I'm so excited.  This Saturday, at 9AM(ish), the Downtown Boathouse OPENS FOR BUSINESS!

And, of course, what's the weather supposed to do?

Rain. 

Anyway, hopefully, the weather will hold up, because I can't wait to get back to volunteering.  Basically, here's the deal.  On weekends, until mid-October, you can come to either of our two (soon to be three) locations at either Pier 26 or 72nd Street and just walk up, sign up, and get on the water...  FREE KAYAKING ON THE HUDSON. 

Although the website still has info on it, I've been told that our Pier 66a location won't be open.  However, we're opening up a new location at Pier 96 that should be ready soon enough.  On most days, I'll be down at Pier 26, but I'll also be helping Sandy run some Hoboken kayaking as well, too.  I'll try and post where I'll be on any given weekend day.  I know I'll be in Hoboken on 5/21 for sure.  Contact me for details and let me know if you're coming by.  Bloggers especially welcome!

Link: VentureBlog: Why Are Startups Like Peacocks?.

I can't add anything here.  This speaks for itself...  good article.

So I'm applying for my mortgage and I need my last three months of bank statements.  Now, I keep everything online and shred all of my paper records.  I figure, if I really need any information, I can logon to get it or request it over the phone.  So, I call up TD Waterhouse, where I have a checking account, and ask for copies of my last three bank statements.  No problem, except for the fact that they were going to charge me $10 a statement!   What a ripoff!!

Well, goes to show them...  I'm emptying that account when I put down my down payment.  Haven't they noticed they haven't been getting my direct deposit anymore?  Did they think I lost my job?  Sorry TD Waterhouse, I'm blowing this popsicle stand.

Any friend of Judith Light is a friend of mine.  Come on, you know you watch Lifetime.  Admit it.  Plus, being able to trackback someone you just saw on VH1 makes the world seem just a bit smaller, no?

BTW...  VH1 really has the formula down pat no?   Its just the same show over and over again... celebrity clip, voiceover and aside from hilarious celebrity commentator.  Whether its "I love the 80's" or "Worst career moves ever" its gold, Jerry, GOLD!

The USV guys and I had lunch with a great company that, probably more so than a lot of other companies, because of the relationship between its founders, exemplifies a startup's growth from something emotional to more of a business.  OK, so not to say that businesses can't be emotional, they are, and I know the founders and management team are very emotionally invested in this company.  However, there comes a point in every company's life where the founder has to let go--at least enough to allow other people to get in there and help create something bigger than the founders themselves.  I don't envy founders that face this, because I know I was never able to do this well myself, to the detriment of the things I had created.

When I was at Fordham, I started a monthly business newspaper: The CBA Business Journal.  While I had lots of writers and a couple of people helping me on layout, it was mostly me putting it all together.  There were so many little things that were just easier for me to do that the incremental effort it required of me to show someone else how to do it.  Most of the time, it was never going to get done exactly how I wanted it to get done anyway, so I just wound up doing most things myself.

The problem was, not only did I not scale, but there was no continuity without me.  Nothing got done if I was busy with a test.  I never figured out how to build a machine that ran on its own power.  When I graduated, it died, not because there wasn't anyone around willing or capable of picking it up, but because I never made the personal and psychological sacrifices necessary to ensure it would last well beyond my time at Fordham.  I never imagined The CBA Business Journal without me.  That was a problem.  The question is how do you do that?  This is one of the most fascinating aspects of the creation of a business from my perspective.

I think it would be interesting to hear from entrepreneurs how they psychologically, especially in their first venture, start letting go of the reins for the greater good of the business and start imagining the business without themselves.  When you do you realize you need a CEO?  When do you decide to leave a business?  This, I imagine,  is especially hard for people whose personalities are intertwined with the business and the community around that business.  So, if anyone has run a startup and accomplished the passing of the torch effectively or otherwise, I'd love to hear from you via comments and trackbacks.

I wasn't going to post this one so soon, because its so new, but I watched it tonight and couldn't resist. 

I'm not a particularly good traveler, so when I think of what it would be like to stay in Japan, I picture myself as out of place as Bill Murray.  In fact, if you had to cast anyone as an out of place character, from the less than scientific Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters to the perpetually stuck Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, Bill Murray would be your guy.  Its almost as if the casting agent says, "I don't want someone to actually do any acting.  I just want the whole movie to happen to this guy, and we'll just watch it happening to him." 

And that's what Lost in Translation does... it happens to Bill Murray.  He doesn't ask for it.  He doesn't try to meet Scarlett Johansson.  He doesn't really even want to be on talk shows or have his name up in lights.  But yet, its not like he has a clear idea of what else he wants to be doing either.  I think I'd like my life to happen to me a little more once in a while... instead of me needing to push and nudge and make things happen.  Why doesn't Scarlett Johansson just randomly show up in my life, you know?  Maybe she blogs and uses Technorati or PubSub to find herself...  you never know. 

Anyway, the soundtrack of this movie is perfect, but I'm not sure it would stand alone just to be listened to.  Its more of a score and fits perfectly with the movie.  There are some great music scenes, like Murray's karaoke rendition of "More Than This".  In fact, the whole movie is just very well put together.  I'm glad Sofia Coppola can write and direct, because she sure as hell can't act her way out of a paper cup.  (As far as I remember, there were only two Godfather movies, right?)

Like a lot of the movies that will be on my list, though, nothing much happens in this movie.  There's really no plot.  Its just a few days in the lives of two mismatched, but perfectly matched, Americans in Japan.  Nothing really changes in their lives at the end, or does everything change?  What does he whisper in her ear at the end?  On one hand, the idealistic part of me hopes he doesn't cheapen the whole experience by telling her to look him up in the states or something, but, on the other hand, I sure wouldn't mind Giovanni Riobisi's character get kicked to the curb in a hurry.  Anyone care to comment on what they think he said? 

I just saw VH1's "I Love the 90's - 1997".  Michael Ian Black had the best comment on American interest in soccer:

"If it wasn't for the Spice Girls, we might never have known who David Beckham was."

Pure brilliance.

After three games, Fordham Young Alumni Softball is still looking for its first win. While the team has looked solid, the guys and gals in maroon always seem to be inches away from a clutch hit or a run saving catch.  Call to the stand yesterday's 8-4 loss to Partsearch...

Just a few plays would have made the difference, but none of them went Fordham's way.  Fordham loaded the bases with two outs in the third, only to have the pitcher just barely get a glove on Christine Schildknecht's smash up the middle.  In the field, Larry Porco came within a step of a terrific Web Gem in the field, getting on his horse from center over to right and diving for a fly ball.  He tumbled on the catch and just barely lost his hold on it, which would have ended the inning, but was a great effort nonetheless. 

Christine also made a few nice grabs in the field, gloving two hot shots to second in the fifth.  In fact, the game featured several new faces at new positions.  Dave Murphy started at third, and manager Charlie O'Donnell subbed in for the under-the-weather Alexis Kramer.  O'Donnell's shortstop debut turned out to be a mixed bag--solid at first, but two misqueues late in the came cost Fordham two runs.  "I'm looking forward to getting back to the outfield where I can roam free like an antelope," he commented after the game. 

Patti Dickerson played her second game at firstbase, turning in another game of solid play.  Other highlights included Antoinette Mirsberger's first hit of the season, a seeing eye infield single.  Her personal hitting coach, Trevor Freeman, is proud of the great strides she's making.  "She told me before the season that if she didn't learn to hit, she'd dump me, so I've been working extra hard to make sure she learns the ropes," Freeman told the press in an interview. 

Brian Cuthbert went the distance on the mound in the loss for Fordham.  He'll return to the mound for Fordham's next game, on May 19th.... same time (6:30) same field (Heckscher #1).  More pictures from the game can be found here.

Phillip Seymor Hoffman for Robert Scoble was just too easy, but nice work elsewhere.  Link: hyku | blog - Casting "Blog" the Movie - Josh Hallett.

So I got the letter below attached to a LinkedIn invite.  This is the kind of thing that gives LinkedIn a bad name. 

1)  I have no idea who this person is.  They identified themselves as having worked for General Motors before and invited me as "a former colleague."

2)  I don't even know what a Names Sourcer is.  I have a name.  I certainly don't need another one, although Pastore and I have briefly considered switching last names, because he looks more Irish than I do and I look Italian.

3) You don't need to be on LinkedIn to do business with me.  If you know my e-mail address, then send me what you're offering and I'll look at it.  I certainly don't need/want to be connected to you forever.

So, here's the letter.   As Steve Rubel says, never e-mail a blogger unless you'd like that e-mail stamped on your forehead for the rest of your life.

"Hi. My name is Maureen Sharib and I’m a Names Sourcer for TechTrak.com. I'd like to link with you on this wonderful networking system of LinkedIn and maybe do some business with you sometime in the future! I source passive candidates holding specific titles in specific companies. Our goal is to save you time (and money!) and help you succeed.

Maureen Sharib
Names Sourcer
www.techtrak.com
Our fee structure can save your project an average of 85% to 95% in hiring fees.
513 899 9628
Maureen@techtrak.com
Invite me to your LinkedIn and ERE networks!"

Wooooooooo!    Congrats to Harsh Acharya, John Bitzer, Anita Erzetic, Michael Odell!

Link: New York Society of Security Analysts | NYSSA Announces Challenge Winners.

New York (April 27, 2005) – With a ‘buy’ recommendation, the team from Fordham Business School won the Third Annual NYSSA Investment Research Challenge, held on April 21st at Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Randy Johnson and the exploding bird.

The pine tar incident.

The All Star Game tie.

Add Fordham's Friday night game against The Deal to your list of wacky incidents.  A scheduling error by the league left Fordham opponentless for 45 minutes until The Deal finally started showing up around 6:15--early as far as they knew.  Both teams scurried to start as time on the field permit ticked away, but in the end, since the game didn't go the full time, the league decided to suspend the game with Fordham up 7-5 after five, to be continued later in the season.

Fordham bats were quiet but effective during the game, with several "seeing eye" hits doing some major damage against The Deal.  Patti "Hit it where they ain't" Dickerson drove in four runs on two clutch floaters  just over the infield.  The game of inches also came back to hurt Fordham as well.  Pat "The Mighty" Quinn just missed a great stab at a liner over third and Larry Porco attempted a diving stop of a smash to first.  Both plays would have shut the door before The Deal put three on the board in the third, but as it was, luck wasn't much of a lady to either team on Central Park's Great Lawn that night.

Fordham sent Charlie O'Donnell to the mound in place of their absent ace Brian Cuthbert.  O'Donnell frustrated The Deal with his unwillingness/inability to keep the ball around the plate, causing some ugly and desperate swings.  He also walked three, but never game The Deal much of anything to hit.  He slipped several called strikes past the surprised Deal hitters, and while it might of been ugly, it kept Fordham in the game.

No word yet on when the remaining two innings will be played, but Fordham will look for their first win this week at Heckscher #1 this Thursday night at 6:45 in Central Park.

When I first started at Union Square Ventures, I made a concerted effort to make sure all my various only profiles matched up.  I was rewriting my bio, resume, etc. and so I figured I'd update everything at once, especially if I was going to be a useful networker at a venture firm.  That included getting up to speed on LinkedIn.

I've written before about how I didn't see the value of social networking sites, other than for dating.  (I will admit to going on a Friendster date....although, at DTUT, I think every couple there is on an internet date.)  Anyway, the problem is that there isn't anything to do on these sites, except maintain your network.  You basically only logon to accept invites and invite more people.

Well, I've had a change of heart in the last few weeks.  In the last few weeks, using LinkedIn, I've helped a company that Fred invested in find a top tier job candidate and also pulled an "off the list" reference on an entrepreneur we're currently evaluating.  For an analyst who, at this point in his career, relies heavily on the extended networks of others, its incredibly valuable.  Its a great way to find knowledgeable people and people who can be spoken for by people you trust.  I've even got Fred to buy off on the value of this interconnected network of professionals.  (I'm sure he'll probably blog about it soon. UPDATE:  He did... but he doesn't ever trackback, so just go here.)

Here are some observations about my experience with it so far:

1)  The permissions system is great.  You can choose to only be contacted through others on the site by referrals from people you know.  So, if Bob Smith knows Sam Jones and I'm friends with Sam, then Bob needs to ask Sam for an introduction to me.  Even then, I can choose to respond or not before Bob gets my e-mail address.

2) Much of my network is made up of onesies and twosies.  In other words, for many of these people, I'm their only contact.  I think LinkedIn needs to find a way to make a convincing argument for those people to share more.  A lot of people accepted my invites just because they know me and didn't mind being connected to me, but that's as far as the sale went.  Well, thanks folks, but I already know you.  This gets really interesting when we both know other people that are mutually beneficial to each of us...the power of shared networks. 

3) The ease of implementation needs to be experienced.  Signing up is very quick, and the Outlook integration really makes this a no-brainer.  At minimum, if you're on the site, download the Outlook toolbar and open it up.  Basically, what it does is that it looks at everyone you've e-mailed and tells you right away whether or not those people are already on the system.  So, right away, you know who in your real network of people has already bought off on this concept and is probably likely to accept you into the fold.  Voila!  Instant network.  Next, it gives you the list of all your contacts and asks you who you'd actually like to invite to join the network.  Basically, I think I actually connected to six people on my own, but the Outlook plugin took care of the other 80 or so.  Plus, its all opt-in.  If they don't want to be connected to me or join, that's fine.

What makes this really interesting is that groups of people can connect to each other by just advocating its use.  For example, Fordham has a problem whereby it has this huge database of 100,000+ alumni.  Integrating all of those people into a web database, dealing with all the privacy issues, etc. won't be easy.  However, all they really need to do is push LinkedIn as the goto place for Fordham alumni.  They don't even need to sign up for the "LinkedIn for Groups" service.  Just tell everyone to join in and put that they went to Fordham in their profile.  All of the sudden, your opt-in/privacy issues are solved and you've got thousands of people on the service able to contact other Fordham alumni within three degrees of each other.  Cost to Fordham?  Zero.  Benefit to individual Fordham alumni?  Huge.  Benefit to the school?  Well, now they can search and see what all the alumni is up to and the network becomes a real resource.

Anyway, that's my experience with the service.  If you actually know me, feel free to invite me.  I might ignore or turn down invites from complete strangers, but that's to be expected. 

Kottke wrote a post called A whole new internet? (kottke.org) and basically said that the business of creation on the internet, in many places, is getting in the way of creation itself--that the people that were once community and discussion leaders, like Mena Trott (or rather, anyone fitting a Mena-like profile), are now too busy making businesses out of tools to contribute to the community in the same way.  Mena responded here. 

I'm sure it was a lot of fun when today's doers were doing things out of their basements and they had the time to be the leading voices.  But, you can't do that forever.  Things change... and they change for the better.  Would Six Apart, or blogging in general, be better of Ben and Mena were still coding out of their house?  Same thing with Joshua Schachter.  Would del.icio.us be better off if Joshua continued working a fulltime job and then slaving away late at night and on weekends building this great service?  No way!  Truth is, a little more in the way of resources and organization can do great things for a grassroots, individual effort.  Its not the solution for everyone, but it works in many situations when done right.  Maybe the niche little tech community loses a voice to a bit of distraction, but the whole non-bleeding edge community gains as a result, and their feedback, their voices, and their insight are just as valuable as anyone elses.  The Mena-likes are not contributing less now because they blog less, they're contributing MORE with their deeds.  It reminds me of when people say that you're not successful if you're only a teacher.  To me, if you've enabled the minds of others, you've used your own mind in a very positive and productive way.

Check out the link below.  They've divided all their reviews into places that you want to 1) cheat on someone, 2) dump someone, 3) take someone that you want to f*ck, or 4) make a scene.

Now, I wouldn't advocate any of this and believe people should have the purest of intentions when choosing a venue.  HOWEVER, if you do find yourself being asked to one of these places, now you know why.  If I were you, I'd certainly keep the dump list handy.

"Wait a second...  oh no... we're going to Caffe Taci?  But I thought things were going so well!"

Link: Bar & Restaurant Reviews.

Finally — useful bar and restaurant reviews, divided into four convenient categories that address the common situations that confront us every day.

This, of course, is the tricky thing about video.  Since the world hasn't found a single format that it likes (like Mpeg 3 for audio), we're all forced to see our video through a patchwork of Quicktime, Windows Media, etc.   Some people have been telling me that the Pimp My Web (see the tab above)  screencasts, which can be accessed by clicking on the Lesson One, Lesson Two, and Lesson Three screencasts, don't work.  Well, they work for me, work for Fred, and seem to work for a number of other people.  Do they work for you?  If they don't, can you let me know and tell me something about your system?  I'd like to fix the problem. 

If they don't load (and give them a few seconds, Ourmedia isn't the fastest), can you comment here and let me know what operating system you have, browser, and whether or not you have Windows Media as well as the version.  Thanks!