Eric has a great use case for the Slingbox and the World Cup. Since the only real excitement in soccer is a goal or a penalty (I know, blasphemy), multitasking with soccer is easy. The photo example is here.

I love to read Joel Spolsky’s stuff – in addition to being a well known software developer, he’s an excellent writer and superb story teller. His ode to Bill Gates – “My First BillG Review” – is a blast from the past. In addition to a really interesting story, you get to find out why the data functions in early versions of Excel work differently for January and February 1900.

My dad has been blogging about his view of the crisis in our healthcare system for two months and is starting to hit his stride. He’s been setting up the problem and building a base for his thoughts, while starting to recruit “a posse” (he’s a Texan – he can’t help himself) to help out. My folks are staying with us this weekend – it’s really cool to see how enthusiastic my father has become about blogging. Oh – my parents are also celebrating their 43 anniversary this week – congrats mom and dad – I can only hope Amy and I have as good a next 30 years ahead of us as your last 30 have been.

I got a great question the other day which highlights the tension that can emerge in an early stage company between VCs and entrepreneurs. Company X – which is VC backed – has six months of cash in the bank. Almost every employee could go without a paycheck. The team is on full pay now – it’s a small team of under 10. Not taking salaries buys the company another six months. There is a major launch in about four months.

Eric Lunt, FeedBurner’s CTO – has a review up of the book Java Concurrency in Practice. Eric is an absolute star developer – I’ve known him since the early days of FeedBurner and marvel what he and his team have been able to create. If you are a Java developer and involved in creating highly scalable web apps, I recommend you take Eric’s advice and grab this book.

I’m getting a lot of questions these days about early round valuations – specifically for angel rounds. While these vary over time, and by segment, most of them tend to settle into a pretty tight range for early stage angel investments. I’ve talked about the different approaches – either a “convertible debt” or a “light preferred” – in the past. I’ve also stated that I prefer the light preferred approach.

I’ve always traveled a lot. Recently, the travel friction that I experience in airports around the country has felt like it’s at an all time high. Lines are long, people are angry and impatient, flights are delayed or overbooked, and there’s never a power outlet anywhere to plug my laptop into. Yesterday was a miserable travel day as I made my way from Washington DC to East Lansing, MI via Chicago. An hour in the security line at Dulles plus 15 minutes in a people mover guaranteed that I missed my flight, resulting in a reshuffling of the entire afternoon of meetings in Chicago. I eventually ended up at a Marriott Hotel in East Lansing late last night.

Rick Klau – the VP of Business Development at FeedBurner – has a great endorsement up for Hotwire.com. Rick travels constantly (as all all busdev guys should) and Dick Costolo (FeedBurner’s CEO) is cheap (as all startup CEO’s should be.) Mix chocolate and peanut butter and according to Rick, get a tasty treat at Hotwire.com

Amy and I love art – especially contemporary art. We were long term patrons of an art gallery in Boulder on 1011 Pearl Street called Maclaren Markowitz Gallery. The gallery – after having a successful run for 15 years – started to have tough times as the economy started to tank in 2001. To try to be helpful, we became investors in the gallery and were able to help give it a few more years of life. While it could have continued to limp along, at some point everyone was tired and the primary owners decided to close the business and move on with their lives.