Amy has a magnificent photo of her old Mercedes CLK55 on fire up on her blog.  This apparently complements the thrill she got from driving 120 mph in my SL55 tonight on her way home.  And – yes – Mercedes did the right thing and eventually replaced her car (that’s a long story for another time) and my car appeared to still be in one piece when she parked it in the driveway tonight.

The second time Greg Reinacker and I got together, we had a nice three hour dinner and covered a wide range of topics.  One of them was that he loved to race cars.  As we were heading back to my office from dinner to pick up his car, I tossed him my keys and said “have at it.”  It was a spectacular Boulder early summer evening (80 degrees, zero humidity, clear sky, bright moon), we put the top down, and he took off on Highway 36.  Within 10 seconds I grabbed onto my door handle and looked over at the speedometer – 130–something.  I think I said something like “holy shit, Greg.”  I vividly remember him turning his head slightly – as he kept his foot on the gas – and giving me an amazingly silly grin.

Note to self: Do NOT let Amy and Greg get in a car together.

At lunch today (sushi) with Amy and my two nephews, the song “Fish Heads” suddenly inserted itself in my head.  No one at the table remembered it, but the waitress did and we struggled through the chorus together.  I whipped out my trusty T-Mobile Sidekick and googled “Fish Head Song.”  Voila – lyrics:

Chorus
Fish heads fish heads
Roly poly fish heads
Fish heads fish heads
Eat them up
Yum
(Repeat Chorus)
In the morning laughing happy fish heads
In the evening floating in the soup
(Chorus)
Ask a fish head anything you want to
They won’t answer they can’t talk
(Chorus)
I took a fish head out to see a movie
Didn’t have to pay to get it in
(Chorus)
They can’t play baseball they don’t wear sweaters
They’re not good dancers they don’t play drums
(Chorus)
Roly poly fish heads are never seen
Drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants
with Oriental women
Yeah.
(Chorus)
(Repeat Chorus 2X)
(Repeat Chorus a capella)
Yeah

This was from Barnes & Barnes’ debut album (yeah – huge success those Barnes & Barnes guys).  Dr. Demento (remember him all you 40 year olds – well – he’s still around) claims it was the all time most requested song on his show.  Yum.  Yeah.

Sorry for the multiple posts – I was trying a new posting editor and it was an unhappy experience.

Royal Farros is has now joined the swelling ranks of Microsoft bloggers.  Microsoft bought Royal’s company (MessageCast – which we were investors in) a month ago.  Royal has been a long time friend and collegue – he was my partner Heidi Roizen’s business partner in their first business (T/Maker – thanks for the clip art Royal) and then we backed his previous company iPrint. 

Royal is endlessly delightful, insightful, and often – as Amy (my partially Irish wife) would say – full of the ole St. Nick.  He was on the receiving end this year as Heidi pulled one of the greatest ever April Fools Day jokes on Royal this year – it’ll be echoing in the halls for many years to come.  Let’s just say that since the MessageCast deal closed in mid-April there was a linkage between the April Fools Day joke and Royal’s soon to be future (and now current) employment at Microsoft.

MessageCast (and Royal) totally get blogging and RSS – so look for some good stuff from him about what he and Microsoft are up to.  Plus – Royal’s got the mind of a maturing Jedi Knight when it comes to the software industry, as witnessed by the following recent post on his blog from a speech he just gave at an OMMA panel:

For years, I would say, “I’m Royal Farros and my company, MessageCast, does real-time alerting.”  I found myself blurting out my standard opening… but stumbled as I remember I’m now Microsoft.  I recovered by saying:  “I used to say that we did real-time alerting… but now that we’re Microsoft, I guess we pretty much do just about everything in the entire world!”  That’s another thing you can’t say everyday, eh?

 Royal – dude – can you send me one of those cool Microsoft Office T-Shirts?

The recent article from New York’s Hometown Connection (NY Daily News) titled “Nerds make better lovers” made the rounds at my shop on Friday.  I noticed this morning that it is one of “Latest Buzz” links highlighted on NewsGator Online.  It warmed my heart to have confirmation from a highly reputable newspaper.  Amy was very pleased that her choice have been validated.

Matt Blumberg – the CEO of Return Path – has a great post up on “Shifting Gears.”  I get to work with some awesome entrepreneurs – Matt is one of them.  As I shift gears from five months of “heads down, obsessive, non-stop work and travel” to “summer”, his post really rang true.

I’m a marginal conductor, but a pretty good fundraiser for the Boulder Philharmonic.  Fortunately Gregory Walker – the Boulder Phil’s concertmaster (the first violin for those of you like me that didn’t know what a concertmaster was) keeps the Boulder Phil on beat whenever I’m conducting.  Since Gregory has always made me look good, it was very easy for me and my friend Howard Diamond (who – among other things – owns a jazz record label) to support Gregory’s efforts to record a version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons using an electronic violin.  I just found out that Newport Classic is going to produce the CD – congrats to Gregory!

Amy and I have a large collection of contemporary art (if you’ve ever been to my office, our house, Mobius’s California office, or The Nature Conservancy building in Boulder, you’ll get a feel for what we collect.)  Much of my love for art was inspired by my mom – the artist.  I’m always super proud of her whenever she has a show.  If you are in Mesquite, TX (near Dallas) between June 1 and July 7 and are into art, go check out her new show at the Mesquite Arts Center. 

Following is Echos 2 by 2 as a preview.  The show is a collection of work she’s done using a solarplate etching process. The show – called In A Different Light – is inspired by the notion that “to see a detail is to see one kind of reality.  Allusions to natural forms through lines, shapes, textures and colors shift that reality toward abstraction, a different kind of reality.  Light playing across forms, lines suggesting the edges where objects meet and the spaces in between objects create the abstract image.” 

For those of you that like to read about entrepreneurship and venture capital from a VC’s perspective, three younger VC’s have recently started blogging.

Will Price: Will is a Senior Vice President at Pequot Ventures.  Last month I led a financing for Klocwork which Pequot had originally spun out of Nortel and have been working with Will and Karen White on the company.  Will and I have plenty of two degree of separation action – he used to work with Seth Levine (who works for me at Mobius) at Morgan Stanley and my first company (Feld Technologies) was bought by Will’s boss at Pequot, Jerry Poch (Jerry and I have had a few monster hits together – including Service Metrics – along with some crummy failures – can anyone say Guggenheim.com (Rex – stop snickering)). 

David Beisel: David is an associate at Masthead Venture Partners.  They led the recent round in NewsGator.  David has been working with me, Seth, and Rich Levandov on the company.

Charlie O’Donnell: Charlie is an analyst for Union Square Ventures.  While I haven’t yet worked with Charlie, I’d met him a few times when he was at GM Asset Management (they are one of our LPs) and I’ve worked closely with Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures on a number of companies, including Return Path.

You’ll definitely get a different perspective on the venture capital business through the eyes of this younger crowd (god – it’s scary that I’m now part of the “older crowd”.)  Welcome guys.

For all you 24 fans out there, Jason pointed me the 24: Season 4 Life Expectancy Chart.  Priceless.  Of course, if you aren’t a 24 fan YET, you can get started in – well – 24 hours – with 24 – Season One.  And – if you are a real masochist, try out 24 – Season Two and 24 – Season Three over Memorial Day weekend – you can take your time and watch 48 hours over three days.

To demonstrate how truly committed I am to the cause, I managed to convince Amy to let me change our flight time on Monday from Chicago to Washington DC so we could get there in time to watch the grand finale live.