I suggested to Amy that we go to a movie tomorrow (Monday) night. Silly me – something got messed up in my brain and I forgot that on Monday nights we are glued to our couch watching 24. From the previews of this week, I know we get to see an RPG fired at First Lady Logan’s limo. But – the bigger question is – will we get to see Kim? Or will Sydney Bristow make a guest appearance?

As the next election cycle in Colorado gears up, I’ve been jumping up and down reminding everyone who cares about politics that the solution to the “growth of the technology industry in Colorado” is to improve our education system. Our current governor has done everything he can to ignore education and at least one of our potential gubernatorial candidates can’t spell the word education. Colorado has an excellent entrepreneurial and technical base – we just need much more supply at both the K-12 and college levels. This isn’t a quick fix – at 20+ year view is required.

Today I decided to read two running books instead of going for a run. I’ve been struggling with a cold (maybe a low grade flu) and a gout attack for the last week and lost seven days of running. It’s been a little bit of a drag since I’m in the middle of the training cycle for the 110th Boston Marathon on April 17th, but I’m not too concerned because my base is very deep right now. So – I figured reading about some big running feats would be good motivation for my 90 minute run tomorrow.

I received the following question earlier this week. It’s conveniently timed, as I recently participated in two angel investments – each with one of the structures defined below. What’s the best/preferred structure of investment money pre-VC investment. We’re in the beginnings of raising angel capital (~500k) and were wondering what, if any, considerations we should make regarding the investments to allow for VC later. Should we take convertible loans or issue straight preferred stock? What are the other options that are out there for investment structure? Is it too much of a hassle to handle future investments when there is an “angel group (say 5 doctors banded together)” versus a singular angel?

I’ve been very busy the past few weeks so I haven’t had much reading time. I’ve been slowly working my way through Company by Max Barry. Tonight, after my friends left our condo at Beaver Creek after our Friday night sushi orgy, I laid down on the coach, near the fire, across from Amy, and finally polished it off. Company was brilliant. Imagine a novel about a Dilbert-esque company run amok, with extraordinary character development and a steady build-up to a 24–like plot twist. I found myself laughing out loud regularly, which is always a good sign (although it means you probably shouldn’t read this book on an airplane.) The author – Max Barry – claims to have “spent the best years of his life in the bowels of Hewlett-Packard, conducting secret research for this book.” He did a good job.

I spent the requisite five minutes on Google Pages tonight now that I could actually log in. I created a very simple page, just to see what it felt like. I’ll poke around some more when I’m bored, but for now I still don’t get it. I do, however, really like the Google single sign-on which seems to have automagically appeared. My Google services are getting a little more tightly integrated which is a good thing. Hopefully the spam bots won’t figure out the algorithm for determining gmail addresses from the Google Page address (duh – very easy – nah – wishful thinking.)

Ah – a second great quote from Hickenlooper this morning for those of you in the audience from Colorado. John just said “Denver Is Nothing Without Boulder.” When I first moved here in the mid-1990’s, Boulder was definitely viewed “snidely” by many people in Denver, especially in the business community. It’s great to hear the Mayor of Denver thinking about the region, rather than just the city that he’s mayor of. Denver (and Boulder) are lucky to have John as Mayor.

I’m at the Venture Capital in the Rockies Conference today. Denver’s awesome Mayor – John Hickenlooper – is the breakfast speaker. It’s 8:25 and I’ve already heard the quote of the day. John – who is an entrepreneur – is talking about his entree into politics. When he mentioned to his brother that he was thinking about running for mayor, his brother responded, “C’mon John, politics is hollywood for ugly people.” Perfect.

Matt Blumberg – the CEO of Return Path – wrote a post on a meeting he hosted yesterday with some of the old-timers at Return Path – including one of the founders who is no longer at Return Path – to explore reinventing Return Path’s original business (ECOA – email change of address.) Return Path – which was founded in 1999 (I invested in Veripost – the “other” early ECOA provider – in 2000 which was merged with Return Path in 2001) was originally based on being “the” ECOA provider. At the time, we convinced ourselves that this could be a very big business. We were wrong. ECOA is a small business that can be run profitably, but it’s not enough to build a VC-backed company. Fortunately, Matt and team determined this early on (in 2002) and started aggressively expanding Return Path’s footprint in the email services market – both through organic growth and acquisition. Today Return Path is a medium sized company (e.g. big enough to matter and be considered a real company), growing quickly, and a leader in several market segments (oh – including ECOA).