I had two conversations today with really fantastic and interesting people.  (No, I'm not buttering them up...I really think that.)  One of them took place in person over breakfast and the other was on the phone at the end of the day.  My behavior during each couldn't have been any more different.  In person, I'd like to think I have a clear train of thought, I'm focused, responsive.  Visual communication, to me, represents a safe set of boundries... you can't really go wandering off phyisically or mentally because you are bound by not only the propreity of locking up with someone face to face, but by the constraints of real observation.  There is a face in front of you...its a constant throughout your conversation and it acts as an anchor.  A good chunk of your brain focuses on that face and nothing else.  On the phone, you are cast off into the churning sea of the day's images and soundbites...unteathered by an opposing face, free to drift.  I feel like I make less sense when I can't look at a face.  My mouth is moving, but I hear myself drowning.  Someone throw me an eyebrow or a chin!  Anything to hold me in place!  Text is fine.  I've always loved text.  Even as far back as Prodigy chat rooms, I always found text to be a focused and expressive form of communication.  There are words on the screen and I'm supposed to look at them.  It's like a track...one of those hand trigger car racing games.  Very easy to play as long as you don't go too fast.  So, if you ever ask to get on the phone with me, just know that you're probably going to get the short end of the stick in terms of all the possible ways to communicate with me.

Just wanted to put it out there...  Plans are in the works for a cross country trip the first two weeks of July.   No, I probably won't be driving the 'Stang...   one because I don't want to put her through that, and two because I get such crappy gas mileage.  :)   Also, I plan on coming back and I'm going to just make this a one way drive.  So, I'll probably just be running a rental car into the ground instead.

So, if anyone has any suggestions on routes, stops, etc...   please feel free to tag them for me.

I tagged some kind of a run flat, steelbelted James Bond bike tire system the other day and now I'm thinking I should seriously invest in that. This time, I'm on the subway again with a flat BACK tire. Goddammnit.

My 89 year old grandmother called me this morning and left a message.  GotVoice promptly e-mailed me an MP3 file of the message and then I made an avatar out of it.

One of my favorite things to do in the city is to enter the Times Square subway station on 42nd between 7th and Broadway and sprint to the waiting Shuttle train. On Tuesdays, I leave the office at 5:20 so I can catch the 5:35 Metro North Train to Fordham to teach class. Crossing from the bottom of the escalators to the Shuttle involves slipping through the fast moving crosscurrent of people exiting the back of the train. It makes me feel like a running back... not a power back, because I can't just plow through these people, but more like Barry Sanders...bobbing, weaving, highstepping... :)

You cannot stop me, you can only hope to contain me.

Shri knows why...  the rest of you, I'll tell some other day.  :)

I got into a good conversation with a friend the other day and we were talking about constructing a perfect day.  I think it says a lot about someone.  Here's what my perfect day would be like (within the limits of my normal experiences...  no hunting spider monkees in Fiji, b/c I've never been there and couldn't identify one if I saw it):

It is summer in New York City...  about 85 degrees with a light breeze.  I wake up at 8, pack my bag and jump in the car.  The top goes down and I drive into the city...  over the Brooklyn Bridge, across Chambers Street and up West St. to Pier 40.   I arrive a few minutes after the opening of the Downtown Boathouse and help get the kayaks out onto the dock.

The regulars start coming in one by one.   They get the little safety talk from Vincent, who is 90-something, and I help them get into their boats.  Every now and then, I go out for a paddle, knowing me to follow up a conversation with some pretty girl that started at the dock.  I'm just a social guy, you know.  :)   

The regular volunteers make their appearences throughout the day... some to stay, some just to say hello on their way uptown or out for the day.  Everyone who comes out of the water asks to stay in longer and all of the people who have never done this before can't believe it's free.  They linger to talk about the boats and the water and how much has changed about the West Side over the years.

Around noon, we get a pizza delivered.  We also get a surprise visit from a kayaking regular, who used to come down with her husband almost every weekend.  She brings in her arms a great excuse for not being down lately...

By 2:30, I start heading out with things in order and other volunteers around to cover the rest of the day.  I head uptown in the car to Central Park, luck out with a spot, and pop the trunk to break out my softball stuff.  Glove, bat and cleats in hand, I make my way to the Great Lawn's northern fields, 7 and 8, just beyond the oval.  Enclosed by a stadium of trees, it's a great place to play.  There are no sunbathers to get in the way, but you can see all those folks on the lawn enjoying themselves with frisbees and blankets.  But for now, it's gametime.

I'm playing on a team that has never come once came together... a mishmosh of people from various teams.   Ideally, I could recreate some of those last hardball games I played when I was 19...   with my best friend Brian closing out his pitching career and me behind the plate on the receiving end of the slowest, most frustrating curveballs you've ever seen...  but I'm trying to be realistic with this day, so instead we're playing softball and I'm bouncing from third, to outfield to first.  It doesn't matter where I play in the field, as long as I get to hit.  I lace six singles to center and right field on six consecutive pitches--the only six I see in the game, which I actually did once.   That's my kind of day at the plate.

Afterwards, I walk over to a NYSC on the West Side to shower up.   Back in the car, all the way back downtown to Battery Park for dinner at Southwest NY.  In all honesty, the food isn't even that great, but I just love sitting there after a long day in the sun, watching the sun go down.  I guess it would be a date...  someone I could share a great conversation with and feel comfortable and relaxed with... to just enjoy the moment.   I love that spot.

Ok, so I'm realizing that my perfect day has a lot of driving in it.  I don't mind it one bit, especially b/c there isn't any traffic in my perfect day.... but ridiculous as it may seem, it's back up to Central Park after dinner.  By now, they've cleared the softball fields and some good friends have secured a spot on the Great Lawn for the New York Philharmonic's Concert in the Park.  That's one of my favorite things to do all summer.  Nothing like fruit, cheese and cookies on a blanket with classical music, friends, and fireworks after.    Man, I love fireworks... 

And at the end of the day, it would be nice to wind up at home, turn to someone and say, "Wow, that was really a perfect day...   You know I had those six hits on consecutive pitches."

The market crashed or something yesterday.... or so I heard.

It really is amazing how far I've gotten away from paying attention to public markets.   I'm a finance guy by background, and when I was in college, I rode the boom and bust like everyone else. 

But, when I graduated in 2001 and took a job in the private equity group at GM, I started to get away from it... focusing more on pricing multiples when we were doing buyouts than anything else.  By the time I got to an early stage VC firm, what the public market did from day to day was just a distant memory. 

Now that I'm on the product side...  who knows.  I just toss the max amount allowable (hey, its pretax, why wouldn't you?) into my 401k, set it and forget it.   I don't really believe I can "beat the markets" so I allocate based on risk tolerance.  I guess as a homeowner I'm investing more in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn real estate than anything else at the moment.

Following the public market, to me, is a fulltime job, and I just don't have the time anymore.  I pop on TraderMike every now and then just to see what he's up to, but man, that's a lot to keep up with.  Not for me, not anymore.  Sorry markets...   I'm on autopilot.