Anyway.... me, Pastore and his friends went to go play with them and she said she recognized me and asked me if I worked for some random company. I told her I didn't... I had no idea who she was... and then she placed me from one of these sessions. REALLY small world. She said I was a good speaker, but who knows.
So, after that, I bumped into yet another Fordham person... Danielle Albanese. She at least said hello to me... usually she's pretty snotty to me because I wrote her up one time when I was an RA. It was her own fault... she had like a 50 person party in her suite in Martyrs and I definately gave her like 18 warnings. I think that was the last suite I ever wrote up, too.
On a random note, Pagano is moving in with Vina. Now, that's an amazing story... and I still, to this day, take the credit for setting them up. I know when we went out, Patti used to say it was her idea, but that would be kind of hard since I was the only one to know both Andrew and Vina at the time. :) Either way, even if I only get half credit for the setup, that's a windfall as far as setup track records.
Anyway, I'm glad Pastore's back in the city, or will be come October. I think he'd get along with Holian really well. They're both big college football fans, and they like their beers of the world--and they travel a lot, too. If they were gay, they'd probably be another great setup. I suppose I can just set them up as friends anyway. :)

Alright... I'm off to bed. Kayaking tomorrow, and dinner at Gino's for my parent's anniversary. They'll be married 43 years on 9/2. I wonder when I'll get married...

So the Stanford MBA application essays are as follows:

Essay A: What matters most to you and why?

Essay B: What are your short term and long term career aspirations? How will an MBA education further your development? Why does the academic experience offered at the Stanford GSB appeal to you?

Bring it on...

Yes, I'm alive. And now, because of my delay, I know have lots of stuff to post.

First off, some current notes:

1) The sneakers I bought in Tampa are amazingly comfortable. They're bouncy and nicely snug and very quiet, too. Its such a pleasure to walk in them. They're New Balance I think.

2) The GM finished its season with a win, finally. We won 16-6 tonight, making our final record 7-5. We could have done better, but obviously, this is a big improvement from 2-10.

3) I went to the Fordham Young Alumni Happy Hour tonight, which was highlighted by the exposure of huge fake boobs. Some trashy blonde chick just decided to kneel up on the bar and flash everyone, prompting chants of "one more time" from the whole bar when she left. She did not comply however. Do you think people like that realize how little they've made of themselves at some point, or do they just continue bottom dwelling?

Anyway, let's recap on what I need to post about. First off, last Thursday, Brian and I had dinner at Ben Benson's. The feeling about the food was that the appetizer and the desert were excellent, while the steak was above the bar, but not great. If we could have combined the tail ends of the meal with a Del Frisco's steak (and waitress), it would have been perfect. Peter Lugars is kind of a different animal, so that's not really comparable.

We've been making a semi-tradition out of these steak meals, and we agreed to make it more of a regular thing. We should probably make it quarterly or something. $400 of steak a year with Brian is definately worth it. One thing we talked about extensively was the sense that, at this point in our lives, things, specifically people, were coming up short in our view. Its kind of a difficult time, I think, to be 25. There's a book on the "Quarter Life Crisis" out there that focuses more on people who took directionless jobs or jobs for the wrong reasons and now they're realizing the life they created for themselves sucks. I don't think that's really the case with us... I think we're as close to the path we want to be on as we can, but to some extent, that's part of the problem. I think our good fortune to this point has, to some extent, let our expectations get ahead of us. Things that are probably non-issues to other people are now splinters in the back of our minds--other people that can't seem to figure themselves out or who get caught up in the small things become really frustrating, and no longer challenging. We also acknowledged that we need to be better at making time to see each other, too, because its too easy to get caught up in responsibilities. The one thing I do like, though, is that its never taken personally... that there's always this mutual underlying understanding that there's a continuing friendship there no matter what circumstances bring, which is probably why we've been friends for as long as we have. Its solid. The trick is maintaining this stability of quality in our own respective lives on a pace that maintains reasonable growth.

On Saturday, I kayaked down the Bronx River. That was quite an adventure. Victor invited me, and as soon as I figure out how to post pics up, I'll put some of them up. First of all, for 3/4 of the trip, you'd have no idea that you would even be in the Bronx in the first place. We put in at 215th Street, where the river is like 12 feet wide and 2 feet deep. It goes all the way through the Bronx, into the Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Zoo, and empties out later into Hunt's Point, which isn't so nice. In fact, its full of trash at that point, which is a real shame. However, the trip for the most part was beautiful. Trees form a canopy over the river in the early going, and its really kind of surreal. I'll bet you it would make a really spooky night trip.

The other thing I want to mention this week is that I learned something. Time spent does not mean emotional investment. That's one thing I've always done--easily confused the two. If I think back, there have been many times in my life where I've failed to really go out of my way to show someone an effort on my part, even though I may have been putting in time. Maybe its forgetting birthdays or seeing disinterested, or whatever... Its all a matter of focus. Admittedly, there are many things to be focused on during the day, but we should make it a point to focus, even if it might not mean commit time, on someoene else for a few moments a day.

So Larry and I are on a conference call at 2:30 today, and within about 5 minutes, the sky turns pitch black... like nighttime. Crazy.

Just want to take this chance to welcome our new reader from the Boathouse. :)

PS... I'm a hurracane now, although I'm spelled wrong. Its "ie."

(CNN) -- Florida emergency officials ordered visitors out of the middle and lower Keys Wednesday as newly declared Hurricane Charley rushed in from the Caribbean and Tropical Storm Bonnie approached the Florida Panhandle from the Gulf of Mexico.
At 2 p.m. ET, the National Hurricane Center declared Charley a hurricane, with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph, just over the hurricane threshold.

.Definition of serendipity:

Its 7:40AM and you've conceded that you won't find a spot on the right side of the streat after 20 post gym minutes of aimlessly traversing the Upper East Side.  So, accepting the fact that you'll now have to take the car over to Queens, because you won't be getting home early enough for Early Bird garage specials, you drive home, only to find a spot two doors down from your apartment.

Faaaantastic.

Its nice to be checked in on from across the globe.  Makes me feel special.  :)

Anyway, so I was a detainee over the weekend, not in Guantanomo, but in the Hudson River and the Marina at Battery Park.   So, we were supposed to kayak to Governor's Island on Saturday morning, and we were going to have an opportunity to get out and have lunch there.   Well, we get out of the embayment at Pier 26 about 200 yards and here comes the Coast Guard in one of their little orange patrol boats.  First, they told us to hug the seawall, and then a second CG boat tells us to stop.  Taino and Harry went up to them and handed over their IDs to try to negotiate.  Keep in mind, the whole time the current is taking us out to the harbor at a 4 knot clip.  Eventually, we had to start backpaddling just to stay in the same spot, about a 100 yards off the south cove at Battery Park.  After about 45 minutes of just sitting in the water doing nothing, we were instructed to head back upstream (against the current) and go into the Marina.  The Marina is on the seaside of the Winter Garden next to the World Trade Center site.  We wound up having to sit by these two docks in the corner for like an hour.  It looked like Fisherman's Wharf in San Fran, except replace the seals with kayakers eating their lunch and snacks.  Finally, they told us we weren't going to be let across and we just headed upstream back to the boathouse.  Two hours of paddling, and about a total of 1 mile actually travelled.  It was still a good time...  bizarre, but a good time nonetheless.  I learned that exactly 89 Baby Goldfish make a serving.

I have been so overwhelmed at work, its ridiculous. When you work in an environment where things just need to get done, yet there isn't generally a lot of strict assignment as to who is supposed to get them done, you tend to get the short end of the stick if you are the type of person who won't let balls drop. Some people are fine to walk out before questions are answered, things are taken care of, etc. I'm not one of those people.

I'll tell you one thing, I'm glad to have Jeff the Intern around, that's for sure. Its like having a tree chipper in my office. Stuff comes in that I don't have time for and I just shove it to his side and listen to that immediate "neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr" sound as he works. Good stuff.

Lately, I've been quite the flake when it comes to these sorts of things. Pursuing stuff, then pulling back. Being indecisive. Rethinking stuff from the past, and contradicting myself as well. One person I'll knock for being too aggressive and someone else I'll knock for their own passiveness. What's going on here? What am I even looking for?

It definitely reinforces the notion that the search for others is really a search for self, because the times in my life where I've been most clear about what I've wanted, are also the times in which I experienced the most personal clarity. In the last six months, personal clarity has been muddied by potential moves, a floundering book, new work responsibility, monitoring programs, family stuff, etc... and thus I've been rather flakey to people personally. Its not an excuse. I'm just pointing out the causal relationship, or what seems to be the cause.

At most issue is what level of commitment, and just really participation I want from someone else. First off, I'm generally not someone who has a lot of free time in general, so its easy to say I just want someone informal, casual, etc. But, to be honest, now I think that sometimes casual stuff takes more time than serious stuff, because casual stuff always seems to imply more than one person. Its a mirage that casual is easier, I think, because that never seems to be the case. Plus, you need to spend that much more time convincing someone you're not just using them, because they are not backstopped by some formal relationship.

Also at issue is how I want the other person reacting to me. On one hand, I think it would be hard for me to deal with the pressure of someone pursuing me hard, asking for all sorts of time. On the other hand, I do feel like I deserve someone who at least asks. Aren't I good enough to create a need in someone else to see me all the time? Who wants someone that acts as if they can take you or leave you? Sure, that's convenient from a life management perspective, because you know you can cancel on them, move them around, etc... but is love the kind of thing you want to be so convenient? I think its a lot like getting median venture capital GPs. If you're going to be in it, you want top quartile, otherwise its not worth it.

Part of it has to do with the idea of chemistry vs. criteria. I'd be interested if people had comments here. Think of it the spectrum as, on one end, you meet someone and before you know it, you're smooching away and lots of things are happening. You're laughing and being cute, and as far as you can tell, you've really hit it off with someone, without really knowing a lot of the details of someone's life. On the other hand, you meet someone and really invest the time to get to know them before anything happens. You learn to appreciate what kind of a person they are, if you share the same values, etc, before you discern whether or not you have a match. Which one is more true? Does chemistry exist, or is it just lust based on perception that may not actually be truth? Or, is getting the details of someone's life a cold, logical way to arrive at something that should be based on gut feeling and emotion? Do you fall for someone with your heart or with your head?

Oh, and I just learned there is a Blog spellcheck. Nice... now you'll all think I'm smaart.

Lastly... here's the last GM Softball news:

Miracle Motors Down, but Not Out, After Skid Reaches Three

After eight games, General Motors was sitting pretty at 6-2, only a game out of first place. After a 2-10 season, the team started looking at the standings, and counting down to the playoffs.
Three heartbreaking losses later, capped off by a 6-4 loss last night to Metro 53, GM should be completely out of the hunt. However, the Northern Division has completely collapsed over the past four weeks, and GM finds itself with a glimmer of hope. Four teams have clinched the six playoff spots, and another six teams are vying for the last two. For GM to get in, the Law Sox need to lose at least two of their last four games, which will be mostly rainout makeups. In addition, two of White Case, Oz Capital, and the Clinchers have to lose their final games.
Of course, for all this to work out GM needs to actually win its final game and stop the second half slump. After scoring a total of seven runs in its last two games, one thing that will have to happen is for the bats to wake up. Mike D'Annunzio scored the team's first run again early on, but the offense would slow to a crawl until late. Ted Feury kept GM in the game, holding Metro to four in five, and John Cross notched a scoreless sixth. Strong defense by third baseman Mark Attanasio and Gold Glove first baseman John Stevens also helped. GM got a step closer when Charlie O'Donnell scored in the fifth on an Alexis Kramer sac fly, making it 4-3. In the sixth, Sam Pollotta launched a huge RBI triple to tie the game up, but that would be the end of the GM scoring. Metro 53 pushed two runs across the board, one on a monster blast to left center, which was that Metro hitter's second time going yard.
In their last at bat, GM failed to replicate its early season last inning heroics, and failed to score. They will attempt to finish the season strong on 8/19, and all they can do in the meantime is hope for the misfortune of others.

OK... so PS, I just went to go post this and it had timed out, and I almost thought I lost the whole thing. I would have been REALLY pissed and probably never blogged again. You guys came really close to losing me.

I now have an XM radio in my office.... courtesy of Jeff Reals, who won it in a GMAM office pool.  Dave Brubeck's Take Five: Pure Genius.

"A cache of recently obtained information -- including hundreds of photos, drawings and written documents -- indicates that al Qaeda operatives have undertaken meticulous preparations to case the five specific buildings." - WSJ

I'm sorry, but if I see ANYONE of ANY ETHNICITY taking hundreds of photos of the Citigroup building, I think I might stop to ask them what they're up to.  Its just like the story about the terrorists being at the WTC a day or two before with a GPS finder.  This is the kind of suspicious stuff that people need to be asking about.

Anonymity...     we think it exists, but it definately doesn't, not on the internet anyway.  Like, for example, if you leave anonymous posts on a blog from far off places like Denver or Fordham...  people will find out.  Its just a matter of technological knowhow.  :)

We know you're watching...

So we looked at real estate in Greenwich today for our new office.   For those of you that don't know, my team is spinning out of GM...  well, partially spinning out.   Let's just say spinning enough to get all the benefits of working for yourself, building equity value in a long term entity, aligning yourself with clients, etc...  but to at the same time, leave enough of a connection to build of off the great franchise that GM has built in private equity as well as off their financial strength.  So, we'll basically do all the same stuff we do for GM, but organizationally, we'll be our own firm.

Ok, so now that I have all that out of the way, the end result for me is that I'll have to be a reverse commuter.  After nearly eight years of working in the same office, all of the sudden I'll be hopping in the car for a 1/2 hour drive.  I did the drive this morning, exactly as I would do it as if I was working up there.  Its not bad at all.  I got up early, hopped right in the car, and went to the NYSC in Greenwich.  I worked out, showered, and then met my team at 8:15.  We looked at a few properties, and I think we found one we all seemed to like.   Its a very very cool space with a lot of potential.  Its exciting actually--exciting enough where I think I'm going to start a new blog.   So many VC's have interesting blogs tied to what they do.  I like the idea of that, b/c it focuses the blog on a particular thing, and you don't feel the need to include lots of personal stuff.  Maybe we'll call it plazablog, or maybe I'll just wait until I go to Stanford and I'll call it MBAblog or something like that.    Ideas?

Today, I met Bono.

In fact, not just met him, but sat in a meeting with him for an hour... right across from him in fact.  And yes, he wore sunglasses at the meeting. 

Bono is joining some former Silver Lake and Blackstone Partners, as well a guy from Electronic Arts and a guy that helped architect the Apple turnaround, to form Elevation Partners, and I met with their team, along with Jeff Barman and Jeff Reals.

In terms of what I think of them, I thought of a potential fantasy baseball trade that I got offered earlier in the day.   Rich tried to trade me A-Rod for Adrian Beltre.  Now, in terms of the pure stats, you could argue that Betre is having a better year than A-Rod easily.  In fact, the only mitigating factor is A-Rod's 19 steals.  However, when you consider how far the Yanks are in first, its probably not likely that he'll swipe too many more. 

However, thinking about this in terms of the pure stats proved difficult.  In fact, the fact that I would be trading for A-Rod really clouded the whole thing and made it difficult to think of logically.  Was I only interested b/c it was A-Rod?  Was I too worried about doing just that that I discounted his real impact? 

The same can be said here.  Its very easy not to take this group seriously b/c of Bono--just the same as its really easily to get blinded by the celbrity factor.  I actually think they have something here, and I have to say, Bono said a lot of smart things about the nature of investing in content... how it needs to be both creator friendly and fan friendly as well, for people to create lasting, lucrative models in the future.  Music companies in the past had a stranglehold on distribution, so they could screw the artist and screw the public, but the internet punched a hole in all that.   These guys want to create businesses around the idea that what's good for the artists and the consumers might also be very profitable as well.

I do think that he'll be engaged in this company and that its not a fly by night thing.  Here's a guy with a lot of political capital to risk... someone who really values his ability to do the right thing by people.  I don't think he's going to let 100% of the driving to the finance guys, b/c I don't think he wants to be dragged down by them if he doesn't agree with what they're doing.  All and all, I think its interesting stuff and work taking a look at.

Did I mention he wore the glasses?