Paul Allen (of Microsoft fame) has put up a web site for his collection of Digital Equipment Corporation mainframes and minicomputers.  The collection has a real history, some pretty pictures, and the ability to telnet to a DECsystem-10 or an XKL Toad-1 and actually use them.  Serious cool nerd factor.

The whole world knows that Apple officially announced it’s first Intel-based products today.  Simultaneously, Apple stock closed at a price of $80.86 (it has traded up to $81.89 in the aftermarket, but that doesn’t count.)  I once had a Compaq Deskpro with an Intel 8086 microprocessor.  What a delicious number trick – I wonder how Jobs got Nasdaq to clear the final trade of the day at $80.86.

Ah – 24 Season 5 starts on Sunday.  To celebrate (and warm up), we are planning having a 24 party starting Friday night.  We’ll toss the first disk from Season 1 in at 6pm and go until we crash and then start up the next morning at 8am and try to finish things off before the Broncos game starts.  Fortunately, my brother Daniel found a drinking game for 24 – at least we’ll have some assistance.

Eric Norlin emailed me an old VC joke that I thought I’d start your day off with.  I put it in the category of “it’s an oldy, but a goody.”

A fisherman owns a boat and is running a nice fishing business with it. He meets a venture capitalist who promptly offers to invest in the man’s business.

Fisherman: “Why would I want you to invest?”

VC: “Well, with my capital you can buy a second boat and double the size of your business.”

Fisherman: “And why would I want to do that?”

VC: “Because eventually you’ll grow your business so large that you’ll end up selling it and making a big wad of cash.”

Fisherman: “You mean, so that I’ll be able to retire down here and buy a boat?”

Hopefully Aesop isn’t turning over in his grave.

My sister-in-law Laura just introduced me to PalmArt.  Her friend Rob Davenport is one of the featured artists in their gallery.  Super cool stuff.

As we start 2006, I thought it’d be fun to revisit my endless rant on PowerPoint as a hint and reminder to everyone that has to interact with me this year.

We start with The Torturous World of PowerPoint and Chris Wand’s list of questions to address if you are insisting on presenting a PowerPoint presentation pitching a company to me.  Seth Godin has a Special Bonus Tactic for Avoiding Really Bad PowerPoint in his book Free Prize Inside.  Cliff Atkinson has a great blog on PowerPoint and a suggestion to simply Ban Bullets (or at least not read them to me if you insist on having them.)  Finally Ted Dolotta sent me a PowerPoint presentation that – if Lincoln had used – would have easily prolonged the Civil War by at least a decade.

Guy Kawasaki has a new blog and he starts with his own – very useful – rant on PowerPoint which he defines as the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint.  Based on what Guy has done in the past, his blog will definitely be worth following if you are an entrepreneur.

Amazingly, I’ve lived in Colorado for 10 years and haven’t ever gone snowshoeing.  Since I lost my Pilates virginity this week, I figured I’d try a second kind of cross-training in two days.  Dave Jilk took me up Long’s Peak Trail to try to get above treeline.  I strapped on my brand new MSR Denali Ascent Snowshoe (awesome snowshoes) and took off after Dave.  I settled into a groove in about 30 minutes – it was a completely different motion than trail running or hiking (if you’ve ever snowshoed, then you know what I mean when I say “hip flexors of the world unite.”) 

We ultimately got up to about 10750 feet before we were overwhelmed by 80+ mph gusts, the complete inability to see anything, and brutal cold bursts.  We didn’t quite make treeline, but we still got wild views of Meeker and Twin Sisters.  We turned around and hoofed it back, happy to be going downhill and get out of the wind.  We celebrated our success with a stop on our way home at Royal Wok in Lyons for some spectacularly appropriate chinese food in the middle of nowhere.

Enough cross-training – time to go for my run – although it won’t be the long one that I had planned because my entire body is sore and tired in weird places from the past two days (I ran on Pilates day also, so that probably added to my general feeling of overwhelming physical fatigue.)

Every good marathoner knows he should cross-train.  Most of the ones I know struggle with “cramming it in” as marathon training already consumes at least ten hours a week.  Triathletes have it easy since they are already running, biking, and swimming (although they should cross-train away from these three also.)  But – I’m a marathoner – not a triathlete – so I carry a special cross-training burden.

My wife Amy is a yoga fanatic.  While I love Shivasina, I have trouble keeping up with most yoga, especially Ashtanga Yoga.  At the encouragement of Dave Jilk, I’ve done Bikram Yoga on and off for the last few years and – while it’s been helpful – I find the 90 minute sessions a little long (30 minutes, to be precise) and I’ve gotten bored of the rigidity of the practice.

Amy has suggested for a while that I try Pilates.  Wendy Lea has become completely addicted to Pilates and has been raving about it for the past year.  The Pilates equipment (a “reformer”) looks like something a mad scientist created.  I figured “what the hell” and decided to try it yesterday.

I took a private lesson at Flatiron Athletic Club. I had an awesome time.  It helped that my teacher was great, but I was completely intrigued by the assistance the reformer gives you.  There’s a lot of physics going on that help achieve the second order goal of “body mind connection” (e.g. a nerd gets to think a lot about what he’s doing.)  I’ve got three more private lessons before I’m “allowed” to take a class – we’ll see how I feel about this in a few weeks.  In the mean time, I had a new life experience yesterday (e.g. Pilates) and got some cross-training in. 

Spam, Haiku and You
Delicious, scary, nasty
Funny short movie

Thanks Alex, Matt, and Chris