Thursday, September 07, 2006

For Amy on her birthday

i am life,
the essence of all that is.
i am Sorrow, i am Joy
i am the light that lies upon the sand
i am the root,
the ingrown growth of all the land
Embodied in Cloud the Mountains stretch forth
i am the innocence of unkown days
i am rivers of feeling
their paths intertwined
my existence an element
in the passing of time

copyright Tim Wolters 1988

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

"Liberalism is a Mental Disorder"

I was recycling some cardboard this morning and someone had used a magic marker to pen, "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder" on the side of the recycle bin.

This sign of conservative bravado, striking at the heart of liberalism at the recycle center got me thinking about the heart of conservatism. Perhaps a liberal could pen something similar on a large corporate logo, the symbol of a corporation that puts profits above all ... but alas, Enron is gone.

Being a Founder

I've recently had some conversations around what it means to be a founder of a company and thought I would pass these thoughts along to the blogosphere.

A founder takes on more risk and more responsibility and puts the company first. A founder is the last one to go on salary and the first one to come off salary in hard times. A founder generally works longer hours than most of the staff while trying to find that something that will finally put the company over the top. If need be, a founder washes the dishes and takes the trash out. A founder rallies the troops to him. A founder keeps the communication lines open to all parts of the business, looking for holes to fill and ways to help out. A founder is cost sensitive and looks for ways to extend the company runway.

Being a founder is not an entitlement day to day other than the receipt of an accompanying sense of satisfaction in creating something new and useful in the world.

... and, for all of his efforts, in the long run the founder hopes to be well rewarded financially

move over Entourage

I stuck with Entourage for almost 10 months, but no longer. There are several reasons for this: the Mac apps are easier to use and simpler, I like the threading feature in Mac Mail which shows all of the emails grouped together that were replies to the original email or replies to replies, The Mac Calendar is soooo much more aesthetically appealing, I can sync the address book and the calendar to my ipod (I gave up on my Treo 600 several months ago for a smaller simpler Samsung and really started missing the calendar functionality)

... and the coolest thing (drum roll here), you can bounce spam email messages :)

"To discourage someone from sending you email, you can reject, or "bounce" messages from that person, as long as the return address is valid. When you bounce a message, it appears to the sender that your address is invalid. This is useful for rejecting mass mailings from companies whose mailing lists you've been added to after buying products from them."

Sunday, September 03, 2006

commitment to your passion

I watched the Agassi vs. Baghdatis 2nd round US Open match on Thursday night completely awestruck. The match will go down in history as one of the truly great matches of the Open, but the bigger story is the information before and after the match. You see, Andre is suffering from a herniated disc and sciatica. I personally know how much pain sciatica can cause. Some days you can't even get out of bed the pain is so great.

Agassi is retiring after this open and his commitment to see it through extends beyond the pain he is going through. After Monday's four set match against Pavel he received an epidural steroid injection to reduce inflamation. I've had three of these (you're only allowed three in a one year period due to the long term negative effects on the body). I don't know how he played as well as he did or even at all on Thursday after having the injection only Tuesday. It typically takes a week or so for the pain of the injection to go away.

Thursday's match was absolutely brilliant and became a war of attrition over five long sets (nearly 4 hours) with Agassi outlasting his 21 year old opponent who started having muscle cramps late in the fourth set. Point after point, Agassi grimaced in pain as he relentlessly pursued some very good corner and drop shots from Baghdatis . He certainly lost quite a few points, but came through when it counted, winning the match.

After the match the San Jose Mercury News reported that when Agassi was leaving the Billie Jean King complex at nearly 2am he was in so much pain that he had to lie on the ground while waiting for his driver to pick him up. He reportedly had an injection of Toradol after the match to help reduce inflammation. I am watching him now, playing again this morning and am utterly amazed at his tenacity and ability to play through the pain at an incredible level. I told my wife after the last match that he would certainly need to withdraw ... but here he is, back again.

Good for you Andre. You are truly an inspiration!

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