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Monday February 14 * * * 11:55pm. Just home from SGC rehearsal at Bob and Jaxie's. A fun one tonight. Lots of giggling and some great bloopers surrounded by some mostly cheesy circulations. All this, after a normal long BTV weekday. * * * Meetings today:
Now I'm tired, and have a full mail box to contend with. Can you say <delete> ? Sure,.... I knew you could. * * * From the mailbag:
* * * Four hundered-and-sixteen unread mails in my inbox. And this is after I have deleted the 'unimportant' ones and the spam. What to do? Reminded of a quote by John Cage: "distractions? interruptions? welcome them. they are a chance to see whether you have discipline." * * * Tuesday February 15 First the good news -- my sore throat is finally going away. It's not completely gone, but it feels like the ice pick has been removed from my neck. Theme of the day: hurry up and wait. And wait. And wait. More waiting. * * * Happy Birthday, Violet. * * * Good lunch meeting with BVB and EK. Some nice overlap and potential here. Then, after lunch, more phone calls. Strategy. Spreadsheets. Email. More phone calls. And waiting. One small piece of good news at the end of the day. But still no resolution on the big issues. Eight weeks since the handshake. Still waiting. * * * No rehearsal or show this evening. Wow. Almost forgot what nights like this are like: staying home. Yipeee-ding, I "paid" a huge pile of bills, and deleted some more email. "Paid" is a misnomer. I wrote a huge pile of checks. Payment is another issue. Feeling unsettled this evening. Usually, my nerves are made of steel. Tonight, they are made of wiggly green jello. Then, a strategic call to Austin, to end someone else's waiting. Golden rule, in action. I march onward in the face of despair. * * * One small relief: a previously planned trip to SF on Thursday will be postponed. On the other hand, travel to NYC, England, and Tokyo seem to be in the cards for March. That is, assuming the waiting game ends... * * * On a related note, check out my favorite site of the month. * * * Wednesday February 16 This 8:30 meeting ran long (duh, as usual for verbose pelota) which pushed my other morning meetings into complete chaos, so I did the difficult, but only intelligent thing: I cancelled my previously scheduled 10am and 11am meetings, and dove back into pushing on the financing rope that continues to be a ridiculous soapy-operatic and deeply unfunny comedy. I've said this before, and I said it again in a meeting today with JosephM: Rockslide was my MBA. BTV is my PhD. Doctor Pelota, reporting for VC abuse. Speaking of JosephM, Friday is my last "official" day at the borg, the day my old MS email goes away (1100+ unread mails and climbing...) and the day my blue card key stops working. LisaA is working to arrange a going away lunch with close friends. SanfordP wants no part of this. Did I mention that Friday is also Sanford's last day? End of an era at the borg. Inside irony of ironies: after two years of evangelism and pushing, and complete ignorance by the shell dev leads, and now that SP and SB are leaving the borg, now Chris Guzak (famous Windows dev lead) is showing some interest in dynamic sonification in the shell. Oops. Just a little teeny bit too late. Buh-bye. * * * All afternoon 'offsite' meeting with the btv dream team: DLV, JM, DC, and SteveE. These guys are world-class, experienced, and ready to rock. Counting my blessings, by the minute. Conf calls to DavidS and EthanJ during our meeting. Many hard problems to solve. Many triple digit IQs now at work. * * * Simultaneous frustrations on the space and finance front. Quiet, yet explicit email prayers: BillE: hope you're having a great vacation. Looking forward to your return. TomH: best wishes for a speedy recovery from your surgery. WassefH: thanks for your candid and excellent feedback; looking forward to working with you. * * * Faith. * * * SGC show this evening at I-Spy, my new favorite downtown venue. Great staff, and a nice crowd tonight. I was not overly thrilled with my own performance -- the circulations and improvisations seemed clunky and uninspired (a reflection of my own state, I'm sure...) There were some nice moments - for me, Bloed Spoed and Afghanistan had a zesty charge. Vulcanization was honorable, but not as magical as it was at our recent Mr. Spots show. Overall, the audience was attentive, alert, and appreciative, but musically, I felt something was missing. Nice to see supportive faces in the audience of JohnH, GregS, TravisM, DavidLV, Amir, Stuart, Annie, and the whole I-Spy crowd. * * * Trip to SF tomorrow cancelled -- RF will deal with follow-up meetings on his own -- I need to stay home to take care of core team business. This also means I can go to rehearsal with Brock, Bob, and Curt tomorrow evening for our next tuesday evening Ballard Firehouse show. Looking forward to this. That is, assuming we have a sound man for the stage sound... * * * Quick late night phone call with BillR -- planning a new, devious, and much needed project. * * * PS - Leslie: don't leave Seattle for the east coast! Stay here (with me...) Or at least please call me when you come crawling back to your senses. * * *
Thursday February 17 1:13am. Just sent my last email of the evening after writing and editing a major proposal which is due tomorrow (today, Friday.) Can barely keep my eyes open. Oops. Should not have said that. Wasted energy complaining about exhaustion instead of doing something about it. But my day is not yet complete. Need to clean the slate. Writing this diary is one way to clean the slate from my day. * * * Rehearsal tonight with Brock, Curt, and Bob. Having great fun playing these Brocksongs. Blew everyone's ear drums out at one point while 'debugging' a bogus hiss in the PA. After the 'accident,' no one could hear any hiss. Guess the 'debugging' worked. * * * More wall-to-wall meetings. Some good progress today in the VC dance. Also, realizing some useful things about my role in this ongoing process which I cannot discretely describe here. * * * Tomorrow, Josephm and LisaAnd are hosting a buh-bye Borg lunch for Sponder and moi. Rumor has it that guests will include some of my favorite heros from the Windows shell team (and DX special guests, Todor and Melissa.) After close to four years, I do have some really excellent friends at the borg. But, they have not heard the last of this pelota. * * * Also spoke to my sister this evening. Her lousy boyfriend did not get her even a card for Valentine's day. Creep. She described this as "strike two." Lately, wishing I had even a lousy girlfriend who would not get me a card for VDay. Maybe even someone who might have enjoyed seeing 'Magnolia' on a Sunday afternoon. Sigh. Oops. Way too much information. Shutting up now. * * * Friday February 18 Going away lunch for SB and Sanford Ponder at MS today. Wow -- I did not think this would be an emotional affair. But I actually felt rather choked up. Of course, Sanford blew off the lunch completely. He is not one for sentimental ceremony or constrained socialization. The real 'going away' event occurred at Sanford's house early evening. An all-star MS cast from the old "blender" days came out of the woodwork to wish us well including RichLap, RickSen, JohnBall, KenKato, CathyG, MatthewC, SarahF, TomBetz, DavidY, TraceyY, WillY, NathanG, DaveG, even PierreDV! First class people, all the way around. This represents the end of an era at MS. * * * I deleted over 1400 unread MS emails this afternoon. Buh-bye. On my way out, I said good-bye to my pals on the Windows shell team: DebWeiss, HillelC, RichSt, LisaAnd, BobGraf, CecilJu, GregRaiz, among others. Sigh. What is up with missing these people? What is this character flaw that causes me to emotionally bond with everyone I work with? * * * It is now 2:22am. Just got off the phone with DavidS. I spent the better part of the afternoon and late evening working on a BTV proposal which needed to be completed and mailed today. Called SteveE at 1:15am for assistance posting part of the proposal on the web. SteveE was awake. Of course. What a guy. I am writing this entry with a subtle feeling of accomplishment about the events that have transpired this week. Courage in the face of despair. And finally, some breakthroughs. Among other things: I spoke to GeorgeZ late in the afternoon-- term sheet terms are finally, finally, finally agreed, now just down to execution of paper work. Good 1:1 meetings this morning with the Starwave dreamteam. Engaged and ready to rock. * * * Not sure if I'll make it up for the sitting at Curt's in a few short hours. What would you do in my shoes?. Make the decision now? Be a wimp-ass and 'see how I feel' in 5.5 hours? Let' see, 5.5 hours of sleep after a week like this... The reasonable thing to do would be to sleep in. What is wrong with me that I cannot be reasonable? If I were Tobin, I would sleep in. Actually, if I were Tobin, I would not even be awake right now, and I would go to the sitting. Tobin is a good man. I am not Tobin. * * * 2:54am and counting. SteveE is entering legendary BTV hero territory. * * * Saturday February 19 Woke up at 8:04am. Looked at the clock, and like a complete idiot, for some reason, lifted my sorry ass up out of bed. No shower, quick teeth brushing, quick face and pit washing, then put on some clothes, got in the car, and headed over to Curt's for the sitting. Despite the pain, this was the right thing to do after a normal crazy-pelota week. Brunch at Vera's following the sitting. More fascinating discussions about BillyR's aspiration to quit the music biz and become an actor. Great film quotes were flying from the mouths of the actors around this breakfast table. Can't repeat them here due to copyright restrictions. Uh, yeah. Or perhaps my brain is mush today? * * * Went to the Repertoire Circle rehearsal for 1.5 hours after brunch. Some great work being done by this team (Travis Metcalf, John Henning, Chris Gibson, JTMilhoan, Stephen Golovnin were in the circle today -- GregS and DerekD in absentia) A few run-throughs of the hits, and then some strategies on the power of endurance exercises within group section work. This team is currently planning a weekend retreat with CG and SB for mid-May on Whidbey Island. Looking forward to this. Some Red-Lion-House-ish energy at work here. DavidS was absolutely correct. My local-immobile work with music and guitar circles is the only thing that keeps me sane in my otherwise un-sane life. BillVB mentioned again this morning that he does not quite know how I've been staying alive lately with all of the 24-hour BTV activity. One simple answer: it brings me intense joy to play Curt's Vulcanization with a team of aspiring Vulcanizers. The energy this work brings into my system is life-giving, enabling, and contagious -- in some sense, the energy this music transmits obliterates my need for a nap. * * * Following rep circle, decided to stop in a coffee shop on the way home before 'nap time' to read one of the books on my over-stacked pile of books to read: "High Stakes, No Prisoners." Very apt subject matter given my current so-called-entrepreneur-life. The book was so engaging, that I blew off my nap, and hung out in this shop for 4 hours! This is recommended reading for anyone working in management of a technology start-up, uh TomR, DavidS, RobertF, CurtG, SteveE, BillVB, among others... * * * Received an excellent letter in the mail today from John Henning. Wish I could reprint the whole thing right here. It really captures something special about the work going on in Seattle right now. Too bad it's printed on a piece of paper... Actually, I am so happy that John's letter is printed on a piece of paper. This is really the only way to guarantee that I will read something if you really wish to reach me. Most people who send me email lately know that they are in danger of their email hitting the recycle bin before it gets read. The volume has been somewhat overwhelming lately, and the <delete> key seems to be my best defense. . * * * On a related note, I have decided to take on a simple personal practice exercise during the week of Feb 28th-Mar 5th:
I may comment on the repercussions in this space, that is, assuming I can remember to do this even once... * * * Looking forward to dinner with the SGC quintet later this evening at Bob and Jaxies! So nice that I only have to travel for 15 minutes to hang, work, and play with my best pals on the planet. Writing this diary now (instead of napping) at 7:13pm so that I don't have to stay up all night again tonight doing web-related nonsense. * * * Sunday February 20 A delightful day, all the way around. Just got home from Brocksongs rehearsal with Curt, Bob, and Brock. Tonight we transformed into the Rockband that Brock and these songs deserve. This was largely accomplished by my abandonment of acoustic guitars in favor of my Paul Reed Smith. Now I am the clean electric rhythmic counterpoint to Curt's reliably distorto-electric-brilliance. With this small change, these remarkable songs have a new life. Ballard Firehouse, Tuesday evening, 10pm. Be there or be nowhere. * * * Before rehearsal, Jaxie prepared a jaw-droppingly delicious meal for Dean, Patty, Louis, William, Curt, Bob, Isabel, and myself. Jaxie also paid careful attention to the lighting during dinner, bless her soul. I was in both food and eyeball heaven. After dinner, and after playing the game called "bury Steve's head under a pile of books and toys" with Isabel, I konked out in the Wilson's guest room for a 40-minute nap. Luxury. Pure, amazing, healthy, and much needed luxury. During dinner, one of the interesting topics of conversation which is still bouncing around in my head: public diary writing - how much detailed information is appropriate to paint into these pages before it becomes 'indiscreet'? The line seems to be drawn at entries which have the potential to hurt others feelings. However, something is bugging me about this: is it my responsibility to pussyfoot around other people's feelings at the expense of depicting my own (knowingly subjective) experience of the events of my life? One of the things that I am working on in my developing role as a manager is to maintain compassion while being able to tell the (sometimes painful) truth. It is a fine line between lies or self-censorship and avoiding hurting someone's feelings. I am probably more obnoxious and indiscrete in these pages than is legally advisable. Where possible, my approach is to generally insult and offend everyone equally. Please let me know if I have left you out of this process by mistake. * * * Speaking of irony, I spent the afternoon with Tobin; we saw Magnolia -- my second time, his first. The first time I saw it, exactly one week ago, my emotional response was somewhat constrained by my exceedingly uncomfortable company. This time, I let loose, and cried like a baby. I also saw how deep, intellectually and emotionally complex, esoteric, and self-referential this film is. Exodus 8:2 in the rope and in the gameshow crowd, and then from the sky,... yes... now it all makes sense. This film is excellent prog rock. Like 'supper's ready' up ten octaves, 28 years later. No wonder I enjoyed it so much. So many exquisite details buried within both the fore and background of this film. Now I need to see it a third time. Really. Don't miss it. * * * After the film, Tobin and I went to visit a condo building he has been checking out on Capitol Hill. I fell in love with one of the units in this building, probably way beyond my $ reach, but I am considering the impossible... Need to move downtown before the end of March. Yikes. My time is flying away into the hungry sky above. I wonder why more of us are not yet in the air. * * * I was hoping to have brunch with Violet and Ken today, but poor Violet called in sick. Hope she does not have the infamous Seattle sore throat: lasts for ten days, depending upon how much you complain about it in your diary... * * * Quick calls to England and SF today to plan March logistics. Time to get out that Frequent Flyer card again. Tomorrow is a day off. NOT. Back to BTV intensity first thing in the AM. Plus, my famous couch needs to find a new home tomorrow afternoon. * * *
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