Sometimes the web is a hysterical place. Ryan sent me the brilliant description of The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel. I wonder if this will have any impact on Chipotle’s stock price. Also – if you were having difficulty getting access to my blog today, it apparently was a failure with the pneumatic tubes that connect my server to the Internet.

Longtime angel investor Bill Payne has a new book out called The Definitive Guide to Raising Money from Angels. I read it last week and it’s excellent – if you are looking to raise an angel round it’s worth ever dollar of the $37 that Bill charges for it. I first met Bill in the mid-1990’s when we were both working with the Kauffman Foundation for Entrepreneurial Leadership – I was an entrepreneur-in-residence and he was an executive-in-residence (both fancy titles for “consultant.”) We worked closely with Jana Matthews in her “Learning Programs for High Growth Entrepreneurs” project, were deeply involved in the YEO / Kauffman Foundation relationship, and helped with the launch of the original Entreworld site (now eVenturing.)

Last August I somehow convinced myself that I was going to run the North Pole Marathon. Fortunately around the end of the year I came to my senses and decided to give away my entry via a contest on YourRunning.com. Bobby Bostic won the contest and ran the marathon (and the first 26.2 mile North Pole bike race.) Yesterday I turned to Amy and said “well – the North Pole Marathon was today and our guy finished.” She looked at me and said “even though the weather sucks here today, aren’t you glad you aren’t at the North Pole.”

All of a sudden I’m seeing Lucene (and Nutch and Solr) being adopted by a bunch of my companies. While several have been using it for a while, it’s spreading rapidly. I’m curious about the experience folks have had with it – everyone I’ve talked to is thrilled; I’ve yet to hear from someone that said “it didn’t work for me and I decided to use ‘X’ instead.” Any feedback?

Machine Beauty by David Gelernter was phenomenal. I love the notion that a book written in 1998 should be classified as “a classic”, but given the premise of the book and the evolution of technology during the last decade, it fits this categorization perfectly. Gelernter is a professor of computer science at Yale. Machine Beauty is his treatise on the “elegance at the heart of technology.” The first third of the book is his philosophical setup; the last third is his future vision – including a description of Linda and Lifestreams. These are both fun and interesting.

I wrote a post on March 12th titled Daylight Savings Time is Stupid. A bunch of people agreed with me, but some didn’t, suggesting that (a) I was missing the point and it was more fun to have light at night than in the morning or (b) the “authorities” insisted that we’d get GDP gains, (c) there would be big energy savings helping save the world, and (d) restaurants and stores would make more money due to sunny night shopping. Oh – and I also learned DST = daylight saving time, not “savings.” 

Exactly 20,000 miles. What numerical fun!

I got a note yesterday from David Abramson – an MBA student at Stanford – about The Cool Product Expo which is taking place from noon to 6pm on Wednesday (April 11th) at the Arrillaga Alumni Center (326 Galvez Street) at Stanford. Admission and parking is free – the event sounds very cool. Following is a description. The Cool Product Expo is an annual exposition celebrating innovative technologies and product design. An attendee walking through the Expo will encounter exciting demonstrations by budding startups, global manufacturers, local design studios, and university research projects. It is a great opportunity to learn about the latest technology advances, as well as interact with successful entrepreneurs and industry leaders.

My partner Chris Wand is finally blogging (even though he’ll deny it) over at AsktheVC – he’s writing a series on what should be in a “board reporting package.” My long-time friend Will Herman – who happens to be hanging out in Boulder this week making the rounds (and getting his bike fitted – whatever that means) – inadvertantly contributed with his post titled Communicating with Your Board: Sales Numbers. Will’s post covers some good ground – I can’t tell you the number of times a clear sales report is missing from a board package. It’s even worse when there is a sales report, but given the fact that I attend N board meetings a year (where N is a large number) the CEO doesn’t create any linkage to historical performance, current expectations or the plan. Great stuff.