I was at lunch last week with a friend and his business partner – my friend is an ex-technology VC who is now running an interesting blend of a public / private technology-focused hedge fund. Both my friend and his partner are technology savvy, reasonably current on what is going on, but focused more on the gap in public / private valuations (especially among small-cap tech companies) than on new software innovation.

Amy and I have been supporters of KidsTek for the past several years, even since we were introduced to it by Pat Maley when he was the CEO of Dante Group (Mobius was an investor / I was on the board.) Amy and I are big supporters of education – especially in Colorado – and when Pat described the KidsTek mission to me, it was a no-brainer. KidsTek works closely with Colorado youth (ages K-12) service providers in underserved communities to provide the keys to successful technology education, including:

I just stumbled upon an outstanding presentation that Tom Coates (who writes plasticbag.org) gave last week at the Future of Web Apps conference. In addition to being excellent content, it’s short, sweet, and graphical. Thanks Andre for sending it to me.

While I was on vacation, I got an email from someone much more “in the know” than I am that it is highly unlikely that the final 409A regulations will be finalized in time for them to be effective by 1/1/07. Daniel Hogans – attorney-advisor in the Treasury Office of Tax Policy – stated during a speech at the American Law Institute-American Bar Association’s meeting last week that the proposed regulations’ effective date of Jan. 1, 2007, is “increasingly unworkable at this point.” People can “reasonably expect to see additional guidance” on the effective date issue. Hogans said he did not expect structural changes in the final regulations, but there will be changes in the details.

As Jim and I continue our Board Meeting series, we’ve decided to address a question that we are often asked – “How Many Board Meetings Should A VC-backed company have?” Our general answer is “as many as you should for the stage of the company that you are.” We define stage loosely, where you evaluate the company’s revenue performance, the rate of growth of revenue, the headcount of the company, and the strategic issues the company faces. If you – dear reader – are a rational person – you should be responding with the thought “thanks guys – not helpful.” Stay with us – we’ll try to be more prescriptive, but – having been involved in lots of companies, with lots of different boards (and board dynamics) – we know there is no simple and correct answer.

David Brin has an outstanding article up on Salon titled Why Johnny can’t code. I’ve been the chairman of the National Center for Women & Information Technology for the past two years and have learned an enormous amount about the sociology of computer science, especially among women and kids. This summer I decided to “practice what I preach” by teaching my Alaskan 14 year old neighbor Eric how to program. I received a bunch of interesting comments and eventually settled on Ruby – which we are making ok progress with.

One of my favorite parts of vacation is to voraciously consume a pile of books. I’m a fast reader (and a good skimmer when I’m bored of a book) so most vacations end up with at least a book a day read. My algorithm for picking the books to read is random. I have shelves of unread books, piles of unread books, and bookstores full of unread books. Of course, there is also Amazon where a book is merely 1–Click away. I try to mix in “mental floss” every three books (e.g. a novel) – just to make sure I don’t become a “dull non-fiction only” reader (ok – it’s actually because I like to read fiction.)

Once a quarter, Amy and I vanish for a week. No telephone, no email, no computer. Amy turned 40 on Thursday so we took last week off. I mostly checked out a week ago Thursday, had a huge surprise party for Amy on Thursday night, co-moderated a debate between Bill Ritter and Bob Beauprez (Colorado’s candidates for governor) on Friday, turned off my computer and disappeared for a while. I had a number of emails in my inbox from folks when I resurfaced yesterday asking if everything was ok since I hadn’t been blogging. I try to time these things so I get two weekends in the holiday, although I usually check my email on the Friday before I return so I don’t have a super silly day on Monday. I remembered to turn on an email out of office message – but not a blog out of office message (is there really such a thing? – I always feel odd reading someone’s post that “they are going on vacation and won’t be posting for a while.) For all of you that wrote wondering where I was, thanks for the concern and – as Amy loves to say – “hey – try turning off your computer for a few days.”

A friend of ours – Ryan Wiese – is having a show of his art at the Pekoe Sip House at 1225 Alpine Avenue in Boulder (located near the Ideal Market in North Boulder.) Ryan has been designing glass jewerly (the very cool and popular Laughing Mango stuff) for the past five years. This is his first show for his paintings. In addition to seeing some art, you can check out Pekoe’s specialty teas. Congrats on the show Ryan!