Alaska picture of the day.
New West Network just started up an Aspen-based blog. If you are a fan of Aspen (and I know a bunch of you New Yorkers out there are because I can’t manage to get a reservation in any of the good restaurants there at Christmas-time without pulling strings), take a look. Aspen joins the other New West sites for Missoula, Boulder, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque / Santa Fe, and Northern Idaho. There’s nothing up for Homer Alaska yet, but maybe I can convince Jonathan to come visit.
My friends Don and Christine Springer went bear watching today (I stayed home and worked – Brad is a dull boy.) They took a float plane from Smokey Bear Air in Homer to the Alaska Homestead Lodge (45 minutes away). We did the trip last year and had a great time with the hosts – James and Shelia Isaak. Pictures follow:
The Flight
Real Alaska Mountains
The Bear (Yes – It’s Close)
I’m lucky. I get to live in two beautiful places: Homer, AK and Eldorado Springs, CO (I like to say I live in Boulder because people know where it is, but we actually live in Eldo.) We live in Alaska part of the year because I have to get away from the hustle and bustle of Eldo / Boulder to think straight.
In addition to our nation’s 229th birthday, it was Eldorado Springs’ 100th birthday today. I’ll get back to writing about serious stuff like venture capital, but for now, happy birthday Eldo.
Amy and I arrived in Homer today. Yippee. Everything in the house works except the hot water. Oops. Guess we’ll have to figure that out tomorrow. Following is the view from my living room at 10pm.
I love a good bathroom. When I look at office space, the bathroom is one of the first places I check out, as it can tell you all kinds of things about the place you are at. I’ve been trying for over five years to get a bathroom at MIT named after me in exchange for a financial donation (some people name buildings – my aspirations are much more (im)modest.)
Chris Wand sent me a copy of the page from the June Wallpaper* Magazine with their top 10 list in the world. If you find yourself in any of these cities, take a pit stop to check it out.
I’ll be in Seattle next week so I expect a trip to the Seattle Public Library is in order.
Last week, I wrote about Amy and my trip to the Kentucky Derby. Amy just put up a short post about it and 174 awesome photos for those of you that are Derby fans, love horses, or just want to see me in a silver grey window pain plaid of mint and cream Canali jacket.
I surprised Amy with a trip to the Kentucky Derby. She’s a horse lover (I’ve yet to met a girl that doesn’t at least like horses) and – while I know how to spell Derby – she can recite the history of not just the 131 Run for the Roses but can gracefully explain the meaning of “Lilies for the Fillies” (hint – the day before the Derby is called the Kentucky Oaks and is all about girl horses.
The Kentucky Derby was an amazing event. I’ve heard it called the most exciting two minutes in sports, but it had a multi-day windup that was on par with The Super Bowl. I showed up late Friday night and Amy had already had three days of partying and one day of horse racing (there’s that Oaks / girl horse thing again.) Derby day started early – we left the hotel at 9am and got to Churchill Downs at 10ish in time for race 3 (of 12 – although the Derby was number 10 and we – along with everyone but the jockeys and owners of the horses in races 11 and 12 – left after race 10.) Race 10 ended at 6:15 – we were back at the hotel at 8pm for a solid 11 hours of horses, sun, 100,000 people, and lots of food and alcohol everywhere. Someone told me $1 billion traded hands yesterday – wow.
The entire spectrum of America was there. Everything – you describe it – we could have found it. I’d never been to a horse track before so now I know more then I really want to about automated “wagering” machines, how odds pay out, what an “obstruction” is (my horse won race 4 but ended up showing because he bumped the horse that placed – but because I had bet my horse to show or better, I still got my payout.)
You get the picture – lots of details that were – before yesterday – completely foreign to me. Amy – along with 25,000 other women – had these incredible hats on – and the horses were – BIG.
I’m still scared of horses, but I can notch off another unique life experience. The Indy 500 is next. And yes – I was down for the day.
A few months ago I bitched about my experience with the TSA at the San Jose Airport. Today, I got to see a picture of two penguins being ushered through security by the TSA folks at DIA. Brilliant.