If you do a search via any of the rapidly expanding Lijit search wijits, you’ll discover that it is now recommending me as an expert on the search term “wife.” 

I haven’t decided which is more disconcerting – that Lijit thinks I’m an expert on “wife” (I’ll leave that up to Amy to weigh in on) or that I’m slightly ahead of someone named “bitemycookie.” (Thanks David.)

I had lunch with Bijan Sabet at Spark Capital today on my way to the airport in Boston.  We met at his office at 137 Newbury Street.  I recognized the address and had a feeling it was the same building that one of my very first Feld Technologies clients – IHRDC – used to be located in. 

Not only was it the same building, but I’m pretty sure the floor Spark is on (8th) is the same floor that IHRDC was on (I remember them being on 7 and 8.)  Since that was 20 years ago, I’m not 100% sure, but I got goosebumps when I walked into the front door of the building and remembered the elevator placement. 

It’s funny what gets lodged in the brain.  The view from Spark’s conference room was strangely familiar – I remember looking out Joe Shandling, Dave Donohue, Jim Marchiori, and Jerry Whatwashislastname’s windows at the same view.  We spent a lot of time with IHRDC and I hope if anyone is still around they remember us as good guys who worked hard for them.  Queue Twilight Zone music.

Bijan fed me my typical lunch salad (something a rabbit could appreciate) while we talked through a bunch of things that we have both been thinking about.  I strongly believe that you can be an effective early stage investor without being located physically next to your companies (I’ve always been a national investor) and Spark’s portfolio distribution (mostly outside of Massachusetts) is consistent with this.  We are both fascinated with Twitter (that’s how we connected for this lunch – he saw last night that I had Twittered that I was in Boston) although in a “here’s what we’d really benefit from” sort of way.  APIs and semantic information came up.  We wondered where Lotus had gone (and if Google is going to be the new Lotus for Cambridge).  We whined a little that the MyBlogLog guys sold to Yahoo instead of doing a deal with us and Fred.  We talked about where Lijit is going and why his “Sophia problem” will be solved soon.  And – a couple of other top secret private no-bloggable things. 

Bijan – thanks for lunch and the hospitality – the Diet A&P was great and it was a trip to hang out on the 8th floor of 137 Newbury Street after 20 years.

A few weeks ago, Ben Casnocha showed up in Boulder to spend three months with us.  I’ve gotten to know Ben over the past four years after having been introduced to him by Greg Prow as “hey Brad – you’ve got to meet this guy Ben – I bet he’ll remind you of you when you were his age.”  Having known Ben for four years, all I can say is that I fantasize about having been as together at 18 as Ben is today. 

Ben’s working on a number of projects for us in Boulder during Q1 including TechStars and NCWIT.  He’s also spending lots of time getting to know the entrepreneurs in many of our Boulder-based companies, plug into the entrepreneurial scene, spend time finishing up getting his book out the door, learning how to really live alone in and apartment, enjoying snow for the first time in his life (ok – that was a stretch), and generally continuing to have amazingly unique experiences for an 18 year old as he gets ready to head off to college in the fall.

If you are in Boulder and don’t know Ben, but are part of the entrepreneurial scene and want to get connected with him, just drop me a note and I’ll make an introduction.

On my run today, I listened to a hilarious podcast from Chris Pirillo and and his wife Ponzi.  The first fifteen minutes topped Jon Stewart on the hysterical meter as Chris makes every “husband mistake” in the book around cleaning dishes, cooking, and laundry.  Chris – two words passed down to me from my grandfather: “Yes Dear.”  And – do NOT criticize her cooking.  Finally, when she starts talking about her hair, don’t forget to say “Darling, it’s amazing – you’ve had two perfect haircuts in a row.”  Chris and Ponzi are clearly having fun – the subtext of it all is that she’s got him completely handled.