Things I Like

Early this morning I saw an email from Dave that pointed me at a giant bundle of happiness. Bryan Cranston Will Bring Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams to Series So – let’s go through all the parts of awesomeness of this. First, Philip K. Dick is one of my favorite sci-fi writers. One summer, about five or so years ago, I bought every PKD book I could find in paperback (almost all of them.) I started reading them from first to last. I’ve gotten through about half of them and have sporadically read others. He gets some things so totally right and others so completely wrong. It’s delicious. ...

I’ll be at CES from Wednesday to Friday. I went for many years, punted for the past few years, but decided to go again this year. Techstars runs a big program called the Startup Stage that has three days of programming. It also co-hosts Eureka Park, at the Sands, Level 1, Hall G which is a collection of around 600 startups. I’ll be hanging out there when I’m not walking to CES floor, which typically takes me a day. ...

There are two great fictional TV series about technology and the computer industry that each have now had three seasons. The one everyone knows about is Silicon Valley . The lessor known one is Halt and Catch Fire . They are both dynamite but for different reasons. And, after three years and some reflection on my part, HCF decimates Silicon Valley (which is mostly a challenge to my friends who have writing credits .) ...

It’s always a fun experience to be laying on the couch next to my wife Amy watching something on our 90″ TV when suddenly she grabs the remote, says “that’s awesome”, rewinds, and plays it again. It’s especially humbling when it has to do with grammar. We’ve both been fans of Stannis Baratheon and regularly refer to him as the one true king when we talk about him. As in “Stannis The One True King.” Two weeks ago, Stannis demonstrated that he’s also the Lord of Grammar. ...

2007 was only 8 years ago. Back then, you could see VCs everywhere tapping away on the Blackberry keyboards. If you don’t believe me, I have video evidence of it from Fred Wilson, Bijan Sabet, Roger Ehrenberg, and Howard Lindzon. If you, like me, have been grinding along on email and phone calls all day and need a back to the future type of laugh, I think this will do it for you.

I was with my close friend Jerry Colonna for dinner last week. We sat outside at the Boulder Teahouse , our favorite place to eat together, and shared a meal, some heavy conversation, and some love. I love Jerry. I learn something every time I’m with him. He’s one of the first VCs I ever worked with and is my favorite other than my Foundry Group partners. We both struggled openly with depression. I think we have helped each other, and many others, through our openness. I consider him one of my closest friends. ...

This morning’s question during my Headspace meditation session was “Who or what would you miss the most if you weren’t here.” Over the last few months, my meditation practice has been spotty. Something indeterminate happened and I just fell out of the routine. I’ve been told by my meditating friends that this happens often and not to worry about it, but rather just to start practicing again when you feel like it. ...

We’ve all got to start somewhere. Over the weekend my mom gave me a CD with the recording of my first known live interview. I’ve tossed it up on SoundCloud for your listening pleasure. This recording was done by KERA, our Dallas-based public radio and TV station when I was four. It was for a video segment on a painting I had done that showed on Channel 13 (our public TV station.) My mom hasn’t been able to find the video so the audio will have to do. ...

Lots of people get married on the summer solstice. To all of them – including those getting married today – congrats and welcome to the club! It’s a particularly sweet club on your 21st anniversary if you are a numerophile, which is a word that Amy and I just made up that describes people who love numbers. And blackjack. And Dragons. And Daenerys – what a serious badass she is. And Arya also. But I digress. Can you tell that we recently figured out how to watch the Game of Thrones season finale up in Homer? ...

I had my first good run in over two months. It was only 3.2 miles, but the weather was perfect and I felt great. On March 30th, I ran 12.2 miles. It was a horrible run – I couldn’t breathe well from the beginning of the run. We’d just gotten back from a week of vacation in Mexico and I’d done 27 miles in the past five days. It was my third to last week of training before the Boston Marathon and I was planning on capping off a heavy week with a 15+ miles. After 12.2 miles, covered in a snail like pace of over 2:42:00, I called it quits. When I got home, I laid down on the ground to stretch and immediately couldn’t breathe. As in – not at all – zero oxygen getting in. After 15 seconds, I panicked and realized that if I didn’t figure out what was going on in the next 30 seconds I was going to be in serious trouble. I sat up and managed to choke down some air. After stabilizing, I told Amy what was going on. She tossed me in the car and drove me to urgent care, where I learned about bronco spasms and what a nebulizer was. ...