Entrepreneurship requires serious determination. So does life. My friend Andy’s story of his dad’s fractured back reminded me of my favorite story about my dad’s dad. My grandpa Jack was the first entrepreneur I knew. I met him when I was a few days old. While I loved him and played with him a lot as a kid, I really got to know him when I was a teenager. By the time I was running my first company, he referred to me (and my uncle Charlie – who was running his first company at the time also) as “the Typhoons.” Jack was awesome. Following is an example.

David Cohen – who writes the ColoradoStartups blog among other things – came up with a fun idea for a podcast series last week. He’s going to do a “Virtual Board of Directors” podcast – starring me, him, and Niel Robertson – to answer questions that you (the entrepreneur) might have for a board of directors. If you have a question, call (720) 274–0945. While we won’t be giving any legal (or “official”) advice, hopefully we can have some fun with this while answering some questions.

A few of my portfolio companies are looking for superstar Java developers. If you think you fit the bill, send me an email with your resume and I’ll forward it on. Serious Java developers only.

As a kid, one of the comic strips I read every day was Family Circus. It was almost always simple, yet brilliant. Thanks to my friend Bruce, I now have The Nietzsche Family Circus whenever I want.

Are you thinking about selling your company? David Shanberg – who I worked with when I was an investor in PeoplePC and he ran corporate development – has a nice series up about M&A due diligence. He covers: What you should expect How you can protect your confidential info while moving the process forward More on moving the process forward Looking out for warning signs David’s now running his own M&A shop and has some interesting clients.

My dad has gotten involved in a Dirty Coal plant issue in Texas. The environmental issues are directly linked to the health care issues and – as usual – he’s direct, articulate, and deeply engaging about the issue. Very cool Dad! I knew you’d eventually become an environmental activist.

Ok – this is superbly cool (at least I think so.) WebEx just put up an “activity map” showing the real-time location of all the active WebEx conferences. This uses the Quova GeoPoint technology and is a very visual real-time example of how this works.

Several of the bright bulbs at Judy’s Book put together a Holiday Store Guide for online shopping. They’ve got detailed shipping info by store (do you do your shopping on 12/21 – there are still a bunch of places you can get expedited shipping), return policies (c’mon – you know you are going to get some crap you want to return), and the best holiday deals. Since I’m jewish, I get to avoid all the nonsense with a big, fat “bah humbug”, but at least I’m funding a company that is helping shoppers around the Internet this holiday season.

My partner Greg Galanos forwarded me a great article from the Philadelphia Inquirer titled “The Economy Revealed: Why understanding economics is hard” that builds on the more difficult to digest but equally interesting essay / research by Alan Page Fiske titled “The Inherent Sociability of Homo sapiens.” Fiske’s theory is based on the conclusion that all human relationships are built from four types of interactions: communal sharing, equality matching, authority ranking, and market pricing. In Fiske’s theory, these four building blocks (which he calls “relationship models”) result in the entire range of the very complex and diverse social life of humans.