I am in serious need of outside time...  March in New York has been awful.  It snowed several times, and on Monday, there was so much rain, they started loading sewer rats, muggers, and subway battery hawkers onto an Ark in Times Square two by two.

So this afternoon, since its going to be 57 degrees and sunny, I'm going to untether myself from the office and take my laptop to wireless enabled Bryant Park.  So, from 2-6, feel free to come say hello (but keep in mind I'll actually be working, too.)  I'll post again once I get there, so you don't wind up wandering around if, for some reason, I don't make it.

This post is an experiment of sorts--to see the network effect of the blogosphere in action to help get my mentee an internship.

I have been mentoring a bright young Fordham freshman for a few months now and she's trying to get an internship over the summer.  I have posted her resume below, and would like to say a few words about her.  Hopefully, someone who reads this blog will be interested in hiring a highly motivated young woman for a summer position where she can learn a lot and also contribute to real projects in a meaningful way.

I was impressed with Christina Maresca's enthusiasm right away.  She has been very engaged in our mentoring relationship and works very hard at school.  She is currently attending Fordham at the Marymount campus in Tarrytown, but will be transferring to the College of Business Administration at Rose Hill at the end of the semester.  She is a scholarship student and she is already involving herself on campus in leadership roles--becoming the Treasurer of the Italian club immediately after starting school.  She works two jobs while attending school--at the Gap and at the school's health center.

She has an interest in business, but one of the things we've discussed is that she needs some experience to help her explore her options.  I believe that she could make a great contribution to any firm she joins this summer and hopefully someone will take the same chance on her that GM took on me when I first started interning around the same age. 

If you contact Christina, please also leave a comment on this post.  It will be interesting to see how much interest this blog is able to generate and whether or not this new medium can help her out. 

And no, she does not have a blog of her own... yet.  However, I think if she gets something over the summer from this blog, it will go a long way to convincing her how blogging can help even a student's career and perhaps that will motivate her to blog her summer internship.  Keep that in mind.  If she gets her internship from a blog, and blogs her experience, it might make for an interesting story and good publicity for your company.

Puba still kicking at Easter with Dad.

Waiting for the N train in Brooklyn.

I drew that... Not too shabby.

This is a scary job...  NYC Subway track worker.

This is now the most exciting thing I've heard all day....

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Dear ZogSports Kickball Captains,

Kickball season is quickly approaching, and we wanted to welcome you to our spring/summer kickball league and provide you with some key dates for information regarding the season.

o Wednesday, April 13^th

§ Regular Season schedule will be posted on www.zogsports.org

o Thursday, April 14^th

§ Email will be sent allowing captains to add to or adjust their roster as well as change name or charity

o Monday, April 25^th

§ Regular season begins

o Shirt pickup Monday, April 18^th – Thursday, April 21^st Times TBD

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Cheers,

Christie

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WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Link: Muppet Central News - Fact or Fiction: The Muppet Show DVD season sets.

This is the most fantastic news I've heard all day...    Stadler and Waldorf are my favorite Muppets.  Least favorite Muppet?   Pauly Shore.

PWC Networking Breakfast for VCs.  What's with all the suits???  I was the only one w/o a tie.  Are we sure these are VCs?

After popping in at a few local tech/blogging events lately, something has become apparently obvious to me.  I need a wingblogger--someone my age as interested as I am in being a part of the more social side of this community that I can drag around to all these events.  For someone who works at a VC firm, I probably have the least tech savvy social network possible.  That makes it incredibly difficult, at least for me, to go to all these events and meet the people I'd like to meet--especially given that, because of my age, I have a natural advantage over a lot of other people in my industry.  I can relate a lot better to a lot of the very creative people that are disrupting some of the markets that USV has interest in.  Even though I may be outgoing, I really do hate doing much of anything alone.  I need to be able to go somewhere, run ideas by someone, recap the event, discuss, plan, etc. 

At the same time, I don't want to be too "networky", which, as a venture guy, is probably about the worst thing you can do, especially in New York.  In spite of the fact the NYC is the financial capital of the world, not everyone doing some kind of interesting project is in it to make it big.  Sometimes, like in the case of the Vimeo/Collegehumor guys, success seems more like an accidental byproduct of serious goofing off.  Not everyone wants their audienced monetized.

Ideally, I'd have a friend or two that worked in media/marketing/tech that was curious about new trends, interested in meeting people, and savvy enough to find some events that I missed.  The management is currently accepting applications for wingbloggers. 

You are the best litmus test you have for other people.  Don't hide yourself from others when you first meet them for fear of scaring them off.  Chances are, if they aren't ok with the reality of who you are the first time around, they aren't going to get any more comfortable as time marches on.  I never liked the idea of personality of something that needs to be leaked out in small doses as if you were trying to slowly poison the other person with it.  The big fear is that by putting yourself out there up front, you can get yourself hurt.  The truth of the matter is that the less time you take to get things out in the open, the less you'll have invested if its all too much for the other person to take.  That saves you getting hurt more than anything else.  Your experiences, sketchy or otherwise, are who you are and not to be apologized for.  Make no excuses for what got yourself to this moment.  Perhaps if we were all so comfortable with ourselves in the first place, we wouldn't do have the regrettable things that make opening up so uncomfortable.  I hate "excuse me" personalities.  I wish more people were "take me or leave me."  I can respect that immensely.

In the interest of full disclosure, here are the results of my trip to the doctor last Friday.  This way, you can all rest comfortably knowing that there is little chance of this blog prematurely ending because I'm not taking care of myself.   

Blood pressure:   110/70

Cholesterol:  130   HDL/LDL: 48/73

Triglycerides: 47

Liver: Normal

Kidneys: Normal

Iron:  Normal

Blood Count: Normal

So, apparently, I'm well on pace to make it to my Deathclock.com determined age of almost 86.  I'll be sure to keep you posted on how that goes.  In fact, at my current rate of .71 posts a day, I have 15,744 more posts left. 

Highly amusing way to say that a website is down...  Jurvetson must be going out of his mind.

For the most part, I eat pretty healthy...   lots of chicken, fish, candy.  Ice cream/desert only once in a while.  However, when I do get something I probably shouldn't be eating a lot of, like pizza, I'll try and make it as healthy as possible.  Right now, I'm eating a stuffed veggie slice.  I figure, if I'm going to be eating all this dough, oil, and riccota cheese, I might as well get what broccoli and spinach have to offer as well.

Maybe they'll cancel each other out.

Who am I kidding?

Senseless anti mailbox violence.

Fred and I, in collaboration with an entrepreneur to be named later, put our heads together via IM/e-mail (He's out sick today, but still can't unjack from the Matrix, so send him some get well comments) and came up with this chart.  GM shed four bucks today on the news that it would post a loss of about $1.50 a share, versus the previous target of break-even.  I know weathermen that can predict better than that.  At the same time, Microsoft is trading at about 60% of its 2000 levels.  As you can see from the chart, both companies have traded similarly on the way down.  Coincidence?  Yes.  Relation?  Not a bit.  However, they do both fall into the same category:  Companies that are too big to achieve sustainable growth and  ones getting their lunch eaten by competitors that innovate better and act faster.  I'm not sure what to expect sooner...   Longhorn or a GTO that actually looks like a GTO.  So does that make Toyota and Honda the Mozilla and Google of the car world?  (Of course, that would also make Internet Explorer the Aztek of the browser world.) 
     The real challenge for these companies is focus.  Both have lots of attractive products and also lots of properties that seem to be a bit adrift.  The interesting thing is that GM has always been in the business of trying to get smaller, spinning off EDS, DirectTV, etc, while Microsoft never seems to waive the white flag on anything.  The unfortunate thing at GM has been that these highly profitable sales haven't helped the business at all, with proceeds going into the black hole of pension benefits and medical expenses.
     Another interesting comparison is the quality issue.  GM's product quality has made great strides over the years, while Microsoft, well...   you know. 
     Here's the question of the day.   If Blackstone is successful in raising its highly anticipated trillion dollar buyout fund, differences in market cap aside, if you were Steve Schwartzman which company would you rather buy and try to turn around?   Could you generate a better return from buyout GM, spinning off GMAC and slugging it out with the unions on the healthcare and benefit issues?  Would you buy Microsoft and inspire some actual innovation or just milk it like a cash cow? (Since the company has been last to the party on, let's see now, search, blogging, what else is hot?)   Perhaps I should start a MSFT vs. GM index on my blog to keep track of which would have been the better deal.

Speaking at Baruch today...  They have an atrium that looks down far enough to make me really uncomfortable.

So, last night, our ZogSports dodgeball team, Dodge This!, got swept in the playoffs, losing all four of its games.  We were disappointed that we didn't even pull a game out, but in the end, we were all really happy about the season and this wacky sport that brought us all together.  One of the teams we lost to is also playing kickball, so we'll have to exact our revenge on the turf. 

So far I've played dodgeball this year, and kickball last year, and I have to say, this league is really something special.  The quality of people that it brings together is amazing, but I guess "people who play charity dodgeball or kickball" is as good a social screen as you can get.  Plus, playing in the league gives you an automatic connection to all of the other Zoggers as well.  Anytime I see one of those colored t-shirts with the ZogSports logo, I always ask what sport the person played and how they got involved, and they're always very receptive. 

Another thing that was nice last night was an appearence by "the Zog Guy"--founder and new dad Robert Herzog.  I pointed out to some of the people on the team who he was and some of them were curious about what his story was.  I really didn't know too much about the guy, but when I Googled him and Zogsports, I learned just how special this whole thing was.  You see, Robert Herzog worked for Marsh McLennan on the 96th Floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower.  Two hundred and ninety seven people from Marsh died that morning, but Rob, miraculously, was later to work than usual.  His story was detailed in a great Tampa Tribune article a few years ago.

So now, ZogSports is up to 11,000 participants.  Zog encourages "New Yorkers to maintain perspective and a more balanced lifestyle by having fun while also giving something back to the community." Its really something amazing to be a part of and I really have to tip my hat (and no, I'm not suddenly wearing hats because I shaved my head) to Rob.

Apparently, there's a burger joint in the Parker Meridian...  Who knew?

Wow.