I’m really proud of my Congressman Jared Polis. Jared was one of the first people I met when I moved to Colorado in 1995 (we met in early 1996) and have been good friends ever since. Jared has a great article about his first few weeks in Congress up on the CNN website titled Commentary: Congress is like going back to college. There’s also a fun video. Jared – you look very serious in that suit and tie.

I watched Rafael Nadal play two incredible matches at the Australian Open over the weekend. In the semifinals, he defeated Fernando Verdasco in a 5 hour and 14 minute match 6-7(4) 6-4 7-6(2) 6-7(1) 6-4. He returned to the court a little over 40 hours later and defeated Roger Federer 7-5 3-6 7-6(3) 3-6 6-2 in a match lasting 4 hours and 23 minutes. If you are a tennis player, you know this is an amazing physical and emotional achievement.

Slice of Lime is looking to for Flash/Flex/PHP designer who is also a programmer at heart. If this is you, apply now!

Rocky Radar has a great schedule of a bunch of entrepreneurial events happening from 2/2 – 2/9 in and around Boulder. I’ve been getting lots of questions lately from people recently asking “how do I get involved in the Boulder entrepreneurial scene” – the short answer is “show up!” I’m participating in a couple of the events this week. Tuesday @ 5pm: Feld on Finance, Wolf Law, Boulder: Phil Weiser, professor at CU Law and the head of the Silicon Flatirons program, will be interviewing me on finance (aka “whatever questions Phil feels like asking me.”) Tuesday @ 6:30pm: New Tech Meetup, Wolf Law, CU-Boulder: I’m going to participate in this month’s New Tech Meetup. I’ll be doing Q&A on VC / financing for as long as Robert Reich chooses to keep me on stage. Sunday @ 9:45am: The Digital Broadband Migration, Wolf Law, CU Boulder: The Internet’s Challenge to Policymakers – part of the Silicon Flatiron program “The Digital Broadband Migration: Imagining the Internet’s Future” Also, this month’s Boulder Open Coffee Club is happening on Tuesday 2/3 at 8am at The Cup. I can’t make it because I’ve got a board meeting at StillSecure, but there’s always a good crowd (and some great coffee).

Venture Capital in the Rockies (VCIR) is the key annual Venture Capital / Entrepreneurship conference in the Rocky Mountain Region. It’s held in late February / early March each year; this year it’s happening from March 3 to March 5th at Beaver Creek. There’s a full day of keynotes, presentations, and networking, along with two good nights of networking and partying, and a full day of skiing (followed by a party).

I view it as a good thing when people start writing about solutions rather than problems. Here are several good ones for you today. Remain Aggressive: Will Herman is a long time friend (we’ve known each other since 1984), a fantastic CEO, and a dynamite board member. He’s also a huge Patriots fan so his Belichick quote: “If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse” is expected. He also reminds us of the old Warren Buffet standard: “Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.” If you are a CEO, read carefully.

I weigh 209.4 this morning. That’s down from 220 when I Declared A Jihad on My Weight on 10/27/08 although it doesn’t look like I’ll make my Anti-Charity goal of 200 by 1/31/09 (more on that in a post on 2/1/09). I was thinking about my weight this morning as I entered it into the online system at GoWear. I thought about it again when I entered it into Gyminee. And then into Daytum. I’m going for a run in a little while so I’ll enter it again into TrainingPeaks. 

I received the following email earlier this week from an exec at a company that I am on the board of. He sent it out to his entire company. I thought it clearly described the different between panic and urgency and explains why – in a business context – panic is useless, but urgency is critical. I don’t think I could have said this better if I had tried. In recent weeks, many of my business contacts have discussed the economy and the pressure we are all feeling on a daily basis. They all have a sense of pressure. I am sure many of you can relate. If you are not feeling the pressure these days, then you may want to step outside or turn on the TV, or read a newspaper.

Two weeks ago, one of the companies I’m on the board of – Rally Software – announced that they have acquired a company called 6th Sense Analytics. I’ve been involved in Rally since the very beginning and it has been incredibly rewarding to see them grow from an idea that the founder/CTO Ryan Martens had to the market leader in Agile application lifecycle management. Rally updates quarterly their “by the numbers page” which gives a nice overview of the scale of Rally.