In 2008 I was invited by Pamela Samuelson, who I met through several Silicon Flatiron events, to be on an advisory board at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. I attended the one meeting that we had and a subsequent symposium and wrote about it in the post Entrepreneurial Companies and the Patent System. As with most things like this, I found it fascinating, stimulating, and frustrating all at the same time and hoped that I’d contributed something useful to the discussion.

This week’s special guest are Jeff Clavier from SoftTech VC and Rob Hayes from First Round Capital. Among other things, you get to hear Jeff define the Three Asses Rule and Rob explain what happens after you finish the TechStars program. As a special bonus, there’s a cute clip of me near the end watching the incredible record tennis match between Isner and Mahut. And some funny running footage. And a glider. And Ari Newman and how sandpaper and rubbing alcohol intersect with the fundraising process.

I got a note from Nivi, the creator of AngelList, over the weekend saying that he’d put up a special page for angel investors in Boulder. He’s looking for the local Boulder angels to add their names to the list. Gang – let’s get ’em up – if you are an angel investor and based in the Boulder area, sign up! There’s been an enormous about of blog and news chatter about angel investors, especially seed investors and the emergence of super angel / micro VCs, in the past few months. I’m a huge fan and supporter of the super angel / micro VC phenomenon and have watched with delight as it has built momentum.

While I still don’t have my jetpack, I do have my picturephone. I was four when the AT&T PicturePhone appeared on the scene. This dude went through a lot of iterations over the year – my favorite is in this Western Electric ad. This morning as I was drinking my coffee, waking up, and trying to get motivated to go running in the rain (I think I’ll go swim instead), my dad called on Skype. I answered and we had a nice video chat. I heard about my mom’s newly rediscovered Corvette lust (go mom!) and the hike they were going to do. I saw the study in my Keystone house where they are staying which made me smile. And then I said a quick hello to my mom.

Last week there was a kerfuffle over Standing Cloud’s use of the Papyrus font for their logo. It was kind of cute and endearing and my pals at Standing Cloud reacted with appropriate contrition over offending the font police. Today I came across a brilliant McSweeney article (thanks to @daveschappell) on Comic Sans titled I’m Comic Sans, Asshole. My wife Amy is sitting next to me as I type this laughing her ass off. As a special bonus, our friend Comic Sans makes fun of Bauhaus and then goes and parties with Papyrus.

Eric Ries is this week’s guest star on The Founders. Eric is an incredible speaker and is traveling the world on a mission to help people stop wasting other people’s time. If you don’t follow Eric’s thoughts on Lean Startups on his blog Lessons Learned, you should. You get a little taste of the shift Omniar is making while they wander around the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art along with a surprise birthday party for David Cohen at The Lazy Dog on a beautiful Boulder evening. And a few special bonus visitors. And some great shots of Boulder in the summertime. I love Homer but I’m starting to miss Boulder.

Well my Mac experiment is going extremely well. I’m not sure I remember how to use a Windows PC, nor am I sure why I’d want to. I’m using a Mac that is at least a year old (2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB RAM) so I’m not even tuned to the max but I’m absolutely loving the overall experience. As so many people have told me, “shit just works.” And so far, whenever I’ve had a problem, I’ve been able to quickly find the answer with a Google search (e.g. “three pane mail view in Mac Mail” – two choices: WideMail or LetterBox).

When my partners and I started Foundry Group, one of our key principles was to be “theme-based investors.” At the time the phrase “theme” wasn’t being used in VC-land so we got to make up what it meant, at least for us. We decided that a theme was a “broadly horizontal technology area that would have dramatic impact and opportunity over the next 10+ years.” (see Jason Mendelson’s post titled What Is Thematic Investing for a deeper explanation.)

I’m extremely excited that Senator Mark Udall (D-CO), the senior senator for Colorado, has signed on as a co-sponsor of The Startup Visa Act of 2010 that was originally proposed by Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lugar (R-IN). Senator Udall joins his Colorado colleague in the House, Jared Polis (D-CO), who has proposed Startup Visa legislation as part of his EB-5 reform bill. In addition, our friends at SVB Financial (the parent of Silicon Valley Bank) have also formally endorsed the Startup Visa. My partner Jason Mendelson wrote a post about a roundtable that Silicon Valley Bank hosted for members of “the new Democrat Coalition” which included Jared Polis. Shortly after this meeting, SVB formally endorsed the Startup Visa.