Amy and I are huge fans and supporters of the new Denver Art Museum.  Part of our gift to the museum in 2005 was used to fund the Bubbloo exhibit.  In addition to being cool and clearly the family safe equivalent of “drugs for little kids”, it reminds me of the product from our portfolio company Reactrix which is especially neat.

Once a year, I go away somewhere with my dad for the weekend.  I’ll go anywhere he wants – last year was downtown San Francisco, this year he suggested Las Vegas.  I flew here from Dallas (where I was on Thursday) and he came in from Houston (where he was on Thursday.)  We met at The Wynn yesterday afternoon and have been having a blast together.

If you know us, the first question that probably comes to your mind is “Las Vegas – what’s up with that?”  Neither of us gamble or drink, are both afraid of naked women (that aren’t our wives), and are afraid of what our wives would do to us if we were caught with naked women that aren’t our wives. 

We just love to be together – no purpose required.  We spent all day walking up and down The Strip, talking about whatever came to mind, had a few great meals (Red 8 (Wynn), Daniel Boulud’s (Wynn), Stage Deli (Caeser’s Palace), and Ben & Jerry’s (New York, NY)).  We are about to get ready to go see The Beatles: Love at The Mirage.

The Wynn has been great – the only annoying thing is the endless feeling of being nickeled, dimed, and $20 billed.  The health club costs $25 / day / person, the Ferrari show costs $10, Internet costs $12 / computer / day, a bag of nuts costs $8.  I guess that’s Las Vegas.

We started doing this five years ago – I wish we’d be doing it for the last 20 years.  Better late than never.

If you are a 24 fan(atic), you should add 24 Comics to your favorites.

eWeek has long been one of the staples of my bathroom magazine reading habit.  Imagine my delight when I saw that the cover story in the latest issue is RSS in the Enterprise.  My friends at NewsGator are prominently featured along with case studies from several of their enterprise customers.  If you’ve ever wondered why RSS in the enterprise is going to be so important and ubiquitous, this is a great place to start.

The latest episode of Wallstrip is priceless.  Lindsey Campbell discusses the titilating products that Limited Brands sells.  There’s a special guest appearance by Howard Lindzon (Wallstrip’s creator) at the end that’s a great example of crossover media.

I’m enjoying being part of the angel syndicate here – I’m learning a lot and having a great laugh almost every day. Howard – you are hot.

When I decided to give away my entry in the North Pole Marathon (now valued at approximately $12,000 inclusive of airfare) I wasn’t sure what to expect.  In 15 days, over 30 serious athletes have entered the competition.  The entry descriptions are really cool – if you want some vicarious running, go take a look at a few of them.  There’s still time to enter – please pass this on to any of your crazy runner friends.  Thanks to my buds at PixieMate for being a sponsor – if you want to join them and get some promotion for your product on the North Pole, drop me an email.

Whenever an article has the quote “it was a clusterfuck” in it, you know it’s worth reading.  While Wired’s article titled “How Yahoo Blew It”  by Fred Vogelstein is very critical, he’s got a few new nuggets in the article that I hadn’t heard before.  Yahoo has a response which ends with “We know that Yahoo! had its challenges this year and we know that we’re going to continue to take bruises publicly until Panama begins to bear fruit, but we’re here for the long haul, and we’re focused to win.”  In addition to the “build” of Panama, there continue to be big, interesting strategic moves (and challenges) for Yahoo – a few of which are highlighted by Vogelstein.  Once again, Yahoo has the chance to try to change the game – as does Microsoft – and I’d think they would each take a shot this time at being bold (rather than just follow “slow and steady execution”) if they really want to assault Google this time around.

A remarkable number of people have told me that they are watching 24 this year for the first time.  If you are now four hours into your 24 experience, let me give you a couple of tips.

• Everything is not as it seems.  Now – this might be obvious, but it’s more dramatic with 24.  Unlike some other shows where you get Lost in the story, 24 twists and turns in ways unimaginable later in the season, partly because the writers are only ten shows or so ahead at the beginning of the season.  By Hour 20, they are practically writing in real time, getting themselves trapped in corners, and magically escaping.  So – don’t assume that the next 20 hours will be on the linear course.
• Good people die – regularly.  If you just saw 9am to 10am, you learned that.  It’ll happen again – probably a couple of times.  It always sucks – sometimes it gratuitous, sometimes it’s not.  But – it always surprises you.
• Wherever Jack goes, carnage follows.  Ok – you probably know this already.  Jack has three modes: (1) introspective Jack, (2) screwed up personal life Jack, and (3) mission Jack.  So far on Day 6 we’ve seen 1 and 3 – look forward to some of 2.  Oh – and the carnage is not just physical – it’s often emotional (especially in Jack mode 2.)
• You can get anywhere in LA in 20 minutes.  Don’t struggle with this – after five years of this, we’ve learned to suspend our disbelief.
• Chloe is right.  Don’t ever question that girl.  Believe it or not, she can shoot a gun.
• CTU hasn’t figured out how to turn cell phones to vibrate.  Those damn things ring at such inopportune times.

One big hint that I learned when I spent the day on the 24 set last year was that the show is set “sometime in the future.”  When I watch 24, I think “today + 8 years” to believe all the technical stuff.  When I was on the set, I noticed all the screens showed that they were running OS 34, which was a good giveaway.  If you are a nerd and you have the desire, grab some screen shots of the monitors and zoom in – there’s often interesting stuff there.

I’ve been watching 24 since Day 1 – Hour 1.  I don’t know why I watched the first show.  I’m a pacifist and not much of a TV watcher, but I vaguely remember being intrigued with the idea of a real time show.  I was hooked from the beginning.  With the hype around Day 6 I speculated that the show had peaked.  However, after just sitting through 8am – 10am on the airplane to New York, the claws of 24 are once again in my brain. 

One last tip – if you are questioning why you are watching it, give it a few more weeks.  Historically, 24 gets really good around Hour 15.  Only 166 hours until next week’s show.

TechStars – a new project that I’m involved in – officially launched today.  The Daily Camera has a nice article titled TechStars set to rise over Boulder summarizing the basic idea of the project. 

About a year ago, David Cohen – a successful entrepreneur, now an active angel investor, and author of ColoradoStartups – approached me about an idea he had about creating a startup bootcamp in Boulder for the summer of 2007.  I immediately loved the idea – create an environment for up to about 10 teams / 30 first time founders to start up companies, give them a small amount of financing but support them extensively with an ecosystem of experienced entrepreneurs, have an intensive three month startup period, and see what comes of it.  I introduced David to Jared Polis – a close friend and extremely successful entrepreneur – who also loved the idea.  We committed quickly to co-found the program with David and his partner in his first business – David Brown.

There are a few other organizations – such as Paul Graham’s Y Combinator – that have done similar things in other parts of the country.  David studied each of these projects and talked to some of the folks involved as he crafted the idea for TechStars.  Having been through a number of iterations of the idea and plan, I’m very excited about how it has evolved and what we ended up with.  For the quick summary, take a look at the FAQ.

In addition to being an amazing place to live (not withstanding the horrible winter we have been having – I promise all the snow will be gone by the time TechStars starts), the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Boulder is awesome.  When I moved here (somewhat randomly – I followed Amy – always a wise move for a husband) in 1995, I didn’t expect to do any business here.  Imagine my surprise when I found a vibrant and experienced entrepreneurial environment – looking back 11 years later, I can say with confidence that Boulder is one of the top 10 cities in the US to start a tech company.

TechStars brings together many of the best of Boulder’s local entrepreneurs, schools and investors.  The mentor list is extensive – people like Kimbal Musk (Me.dium CEO), Mark Sawyer (@Last CEO – now owned by Google), Greg Reinacker (NewsGator founder/CTO), Todd Vernon (Lijit CEO, Raindance founder/CTO), and 20 of their closest entrepreneurial friends will be actively involved in the program.  Many of the sessions – which run several times a week from 5/21/07 to 8/16/07 – are organized around these mentors and their experiences.

Each team will get seed funding of up to $15,000.  While the seed funding is nice, the real value is the advice, mentoring, and connections provided by TechStars.  When I started my first company – Feld Technologies – in 1987, I had a few mentors which I’ve written about in the past.  However, the notion of having a summer full of concentrated mentors, surrounded by 20+ other entrepreneurs starting up their own companies, in one of the most beautiful and fun cities on the planet, blows my mind.

If you’re going to do a startup, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Consider applying and get off to a great start.  We’d love to spend the summer with you.