The Green Knight

A Swiss Day in Houston

2012-01-28T23:33:00.002-06:00

Today was a very Swiss kind of day! OK, OK, let me explain, because Houston, Texas is a pretty far cry from "Swiss!" What I mean is that today really felt a lot like my Swiss/IMD experience even though it was a Saturday in Houston.

To start, the weather was gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky and the high temperature was mid 60s F (high teens C). There was a breeze that made it a little chilly when staying still or in the shade. Taking Max for a walk in the sun, though, was paradise on earth. And the breeze was very, very welcome during my run at Memorial Park this morning. Despite the very, very different scenery, I almost felt like I was running along Lac Leman in Lausanne. In the evening we had a long, lingering twilight with a dark blue sky, prominent stars, and crescent moon. There you have it: Houston in January is Lausanne in June!

Unfortunately my experience today did not include excellent food outdoors with great friends as it surely would have in Switzerland. After my run and Max's long walk, I spent most of the day inside PowerPointing in front of my laptop. Even this felt very Swiss, though, because it's exactly how I spent many a Saturday at IMD!

Ah, Suisse, vous me manquez! It will take more than ideal weather to recreate the Swiss experience truly, though. After all, the best thing about Switzerland is all my wonderful friends there. Hopefully there will be a chance to visit soon but, in the meantime, back to work!

1982 - What a vintage!

2012-01-22T13:08:00.001-06:00

In honor of Katie's 30th birthday, we hosted a small dinner last night featuring wines from her vintage, 1982. It was a fun chance to reminisce about what was happening in our lives and in the world 30 years ago. Top movie: Chariots of Fire. Top song: Eye of the Tiger. Top world event: Katie's birth!

While the best aspect of the evening by far was the company, the food and wine were definitely a close second. Following is brief "menu" of what we had, including links to my reviews of the wines:

Salad of mixed greens, with meyer lemon dressing
Dom Perignon Champagne 1995

Mushroom bourguignon, spicy cauliflower casserole, rosemary roasted potatoes
Chateau Beychevelle Saint-Julien 1982
Chateau Gruaud-Larose Saint-Julien 1982

Assortment of cheeses
Chateau Leoville-Barton Saint-Julien 1982
Chateau Leoville Las Cases Saint-Julien 1982

Pumpkin souffle
Chateau Rieussec Sauternes 1988
Cheatu Climens Barsac 1998

Note that, for the the red wines, we did a south-to-north tour of Saint-Julien, finishing with Leoville Las-Cases, which is separated from the vaunted Chateau Latour of Pauillac by only a stream.

It was a wonderful night. Many thanks go out to Katie's sister, Kelly, who ensured that the meal came together, and to her boyfriend, Mike, who ensured that he and I stayed out of the way. :-) Most of all, thanks to Katie for being born. As someone said last night, she should turn 30 more often!!!

2012

2012-01-21T17:14:00.001-06:00

2012. The Year of the Dragon. The first year I've ever begun married. Teaching my first course. The Summer Olympics. Rice's Centennial. This is going to be a BIG year!

Smart Office Energy Solutions is starting off on a good note. We closed out last year with awards, patents, and closure of our investment round. This year we must, must, MUST reach full commercial launch, which we're targeting in the third quarter. That will be a profound change from the "orchestrating" mode we're in right now to full-on "operating," to which I really look forward.

The biggest change for me professionally, though, is teaching for the first time. Rice has asked me and another alum to teach entrepreneurship to the undergrads this semester. I'll address this more in a separate post but suffice to say I'm really excited. We have lofty, ambitious goals for the course but, with capable, motivated students, anything is possible!

Also regarding Rice, Katie and I have been tapped to chair Homecoming this year. Normally we would be honored by this consideration, but we are especially tickled since this is Rice's big Centennial year! We'll work hard to ensure that this is the biggest, best Homecoming ever!

It's not all Rice, though, as I'm working hard this year to foster community among IMD's nearly 500 alumni in Houston. Instead of the traditional "big event" model, I'm hoping to generate momentum from the ground up with more frequent, lower overhead events. Additionally, I'm coordinating with the other North American IMD alumni club presidents to organize an all-continent reunion this August in Boston.

On the health front, I didn't hit my goals last year so I'm doubling down in 2012. Already I've made some great progress (separate post to follow), which I intend to keep up. This has required much more focused attention nutritionally, which has been a big change.

My top goal for 2012? Keep my awesome wife happy! Her birthday is coming up and we're celebrating with what should be an amazing wine dinner tonight - a great start to her next year!

2012: full of excitement and possibility . . . Enter the Dragon!

2011 Wrap-Up

2012-01-06T13:11:00.001-06:00

Another year has come and gone and this was a particularly momentous one! This year I got married, advanced my startup, and accepted a faculty position at Rice University - wow! Let's take a look at the goals I set at the beginning of the year and see how I did:

Relationships
Due to my wedding in May, this was the most significant area of 2011 accomplishment. Even outside of the wedding, Katie and I had the chance to spend a great deal of time with family this year and we really paid a lot of attention to our local friendships. We traveled less this year, though, so there was less development of our global relationships - something I'll hope to rectify in 2012!

Health
I will remember 2011 as the year I got old and my body broke down! I spent much of the year harassed by injuries to my foot, shoulder, hip flexor, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. Let's face it: I'm not getting any younger. I need to work out smarter-not-harder as much as possible and focus more on recovery. Last year I began an intentional regimen of post-workout recovery nutrition and this year I am adding compression to the mix as well.

I began 2011 at 156 lbs lean and 39 lbs fat. I finished at 156 lbs lean and 40 lbs fat - not catastrophic, but not the direction I was hoping to head! I ended the year with an average daily caloric deficit of 84 calories yet I still put on a small amount of fat. This year I am increasing the focus I put on nutrition and devoting considerable attention to nutrient timing - what I eat when - as opposed to just end-of-day calorie totals.

My average workout intensity in 2011 was a 6/10, which needs to increase in 2012. My flexibility increased significantly this year, largely due to the re-addition of yoga back into my weekly routine. This trend needs to continue in 2012.

I intended to enter more volleyball tournaments this year but only managed to enter one. Perhaps it's part of getting older but I'm becoming less and less enthusiastic about spending my entire day at a tournament - much of which is just sitting around - versus a shorter, but much more focused, outing with just a few friends. Fun and exercise are higher goals now than competition.

My running goals were met and exceeded early on this this year as I PR'ed in the 5k (20:45) and 10k (44:41) with multiple top 5% finishes.

Professional
It was an incredible year for Smart Office Energy Solutions, which closed another round of funding, won some major awards and recognition, and significantly advanced its product and market development.

Once again I devoted a great deal of time this year to engaging my mentors and to mentoring others. My mentees rated my contributions as very valuable and I was invited to join the boards of advisers for a few startups.

In 2011 I successfully pursued ongoing learning through reading articles and books and learning languages (German and Arabic). At this point these learning activities have been so institutionalized into my routine that I don't believe they need to be actual goals of mine next year.

My Klout increased from 50 to 55 last year, a trend I will work to continue. I updated one of my major presentations to IMD and published a new one for the Academy of Management annual meeting. This level of activity should increase significantly with the entrepreneurship course I'm teaching this year!

Service
I helped GIVEWATTS achieve some major milestones this year, including approval as a 501(c)3 tax-deductible non-profit.

Whew, there you have it, lots accomplished last year and - of course - even more to tackle in the year ahead! I am so thankful for all the support of my family, friends, and colleagues in helping me reach these goals. I couldn't do it without my extended team!

2011 Fiesta Bowl 5k Race Report

2011-12-09T10:13:00.000-06:00

Sunday I raced in my last 5k of the year, the Fiesta Bowl 5k in Scottsdale, Arizona. I had been nursing a hip flexor injury for ~6 weeks so I hadn't been running much and was a bit out of shape - but of course that wouldn't stop me from going all out in this race! My muscles were also a little sore from mountain trail running and yoga (neither of which I had done in a long, long time) but, again, that was hardly an excuse not to shoot for a PR!

Sunday morning was cold and wet with temperatures around 38F. While it felt cold before the race, I knew I would be dying of stifling heat minutes into the run if I bundled up. Fortunately Katie's father was there cheering us on and was able to hold onto warmup clothes that we took off shortly before start time. Katie and her sister, Kelly, were both running the race too and both of our moms walked it. Kelly's boyfriend, Mike, a much more accomplished endurance athlete than I, ran the race with me even though he could have zoomed ahead - it's always fun to have a buddy!

For this race I experimented with a new race plan. Instead of thinking of the race in terms of five kms, but running the first one faster (due to fast start) and the last one faster (due to fast finish), I divided the race into an initial fast half km, four hopefully consistent base pace kms, and then a fast half km (fast 400m followed by really fast 100m sprint to the finish).

With a previous PR of 20:45, I put together a race plan that would have me coming in at 20:40, using 4:13/km as my base pace.

First 500m: 1:53 (a 3:47 pace out of the gate, gradually slowing to base pace)
Four kms at 4:13 each (The course was pretty flat.)
400m: 1:36 (picking it up to 4:00/km pace)
100m: 20s (kicking it at 3:22/km pace)

In my PR 5k I had been shooting for a base pace of 4:17 but I actually spent most of the race at or below 4:13 until I faded a bit toward the end. Therefore my selection of 4:13 as my base pace was in hopes that I could keep that pace up now. The first and last 500m targets were based on my consistently hitting those numbers in previous races.

Mike and I secured a spot near the front of the pack and - all of a sudden - we were off! We had a nice wide street on which to spread out so I was able run comfortably without hurdling laggards. I hit 500m in 1:54 with an average heart rate of 159 BPM. One second off of pace was fine and my heart rate was in a good place.

We completed the next km in 4:12, right back in line with where I wanted to be. My heart rate averaged 174, which was also just about right. In the second km it was clear that I wasn't going to be able to sustain that pace as we finished in 4:18. My average heart rate had only increased to 175, though.

In the third km we hit some obstacles: a sharp turn, some uphill trail, and lots of muddy puddles to be carefully avoided in my Vibrams. By themselves they didn't seem like much but together they definitely slowed me down. I finished the third km in 4:29 (Yikes!) with an average heart rate of 176. I was 22 seconds off of pace and I could seriously feel the soreness in my quads. Mike looked over and asked, "How are we doing on pace?" My response: "Bad." You know I'm struggling when I use poor grammar!

The fourth km was more of the same: finished in 4:32 with an average heart rate of 176. At least now it was time to pick it up a bit - and pick it up we did! We finished the next 400m in 1:40 (a 4:10/km pace) and average heart rate of 179. As we rounded the last turn, it was a straight away to the finish line. Mike said, "Let's go" and we kicked it hard. There were two runners ahead of us and I just wasn't sure if we were going to be able to catch up to them. Having Mike there was extra motivational, though - we passed one runner and then, just before the finish line, the other one. The final 100m took 16s (2:40/km pace!) with average heart rate of 189 and a max heart rate of 196 (~my max possible heart rate)!

The final race time was 21:21, 41 seconds slower than my target. I was the 45th runner to finish (96th percentile), the 34th male (87th percentile), and 5th male age 30-34 (80th percentile). It was my worst race all year in terms of both time and finish placement. Race conditions were pretty good including cool weather and a running buddy for extra motivation - so what happened?

Well, my heart rate was generally lower than in previous races despite my running more slowly. A few possibilities:

1. This may just have been due to the cold (The warmer it is, the higher my heart rate at the same pace.)
2. My muscle soreness was preventing me from turning over my legs quickly enough to warrant a higher heart rate
3. After several weeks of not running much, my body simply wasn't attuned to increasing heart rate that much
4. I didn't have enough glycogen stored in my muscles

I'm not really sure about any of those but they're my best guesses so far. I'll look forward to my next 5k in February, where I will hope to make a stronger showing.

Enough about me, though; the best part of the race was that we had a whole team of family there! Katie's dad was steward of the clothes and official photographer. Mike and I and Katie and Kelly all ran while our moms walked. Several years ago my mom suffered a major injury that severely impaired her walking. This was probably the first time she has walked 5 continuous kms since then so I was very excited to see her near the finish. I jogged back a little ways to find her and was surprised to find that she wasn't walking - she was really moving along, cane and all! I walked in with her a bit and then, as she rounded the final turn, I could see that she had the eye of the tiger! She really picked it up and hustled through the finish line, passing one of her competitors! Way to go, Mom! I've always been proud of her professional accomplishments, but when she finished that race I may have been beaming even more brightly than I ever have before!

It was a good race, well organized and well run. After some post-race nutrition we packed it up and hopped on our flight back to Houston. Full and exhausted - what an appropriate finish to an already excellent weekend!

Merry Christmas from Arizona

2011-12-05T22:28:00.001-06:00

Last weekend Katie and I traveled to Phoenix, Arizona for an early Christmas with her family (after an even earlier Christmas with my extended family over Thanksgiving). As in years past, it was a total blast! The twist was that this year we had a very active holiday.

We arrived Thursday afternoon and were treated to dinner at La Grande Orange Grocery & Pizzeria in Scottsdale, walking distance from Katie's sister's (Kelly) apartment. Awesome! Any place that will add an egg to your pizza at no charge is A-OK in my book! I had the avocado pizza with pesto instead of cheese and I added all the free extras - so good!

Katie found us a nearby house to rent for the weekend which served as an excellent base of operations. It was big enough for us and our extended family to sleep comfortably and close enough to the action as to be convenient.

Friday began with a run up and over one of the mountains. This was just the opportunity to try out my new Vibram FiveFingers KSO Treks. When we were there last year, hiking up and down Camelback Mountain had proved pretty painful in my KSOs but I'm pleased to report that the Treks did their job very well. After an hour or so of jogging up and down rocky paths in the cool, dry air, I was pooped but very happy with the experience.

Friday afternoon we went to Queen Creek Olive Mill, a local organic olive oil producer. Not only did they have a nice tour about the olive growing/pressing/bottling process, they had an attached restaurant with delicious and funky foods. I had the vanilla bean olive oil waffles while others tasted their many oils - including chocolate olive oil and [crowd favorite] meyer lemon olive oil. What a cool excursion!

Dinner was at 5th and Wine, which featured good wine and great food. I had a delicious bison burger and mac & cheese - hey, just because I was carb loading for Sunday's 5k didn't mean I couldn't enjoy some protein and fat too! It was a delectable finish to a great day!

Saturday began with a real treat. Kelly is receiving her certification as an instructor of Ashtanga Yoga, which I used to practice regularly when I was in Switzerland. Kelly took Katie and me through the entire primary series - 90 minutes of stretching, breathing, flowing, and meditating. I've really, really missed this and I clearly need to add it back into my routine. Kelly was the perfect yogi for us as I was just the right amount of sore after our session.

What do we do after a workout? Recovery nutrition! This began at the Scottsdale Farmer's Market, where we also shopped for Christmas Dinner ingredients, and concluded at Orange Table. The Farmer's Market was fantastic - big but not too huge and with plenty of variety. I had a vegetarian pumpkin tamale (Delicious!), which I promptly doused in guava lava hot sauce from the vendor next door. There were many dogs along with their owners, which made the experience even more pleasurable.

Orange Table was something else for breakfast. Not only did they offer delicious omelets (The Greek omelet was the consensus #1.), they also had something else on the menu that I would have been remiss not to try: jalapeno-pecan pancakes! I love spicy-sweet flavor combinations and this one hit it on the head. I'm actually getting hungry as I type just thinking about it again!

With our bellies full, we spent the afternoon and evening prepping for Christmas Dinner. More accurately, everyone else was prepping for Christmas Dinner. While they were slaving away, Mike (Kelly's boyfriend) and I were staying out of the way by occupying ourselves with some early Christmas presents: remote control cars! Once the novelty of racing them around the floor in a makeshift demolition derby wore off, we constructed our own track, using the couches, chairs, coffee table, cardboard boxes, and magazines to create ramps between sections of different heights. The end result wasn't beautiful but it served its purpose. Whether its purpose was to provide a path for the cars or rather to occupy the two of us such that we weren't crowding the kitchen and offering to "quality test" each of the dishes in process is still up for debate.

Dinner turned out to be delicious, as expected. Wild caught Alaskan salmon from the farmer's market along with many, many vegetarian-friendly accouterments ensured that we would all be well nourished for the race the next day. Instead of going to bed early to rest up, though, we opened presents, played games, and laughed a lot late into the night. I'll save the race report for a subsequent post but, suffice to say, the weekend was a huge success! Fun, food, and family - what more does one need in life?

Sonoma Day 3

2011-12-05T10:42:00.000-06:00

Our final day in Sonoma began, once again, with exercise. Our friends went for a bike ride while Katie and I went for a run. I was very pleased that this was my first run in weeks during which my hip flexor did not feel injured - now I could get back to training!

After breakfast we set out in our car to explore the wineries around Healdsburg. First stop: Unti Vineyards. Unti's wines didn't jazz me that much but I did like that they produced several Italian varietals, including a sangiovese and barbera.

On the recommendation of one of Katie's coworkers we stopped at Dry Creek General Store for lunch and it did not disappoint. We strongly recommend the eggg salad with smoked salmon sandwich!

Next on the tour was Preston Vineyards, which had been recommended to us by a friend of a friend. While we loved that it was all organic, the wines didn't appeal to any of us and, for the first time, we poured many of ours out into the spit bucket. The olive oil they made there was delicious, though.

A bit disgruntled by that experience, we were looking for something to turn it around - and did we ever find it! As we were driving out of the Preston estate, we saw a sign for barrel tastings at Zichichi, a winery we didn't know but a proposition we clearly couldn't resist. Zichichi's wines were pleasant (Some of their zinfandel vines are 85+ years old!), their office walls were covered with football pictures, and they had an adorable doberman pincher puppy outside - we had our mojo back!

While biking that morning our friend had seen a sign for grilled oysters so we decided to go get some as a mid-afternoon snack. Unfortunately, when we arrived at Lambert Bridge, it was immediately evident that A. the sign had actually advertised wood-fired pizzas (We blame the misreading on the previous day's wine consumption.) and B. they were all out of pizza. Doh! Not to worry, though, their wines were great and they had some great dogs: a great pyranees puppy and a 200 lb saint bernard!

Our final stop of the day was to Christopher Creek Winery, where we tasted all of their award-winning wines. There was a kindly old man telling funny stories and pouring wine, which really enhanced the experience. My favorite there was their port.

Having missed out on our grilled oysters, by this point we were raring for dinner. The restaurant we intended to frequent turned out to be closed Monday so we picked up a late reservation at Cyrus, which was highly acclaimed.

To kill time before Cyrus we stopped into Willi's oyster bar, which had great seafood and good local wines to pair with it. This place was a real pleasure and we were almost sad to leave it for Cyrus.

Our table wasn't quite ready yet at Cyrus, so we had a cocktail in the bar. Their cocktail menu was very innovative and the drinks were great.

You can read our full review of Cyrus at Yelp but the short version is that we were horribly disappointed by our experience there. The food was generally good but not great and some dishes were very over salted. The wine pairings selected for us were mediocre, didn't pair well with our dishes, and were ostentatiously presented by a "wine steward" who knew very little about wine outside of his rehearsed speeches. Perhaps they didn't have the "A" team going because it was Monday night, but a Michelin two-star restaurant should not have "off" nights - especially at the prices they were charging.

Our closing dinner was a bitter disappointment but it couldn't take the shine off of what had been an absolutely wonderful weekend. We fell in love with California wine country and we will clearly need to return frequently to continue exploring!

Sonoma Day 2

2011-12-03T17:42:00.001-06:00

After sleeping off our wine of the day before, we woke up to a rainy Sonoma morning. Instead of running we did a weights-free workout inspired by the routine that The SHOP put together for me back when I was house-sitting in Switzerland. This included lots of push-ups, plyometrics, and and other "grass-roots" exercises. During a break in the rain we went outside and I did walks up the hill while carrying Katie across my back. During one set of these a police officer actually rolled up to make sure that everything was OK!

After workout and recovery nutrition we once again set out to taste some wine! Instead of driving ourselves around for small tastings at several wineries, we took a different tack this day. We hired Magnum Wine Tours to drive us around to just two very small wineries where we spent a lot of time doing in-depth tastings with the owners.

Our first stop was Forth Vineyards, a tiny little Dry Creek Valley estate just outside of Healdsburg. The property is absolutely charming with a great deal of variety even for that tiny lot. Rolling hills ensure that some parcels have much greater sun exposure while others get more wind coming through the valley. Near the house and winery is the most amazing olive tree I've ever seen. It was probably 12m high and spread out so far as to create an imposing presence on the deck. I'm used to short, bushy olive trees but this was the godfather of them all.

We sat down in the wine cellar, where Jann Forth walked us through their five wines: an '09 sauvignon blanc, a '10 rose', an '09 ALL BOYS cabernet sauvignon (with grapes from each of their vineyards named after their boys), an '09 Rebecca cabernet sauvignon (with grapes from the one vineyard named after their girl), and an '09 syrah. The Rebecca cab was very nice but the real winner was the rose'. As we sat around the cellar's tasting table, munching on homemade spicy cheese bread between wines, we learned a lot about the winemakers, their philosophy, and the unique characteristics of their offerings.

What really set this winery apart, though, was their canine "staff!" A golden retriever accompanied us everywhere and there were two huge great pyranees (170 lbs and 130 lbs) in the vineyards protecting the sheep that keep the grass low and organically fertilize. After playing with the dogs a bit we hopped back in our car for the next destination.

Garden Creek Winery in Alexander Valley was up next. As we crossed the eponymous creek to enter the estate, I was surprised by how this looked more like a farm than a winery: a big barn a the entrance, chickens off to the left, an old well in the center. And sure enough, that's how this land began when the current proprietors' father bought it back in the 60s.Today, though, the barn is a winery and almost all the land is planted with vines. While most of their grapes are sold to other wineries, they hold enough back to produce a few hundred cases of their own chardonnay and Bordeaux blend.

We were met at the estate by Justin Miller, who owns and runs the operation alongside his wife. We stayed outside to taste their 2009 chardonnay, which was minerally and crisp - really nice and not at all what I'd expect from a California chard. Then we went into the barn for a candlelight vertical tasting of the red (called "Tesserae"). The 2005 of this cab sauv/merlot/cab franc blend was nice, but the 2003 was really coming into its own - great balance between the fruit and oak-derivative properties. Interestingly, they are the only winery I have known in the US to use carbonic maceration.

After plowing through several bottles at Garden Creek, we really needed some food! So our last stop of the tour was at nearby Diavola Pizzeria. I'm not sure if this helped or hurt our sobriety because we had plenty more wine there while feasting on hand made brick oven pizzas!

Opting for a day of wine tour instead of just driving ourselves around was a great idea. Not only did we have a designated driver, we found some wonderful tiny wineries that we never would have heard of otherwise. In both cases, we could have tasted these wines anonymously but the real pleasure was spending a couple of hours with the owners and really getting a feel for what makes them - and their wines - tick.

Day 2: another success!

Sonoma Day 1

2011-12-02T09:02:00.001-06:00

After a flurry of post-CleanTech-Open meetings Thursday and Friday, Katie and two friends joined me for three days of wine tasting!

Thursday I met up with many Rice and IMD alumni in the San Francisco Bay area while winding my way 90 miles up to Petaluma, where I stayed the night with a friend of mine from TJ. Yes, I made it from San Jose to Palo Alto to San Francisco to Larkspur by way of public transportation - how refreshing, coming from Houston! I did, however, rely on my friend's chauffeur skills to take me the final leg to Petaluma.

My friend, Ashley, who is a full-time mom and mom blogger, has a great house complete with chicken coup, which made for an excellent breakfast! Thursday night she made an awesome welcome dinner for me and one of the neighbors - so welcome after days of hotel food! Friday, after spending the day back in the City, I returned to Petaluma to wait for Katie and our two friends.

This was an excellent decision because, not only did this mean another great dinner, but the same neighbor returned with his wife, who turned out to be AWESOME! Her name is Leslie Sbrocco and she is prominent wine critic in the Bay area - SCORE! Friday night dinner quickly became a vinolicious affair and we were quite happy by the time that Katie and our friends came to pick me up.

Katie had rented us a little two bedroom, two bath house in Healdsburg, which is a charming town. The little house was exactly what we needed: central location, great kitchen, and comfortable beds for sleeping off the wine!

Having never toured/tasted in California before, I deferred to our friend, who had been there several times. He put together a basic program (which still allowed for significant improvization) and Leslie helped us with a few more suggestions and hookups.

Saturday morning we woke up, all went for a run, and then had a great breakfast to prepare us for the day. Our first tasting was at J, which was pretty commercialized. There were many others tasting there and some of the staff weren't terribly knowledgeable. But some of the staff were knowledgeable (and personable!) and that made all the difference. Wine tasting - like most things - is really made or broken by the people involved. We tasted some so-so white wines, some better red wines, and some much better bubbly, which is what I really associate with J anyway.

Afterward we made our way to Kosta Browne, the winery behind 2011's top wine of the year according to Wine Spectator. There we tasted a good chardonnay and lots of pinot. Our favorite by far was the 2009 Amber Ridge Pinot Noir.

We wrapped up the day at Arista, where we had a GREAT pourer behind the counter. She was a grape grower herself so was intensely knowledgeable about the wines, the region, the climate, and everything else. We tasted so many wines that I can't remember them to post them here and we spent so much time tasting and talking with her that we shut the place down.

After a brief nap we rallied and headed into downtown Healdsburg for dinner. We began at Spoon for really innovative cocktails that compete with those from Anvil. Afterward we had a long, intense, and excellent dinner and Dry Creek Kitchen. Once again we shut the place down and the practically had to roll us out of there. Katie's full review is on Yelp. I would say that Sonoma Day 1 was a huge success!

CleanTech Open Finals

2011-11-27T19:36:00.001-06:00

Last week I traveled to San Jose, CA for the finals of the CleanTech Open, for which Smart Office Energy Solutions had been selected as a finalist from the South Central region. I and 20 other finalists from the seven regions arrived in San Jose on Monday to begin two exhausting days of competition.

Each finalist was a startup company that has raised less than $1M and that is working on problems that make the world more sustainable. There were five categories of competitors: energy efficiency, smart power, green building, air/waste/water, and renewable energy. Smart OES could have competed in any of the first three categories but ultimately energy efficiency seemed to be most appropriate for us.

Each category had four or five competitors. Over the course of two days, each competitor presented a 15-minute business plan presentation followed by 15 minutes of Q&A from 20+ judges representing the category, the venture capital community, the science/development community, and the government/policy community. Competitors were scored based on their portenital for impact, likelihood of success, sustainability, and presentation quality. After all competitors presented, the winner of each category would then present again and a global winnner would be announced.

I came into the finals with several goals: 1. Win the global competition 2. Win the energy efficiency category 3. Tell a convincing story about product differentiation and competitive barriers (the perceived lack of which had always been our greatest criticism). Of course, those were the goals on which my competitive side focused. Much more meaningful for us, though, was using the competition as a means to connect with influential people, partners, and investors in the cleantech ecosystem - so that was our primary objective.

Tuesday morning featured an investor speed dating event that connected us with five VCs for seven-minute one-on-one discussions. This event by itself was worth the price of admission and I applaud the CleanTech Open for their success in putting it together.

Our scored presentation wasn't until Wednesday morning, so I spent much of Tuesday manning our booth. Interested potential investors, employees, and journalists stopped by all day to hear about what we were up to and to see our prototype products in action. It was really energizing to see how many people were keen to know what was going on on the frontiers of cleantech. I also left the booth unmanned a few times to go support some of the other entrepreneurs as they were presenting in other categories.

Tuesday afternoon I was called up to the main stage for a 3-minute product demo, which received some "oohs and ahhs" as I unveiled some of the behavior-influencing features of our product. My product demo especially caught the attention of one audience member, Jon, a friend of mine from college! He came up to me afterward and it was such a joy to see him there. As I've blogged about before, I'm an extrovert and I love having people "on my team." Having Jon there supporting me lifted my spirits and really gave me a boost going into Wednesday.

Wednesday morning I was joined by another team member, an investor of ours (also named Jon) who lives in the Bay area. Having two Jons cheering me on from the audience, I knew I couldn't be beaten. Add to that my SHOP undershirt and cuff links from my wife as additional talismans and I was ready to go - armored up and ready for battle!

I gave my full presentation and it went very well. I nailed the presentation portion and I believe I had good, previously anticipated answers to the Q&A portion. I received many compliments on the presentation, including one piece of feedback that it was as good as a presentation could get. Additionally, I didn't receive a single question from the judges about product differentiation or competitive barriers. Goal #3: check!

Unfortunately I didn't not achieve Goal #2, which meant that Goal #1 was out of the question. A company called Indow Windows won the energy efficiency category with a cool drop-in product to turn single pane windows into double pane windows. Clearly I was disappointed in the result and I will hope to get some good feedback from the judges. I'm told it was very close and I am still honored to have been chosen among the top energy efficiency startups in the country.

The Jons and I stayed to watch the final five presentations, attend the award ceremony, and then the gala dinner afterward. Throughout the evening it became abundantly clear that we were achieving our primary goal; I was able to line up meeting after meeting after meeting with potential investors for Thursday and Friday, while I would still be in town! This certainly softened the blow of the competition loss!

Looking back on the CleanTech Open experience, I'm really glad we participated. It took a very non-trivial amount of time and money, but it really helped us connect throughout the cleantech ecosystem - which is not very present in Houston. We received some great exposure, met some great people, and - of course - had a great time! I would recommend it for other early-stage cleantech startups and I'll hope to give back a little next year as a mentor.

Is There an Afterlife?

2011-11-09T13:27:00.001-06:00

I just had a great discussion with a Rice freshman about whether or not there is an afterlife. As somewhat of an empirical pragmatist, I reasoned through it as follows:

People I know who have died continue to have an effect on me. I think about them, I make decisions based on ways they have influenced me, and sometimes they even show up in my dreams. So, from my perspective (and from the perspective of the many other people whose lives they touched), they all have afterlives.

The only afterlife of which I am not certain is my own. From a practical perspective, though, that point is essentially moot. After my death I will either A. have a conscious afterlife and know it or B. not have a conscious afterlife and not even be able to contemplate the question.

As such, I conclude that there is effectively an afterlife. What do you think?

Houston Great Pumpkin Run 5k Race Report

2011-11-02T22:09:00.000-05:00

Saturday I set a new PR at the Houston Great Pumpkin Run 5k. In the week leading up to the run I had a sore throat and even lost my voice (while yelling all night at a Huey Lewis and the News concert, so it's my own fault), so I made a morning-of decision whether or not to run. The good news about this was that I had been planning to taper my running later in the week anyway, so I rested up, got plenty of nutrition, and hoped to be in good form Saturday morning.

Race day came and, while I still had no voice and still had a stuffy nose, I felt pretty good so I decided to go ahead with the run. It would start downtown and proceed along Allen Parkway for an out-and-back course. The course was pretty flat and the weather was great (sunny and ~50 degrees F) so, other than the lingering cold, it was a great situation for a PR.

My race plan - as always - was to start off with a fast launch, finishing the first km in 3:59. I would then settle into a 4:12/km pace for the next 3.65 km, at which point I would kick up to a 4:00 pace for 250 m and an all out sprint for the final 100. This would bring me in at 20:39, 6 seconds under my previous PR of 20:45.

The starting line was close to my office so I camped out and stretched in my building until ~15 minutes before start time. Then I jogged to the starting line, warmed up a bit, and positioned myself near the front. 0.6 seconds after the gun went off, I was across the starting line and tearing off down Walker Street.

The first km went basically as planned. It included a bit of a downward dip, so I found myself speeding along (always trying to flow with the downhill grade rather than resist it) a bit more than anticipated early on. I finished the first km in 3:51 with an average heart rate of 171 - higher than anticipated, especially given the low temperature. By comparison, my first km in my previous three PR 5ks were: June (3:58, 166 BPM), April (3:53, 167 BPM), and February (4:01, 165 BPM). This didn't worry me much, though; I was feeling good.

The second km breezed along too, finishing in 4:06 at 175 BPM. I was then 14 seconds ahead of my target. I was still feeling pretty good but it was starting to feel clear that I wasn't going to keep this speed up forever. I was hoping, though, to stick to my 4:12 target for the remaining kms.

The third km is where things got funky. It turns out that the race organizers had not marked the turnaround point! The runners in front of me turned around at the near side of Montrose (which is where the course map had specified), but there was nothing to indicate whether this was right or wrong. If I had been paying close attention to my GPS, I would have noticed it telling me that I was still 70 m short of 2.5 km, but I wasn't. And, even if I had been, I wouldn't have trusted it since lord knows it has made errors before. It turns out that the correct turnaround point was just beyond Montrose. Some people turned early - as I did - and some kept going all the way to Waugh, which was way too far. Epic fail, race organizers.

I finished the third km in 4:15 with an average heart rate of 177 and the fourth km in 4:23, still at 177 BPM. At this point I was still 2 seconds ahead of target but clearly I was losing steam. I'm not sure if this reflects my fitness level simply not supporting such a fast burn up front or if this is a result of the sickness I had been battling (and possibly still was) - maybe a combination of both.

The next 650 m went by in 2:48, a 4:18 pace. As I began the final ascent I kicked it up a bit but, owing to the shortened turnaround, all of a sudden I could see the finish line rushing toward me. I sprinted the final 100 m, passing a couple of tapped out runners along the way. My official time was 20:02, which would have been a PR by a long shot if it had been for a full 5k. My GPS showed that I had run 4.86 km by the time I crossed the finish line. I estimate that, at this rate, I would have finished around 20:40, which would still have been a PR, but I guess we'll never know.

I feel good about the race, especially given the circumstances. Katie and I have already signed up for a December race so there will be another chance to shoot for a new PR before the year is through. In the meantime I'll work on bringing down the pace of those later kms!

Magical Weekend in Florida

2011-11-02T21:01:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we went to Florida to celebrate our nephew's sixth birthday! It's been years since I've been and a great deal has changed since the last time I was there. Katie and I flew in Thursday and were immediately treated to a wonderful dinner of fish tacos at my brother's new house. Both he and his girlfriend are conservation-minded marine biologists so we had high confidence that the fresh fish we were eating were sustainably caught. To add to the enjoyment, we drank some very good Bordeaux and were serenaded by our nephew's burgeoning piano skills!

Friday morning, while our hosts were at work / in school, Katie and I borrowed a car and headed to Orlando for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! I didn't have high expectations for it as I generally find theme parks to be cheesy, poorly detailed, over-commercialized places filled with too-long lines of screaming kids (basically the same way I feel about Vegas). Still, it was clearly something I had to check off my bucket list, especially when so close. Katie was a little more optimistic, caring less about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter's execution and more just about riding roller coasters for the first time in years.

We got a late start, arriving at Universal's Islands of Adventure more than an hour after opening time. At least we had bought our tickets online in advance so we could bypass the entrance lines. We made a bee line for the Harry Potter section and started with the piece de resistance, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. This ride takes place in a mock-up of Hogwarts Castle. They did a good job of recreating the castle, but the exterior facade was so small that it kind of ruined the effect.

While waiting in line for the ride we passed through several Hogwarts rooms, which were pretty faithful to the movies. They did a good job with the talking paintings and several other effects. Our wait was probably only half an hour but, on days when it's multiple hours, these extra effects would surely help alleviate the burden of the line.

The ride itself was really cool, a combination of cool chair/arm technology and cooler multisensory A/V effects. Unfortunately it was over after just five minutes, which would be hard to swallow if we had waited much longer!

By the time we exited the ride, the line for The Flight of the Hippogriff was already 60 minutes long. Given that it looked like a kiddie coaster, we opted to skip it. Thank goodness for the digital displays at each ride that estimated the wait time - bravo, Universal, for that!

We moved on directly to the Dragon Challenge, which appeared to be a more serious roller coaster. The wait for this one was only 10 minutes and it did not disappoint! Jam packed with loops, rolls, and drops, it was a 2.5-minute adrenaline rush - lots of fun! If we did one roller coaster over and over (as my brother and I used to do at King's Dominion), this would have been the one!

Having exhausted the Harry Potter rides, we made our way to the re-creation of Hogsmeade Village. Most of this comprised touristy shops that didn't interest us but the effect of snow-covered roofs was well done - even in the Florida heat! We stopped by The Three Broomsticks pub for an early lunch. The food was predictably "meh" but the butterbeer was a very worthwhile bucket list item.

So, as expected, the Harry Potter section of the park was pretty cheesy, but I'm glad we visited it at least once. For my money (and time), though, I'd just as soon play Harry Potter video games if I want to wander around Hogwarts Castle. Or, better yet, re-read the books!

As we didn't need to be back for another few hours, we dallied a bit and checked out some other rides on Marvel Super Hero Island. This began with the Spider Man ride, which was similar to the Forbidden Journey ride we did earlier, and ended with The Incredible Hulk, which was fun but not so much as the Dragon Challenge. Having then satisfied our roller coaster fix, we headed back home.

Friday night we had another great dinner with more great wine - Italian on both accounts! As the girls got sleepy and headed off to bed, my brother and I devoted ourselves to a much worthier cause - EPIC PING PONG! The last time we played ping pong together was probably sometime in high school so this was a fun trip down memory lane.

Saturday began with a morning jog followed by breakfast at the farmers market - what a way to start! The rest of the day was taken up by my nephew's birthday party. It was super hero themed, which meant that the house was decorated with super hero paraphernalia, the kids customized their own super hero capes, and many super hero games were played, including red-light/green-light/kryptonite and tug of war against evil villains (us adults)! The entire ordeal was great fun . . . but exhausting!

Due to an early Sunday obligation we had to hop on a Saturday night flight back to Houston. It was just a quick trip to Florida, but what a blast. It was so great to see my brother and his family settling in and thriving. Add excellent food, wine, company and magic rides to the mix and it was a heck of a weekend!

I Out-Googled Google

2011-10-23T11:41:00.000-05:00

Last week a friend, former professor of mine, and leading authority on computer security posted on Google+ a recommendation that people who have Google accounts should enable two-factor authentication. Basically this means that, if Google doesn't recognize your device or location, it asks you for confirmation via another medium (phone or text) in case your account has been hacked, phone has been stolen, etc.

I use Google a LOT: Gmail, Google Voice, Google+, Google Calendar, Google Analytics, etc. etc. Although I wasn't wild about the idea of adding a small hassle to my Google login experience, I figured it was worthwhile to prevent what would be an absolute catastrophe if my Google account were compromised.

So I went to my Google Account page and checked the box for two-factor authentication. The website then walked me through a few steps explaining the process and setting it up. When it came time to enter my phone number, I wavered a bit. Would it be a problem if I used a Google Voice number for my Google Account verification? It wasn't clear to me from the website if it would be or not. I didn't want to use my AT&T mobile number in case I changed it in the future and forgot to come back and update my two-factor authentication.

It was a bit of a quandary. I tested the notification with Google's "test run" tool, though, and it worked fine with my Google Voice number so that gave me confidence to proceed with that number. With a big warning that I was about to be signed out of all my Google accounts, I clicked the final Submit button.

When I tried to log back in, as expected, it said it was sending me a text to confirm my authenticity. The text never came. I waited . . . and the text still never came. When I checked my phone, I had been logged out of all my Google services there too and it was clear that, as I had originally feared, I was in a bit of a Google catch 22.

I searched through Google Help and it turns out that they have a way to let you back into your account if you find yourself locked out - whew! It would take up to 24 hours and would be a huge inconvenience, but not the end of the world. I set it in motion immediately. Then I received something unexpected: a call.

It turns out that, even though I was locked out of Google Voice, Google Voice was still forwarding phone calls to my mobile number. It was probably forwarding text messages too, but I had long since disabled that feature as I preferred to receive the messages just in my Google Voice app. Doh!

Once I discovered this fact, I was able to change my second authentication factor to voice instead of text. This worked like a champ and I was able to log in to my Google account - briefly! Then the Google account reclamation mechanism that I had initiated earlier kicked in and locked me out again for several hours until I finally received an email from them to reset my password.

So in the end it caused me nearly a full day of inconvenience and and no access to my Google accounts. While it was technically my fault, I would have hoped that Google would have anticipated my predicament a bit. At the very least, a warning to proceed carefully if using a Google Voice number would have helped. More helpful yet would have been some automated identification that the number I'd entered was a Google Voice number.

Even though I now have figured out how to get by this catch 22, I have irrationally disabled two-factor authentication anyway. The trauma of what happened has left me craving the safety of the previous status quo. Again, I don't thing Google has done anything technically wrong here, but I hope they'll take this experience as data about their usability and the effect it has on adoption of their features.

Successes and Failures

2011-10-09T11:47:00.001-05:00

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks. For some time I have been intensely focused on the CleanTech Open, a nation-wide contest of startups that are working on the challenges of energy, water, and buildings. We were honored to have been selected as semifinalists for the South Central Region back in May. Finally in late September we competed against the other regional semifinalists at the Clean Energy Venture Summit in Austin. Each company presented a 10-minute pitch and answered questions for 5 minutes from a panel of VC judges.

Long story short: Smart Office Energy Solutions placed third. Anyone who knows how competitive I am will realize that anything short of first place will come as a sore disappointment to me. Still, third place is enough (barely!) to advance to the national finals in San Jose, so I am pleased that we will have another shot. Between now and then we will be focused on addressing the areas of our business and our presentation that prevented us from taking home the gold. Hopefully we'll perform better on the national stage in November!

In a similar vein, last week I returned to Third Coast Training to do another metabolic profile. The good news: my resting metabolic rate has increased by more than 200 calories per day! I attribute this to moving from a calorie restrictive diet to one in which I'm eating plenty - just better foods. Also, my aerobic and anaerobic threshold heart rates have moved up, meaning that I am running faster and at higher intensities with lower levels of effort. This is the result of my running training and other anaerobic fitness conditioning.

The bad news: just as I did last time, I quit the running test too early. I felt like I was completely tapped out but, based on the level of lactate in my bloodstream, I probably could have kept going for another several minutes at greater speeds. This comes as a shock to someone who has typically regarded himself as having a high tolerance for pain. I've spent most of my life in short bursts of intensity, though, so now I need to work on sustaining such levels of discomfort for longer durations.

So in both my professional and personal life I am both achieving successes and enduring failures. Clearly my goal is to learn from the failures to increase the magnitude and frequency of the successes. This can be a somewhat frustrating experience, but it sure helps having "secure bases," people who love and support me no matter what, all around.

Austin is Awesome!

2011-10-02T23:42:00.000-05:00

I came to Austin to compete in the CleanTech Open and attend the Clean Energy Venture Summit but, as long as I was already going to be here, Katie came up and brought Max and we stayed an extra day for a mini vacation. We've always liked Austin a lot and periodically we discuss whether we should be living there instead of Houston. Having a dog with us has added more points in Austin's favor but the debate is still inconclusive. Following are a few thoughts about how the two cities differ:

Social Culture: Austin has a more laid-back, hippie vibe whereas Houston has more of a formal business-driven culture. Winner: Austin

Active Culture: Austin wins by far when it comes to fitness and outdoor activities. Pedestrian friendly, biker friendly, outdoor activities friendly - Austin is basically everything that Houston isn't in this regard. With a big spring-fed natural open swimming pool right (Barton Springs) and running/walking trails around the lakes, it's positively easy to be outdoor-active. Plus, as we discovered on this trip, both the social and active culture extend to pet owners. Most restaurants with patios are dog-friendly outside and there are many off-leash parks throughout the city. We even took Max for his first swim in the tributary right by Barton Springs! Winner: Austin by a mile

Arts Culture: While Austin does have some of the visual and performing arts, Houston is clearly the heavyweight between the two. Austin has a few indie arts festivals but I would frankly rather be a visitor for those than a local. With world class symphony, opera, ballet, and theater - not to mention acclaimed art and science museums, Houston wins this one by a landslide.

Food: Culture: Austin has more natural/hippie options (It is the HQ of Whole Foods, after all!) while Houston has more options for fine dining. Houston is closer to the coast and offers a wide range of fresh, local seafood. Winner: Houston

Climate: Houston and Austin are pretty close geographically and have very similar climates. Houston has more humidity, rainfall, and then there's that occasional hurricane. Winner: Austin

Scenery: Austin's rolling hill country and lakescapes are absolutely beautiful. Houston, well . . . Winner: Austin

Urban Lifestyle: For both sustainability reasons and personal convenience, I prefer to live an urban lifestyle, living, working, socializing, etc. within the boundaries of a central hub. While Houston still requires a car to get around (Oh how I miss Lausanne!), I do spend 90% of my time within a 3-mile radius. Austin has made some strides in this area recently but I still get the impression that you need to drive all over the spread-out town. Winner: Houston

Internationalization: Although the demographics of the two cities are relatively similar, Houston has a much more international outlook than Austin. With 89 foreign consulates, Houston has the third-largest foreign diplomatic presence after Washington DC and New York City. Many people I meet in Houston are from other places outside of the US; they speak multiple languages and have traveled the world. Most people I meet in Austin are pretty focused on Texas. Having lived and worked abroad I really appreciate the global mindset. Winner: Houston

Travel: Katie and I both enjoy traveling and both Houston and Austin are centrally located, able to reach just about anywhere in the continental US within 4ish hours of flight time. Houston's airport is much, much bigger, though, and has more direct flights throughout the US. For international travel, Houston is the only option. Winner: Houston

School: Austin likes to boast that they don't need pro sports teams because they have the University of Texas. I think that's really cool, especially since I like college sports better than pro sports. However, I don't like UT and I have no desire to build out a wardrobe of burnt orange! Austin has UT; Houston has Rice. Winner: Houston

Network: I have a pretty good network in both cities but I've spent more of my career in Houston so my network is larger there. I'm pretty sure I could build my Austin network up quickly, though, if I were there fulltime so I'm only giving a slight edge to Houston.

Grandeur: I don't know quite how to label this category but here I'm referring to the "importance" of the city. Austin has much more of a small town feel whereas I walk through downtown Houston and I feel the world's largest businesses moving and shaking all around me. Winner: Houston

So, as you can see, I'm somewhat divided on the Houston-Austin question. Perhaps this reflects the dichotomy within me: the tech entrepreneur and the aspiring global business leader. Regardless, I really enjoy both places and, if only we could get high-speed rail lines between them, it wouldn't even matter which one I called home!

Thanks for a great trip, Austin; I always love visiting and I'll be back soon!

School Pride Continued

2011-08-21T14:24:00.000-05:00

No sooner had we returned to the US than we traveled to San Antonio for more IMD action - but this time closer to "home" turf! The Academy Of Management's annual meeting was being held there in several venues along the River Walk. The AOM is the preeminent academic organization for scholars in the fields of business and management. As such, many IMD professors, including IMD's president, were in attendance - along with 10,000 other management profs! I had been asked to participate in the session of one of my former IMD professors and jumped at the chance.

Katie and I arrived Saturday and spent the afternoon strolling along the River Walk. Although my brother attended university in San Antonio and I visited quite often, we never really spent much time in this part of town. Katie and I were enchanted by the canopy of trees, the fun restaurants along the river, and - above all - the lower temperature down in the shade! What a fantastic environment they have created!

Sunday morning was my presentation in the San Antonio Convention Center. Our session, led by Maury Peiperl and Suzanne de Janasz, focused on social value creation. Specifically, is it possible for organizations to to embed it in their philosophies/cultures? Or will it always be bare-minimum-box-checking?

We began with research by IMD professor Francisco Szekely, who had been my leadership coach during my MBA year, on Corporate Social Responsibility efforts by large corporations. The conclusion was that generally these have been ineffectual and are not being approached correctly at all.

I then followed up with my case study of Smart Office Energy Solutions, which we have designed from the ground up to have social value creation inextricably embedded in its DNA. It would be absolutely impossible for us to achieve economic success without also doing some good - and the more of one we achieve, the more of the other we achieve. Furthermore we create that same alignment of economic and social value for our clients, suppliers, employees, and investors such that this "good capitalism" spreads virally. My conclusion therefore was quite optimistic: that capitalism can align with social good but we need business leaders to search out business models that feature that alignment.

Our final "practitioner" (as we non-academics are called) was Lynellyn Long, who concluded with a much less optimistic "reality check" based on her experience in human rights activism, working with non-profits, NGOs, and governments. Her conclusion was that yes, perhaps it can be done but that Smart Office Energy Solutions is by far the exception to the rule and that the current landscape for corporate social value creation is actually quite bleak.

Finally we launched a session-wide discussion about not only these topics but also, more pointed for the business school professor crowd: how can social value (or attempts to align it with economic value) be taught to future generations of business leaders? The discussion was quite lively as we had a packed venue and I was encouraged by how much interest there was in the topic. Regarding social value pedagogy, I get the feeling that it may be like entrepreneurship, for which the consensus is that it can't be "taught" theoretically; instead it has to be developed experientially. That corresponds with my own experience; I certainly didn't develop a passion for using business to "do good" in the classroom!

I was really honored to be included in this session and it felt good to dip a toe back into the pool of academia. Who knows, maybe some day in the future I will expand my academic pursuits - in the meantime, though, I'm focused on getting things done! In addition to the session, it was a good chance to catch up with other IMD professors, including the few minutes I spent psychoanalyzing Jack Wood over coffee - I thought I was turning the tables on him but he was probably actually just gaming me the entire time! And on top of it all, it was a lovely 30 hours or so in San Antonio with my beautiful bride - tough to beat that!

School Pride

2011-08-20T17:59:00.000-05:00

These last two weeks have been full of involvement with my university (Rice) and MBA (IMD) almae matres. After the Finnish wedding (which was itself an IMD connection), Katie and I spent a few days in Lausanne, Switzerland before returning to the US. Being in Switzerland always brings back memories of times at IMD, partially because Switzerland just doesn't change (Even the ads at the airport are the same!) and partially because Switzerland is just so different than Houston!

On our first afternoon we returned to the park where I proposed and celebrated our one year proposal anniversary / three month wedding anniversary. It was a grand mini-vacation and excellent welcome back to a place we love. Monday evening we had fondue (How Swiss!) with IMD friends at Le Chalet, overlooking Lac Leman. The sun was setting, lighting up the mountain faces with soft rose colors, while the moon was rising - absolutely beautiful!

Goodness, though, if we thought Finland was expensive, it was nothing compared to Switzerland! Switzerland has always been pretty costly but now, with the incredibly strong Swiss Franc (vs. the dollar and the Euro), it is more extreme than ever. Our modest picnic lunch, assembled at the grocery store, cost more than $60!

Tuesday we just kind of hung around Lausanne and caught up with other friends there. In the evening we divided up: the girls had a ladies night at a wine bar in Flon while the guys had male bonding at the Croix d'Ouchy - an old favorite. It was fun to see several classmates I haven't seen for some time.

Wednesday I gave a presentation at IMD on using social media for your own personal branding. I gave the same presentation last year but practically rewrote it from scratch this year due to all the changes/advances in the social media world during the last 12 months. The students seemed receptive and I hope it was valuable for them as they pursue their career searches. This was followed by an incredible dinner at Beau Rivage with our most gracious hosts - also IMD classmates. Beau Rivage was the site of our graduation so the IMD connections continued.

Early Thursday morning we hopped the train to the airport and returned to Texas, where the scholastic links rolled on - but that will be the subject of my next post.

Finnish Wedding Part 3

2011-08-09T11:26:00.000-05:00

Saturday also began with a very late start (after briefly waking up for the amazing breakfast buffet). It was raining a bit so we didn't venture too far but we did walk around and see the Church in the rock, which was very cool. Again we bumped into our classmates while we were walking around town and, while we were having lunch, we witnessed a SlutWalk protest - hundreds of Finnish women (and some men) dressed outlandishly made for a "unique" cultural experience!

Saturday evening was the wedding itself, a positively lovely affair. After a short civil ceremony we were treated to more excellent Finnish cuisine for dinner: lots of raw meat and fish, but also delicious vegetarian options. The wine was very well paired with the food too. As we ate there were some toasts, mostly in English but also in Finnish. They were clever and poignant and paid great tribute to the happy couple. When Tuomas delivered his toast in Finnish to Emilia, it reinforced something we all learned at IMD - that only a very small part of communication comes from the actual meaning of words. Even though we couldn't understand his words, the heartfelt homage to his life partner was clearly evident.

Before we transitioned completely from sitting to dancing there was a brief bit of drama. It seems that someone kidnapped the bride! In order to earn her back, Tuomas had to answer trivia questions about her and then dance a traditional Texas line dance! At first his performance was not deemed enthusiastic enough so he gave it another try, pulling out all the stops, and won her back - what a great tradition!

Then the dancing started and it was a LOT of fun! The DJ played everything from 80s staples to contemporary Finnish music, to everything in between - including Finnish covers of classic songs. Despite the cool weather outside, it got very, VERY warm inside so I had to alternate between dancing and cooling off outside. Eventually the best man made an announcement that it was time to stop drinking . . . and start getting wasted - what a great sentiment!

As Katie and I were dancing with one of my Chinese classmates, having a blast, it reminded me of a failure of mine from the IMD year. I was so focused on academic achievement that I missed many opportunities to bond with my classmates, foregoing parties to work, for example. It is so evident to me now, though, that my classmates were IMD's greatest assets, and relationships with them are the greatest benefits that I took from the program. This is now the top piece of advice I give to incoming students: to take time to get to know their peers. In my case I am now finally doing it at, for example, weddings like this one - better late than never!

At 1 AM we had to relinquish our venue so we all hopped on a bus to The Tiger, the self-described classiest club in Helsinki. There we had some tables reserved and kept the dance party going until 4 AM. As the club closed, Katie and I walked back to our hotel under the early sunrise and relished in the denouement of what had been an incredibly fun night.

Sunday began with brunch at an island mansion. Our party was noticeably diminished in size, partially because some people had already departed, but also because many people were still suffering from the previous night. Those of us who made it out were treated to excellent recovery food and a great view of the bay. Afterward Katie and I ferried over to Suomenlinna, the world's largest sea fortress, for some touring and sight seeing.

Sunday evening featured a final, casual dinner with the wedding couple and then Monday morning we were up eaaaaarly to catch our flight to Switzerland. Somehow it is easier to get up at 4 AM, though, when the sun is already rising. As we waited for our airport ride, I breathed in and took one last look at the gray, early lit skies above the train station and savored my most "canonical" view of Finland. It was a short trip but a fantastic introduction to a great country and great people! Many congratulations to Tuomas and Emilia!

Finnish Wedding Part 2

2011-08-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

Friday began with an amazing breakfast buffet at our hotel. It was a veritable smorgasbord of Nordic staples: pickled herring, mustard herring, marinated salmon, little pancakes, organic spelt/barley porridge with lingonberries, eggs, freshly baked bread, cheese, pastries, nuts/seeds, and fresh fruit. None of this wimpy continental breakfast for us - these Finns know how to start the day off right!

To be more precise, Friday actually began by waking up at 4:30 AM - my body was still getting used to the new time zone. Normally I might be able to roll back over and go to sleep in the dark. However, it was already very light out! This far north they have very little actual darkness in the summers. While we were there the sun generally set ~11 PM and rose ~4 AM - I can't imagine what it was like back around the summer solstice!

Because of this early morning wakeup, we found ourselves spending the rest of our morning after breakfast napping instead of exploring the town - oops! We roused ourselves in time for the first event of the wedding weekend, though: soccer! We walked down to the south end of the peninsula (Helsinki is incredibly walkable and there is public transportation to take you anywhere that's out of range.) and met the families of the bride and groom in a beautiful green park.

The groom's side would be playing the bride's side in a "friendly" game of soccer in the park. However, it was immediately evident that the bride's side was very sporty and pretty competitive to boot! Having not played soccer since I was ~5, this made me a little nervous. Also, I didn't have any cleats, just the Vibrams Five Fingers that I had brought for walking/jogging, so changing direction might be hard. Oh well, even if I made a fool of myself and totally let Tuomas down, I would at least get some good exercise!

Before the match started we energized with Finnish home cooking and plenty of beer - my kind of pre-game ritual! Then the match began on a [fortunately] shortened field. Long story short: I managed to score three of our five first-half goals - two kicks and one header - so hopefully I acquitted myself well. They were mostly blind beginner's luck, but I'll take them! The highlight for me, though, was a jumping scissor/bicycle kick to clear the ball out of our side. It just went out of bounds but at least it connected and it felt pretty cool! The groom's side had more people than the bride's side so I sat out the second half and got to know some of the other attendees - including two other Houstonians, one of which was a Rice Owl!

Afterward we continued to drink and threw around a REAL football as well. Both the bride's and groom's sides were full of Finns who play American football - both full contact and flag varieties. How awesome is that? Finally we disbanded from the park and several of us went for a late lunch at a cafe overlooking the bay. The weather was beautiful so we were happy just to relax and soak it all in. Walking around in the afternoon we bumped into some other IMD folks. Helsinki is small enough that it isn't uncommon just to bump into people you know--even when you're not from there!

Dinner that evening was organized at The Sea Horse, a traditional restaurant near the wharf that serves classic Finnish fare. We began with cocktails and Katie and I both tried ones that we thought we could never find back home. She had one that was like a kir royale but with rhubarb liqueur. I had a martini-like drink with blueberry liqueur - they were both delicious!

To eat, I tried the traditional Vorschmack while Katie had a very creamy mushroom soup. Then, for our main courses, we both had freshly caught local fish . . . for the third time that day! Dinner was delicious and was followed by some drinks at a local bar. Once again it was good to catch up with IMD classmates but this time it was also great getting to know some of the Finnish friends and family of the wedding couple. We called it an evening by 1 AM as we needed to rest up and bring our A game the following night!

Finnish Wedding Part 1

2011-08-08T11:38:00.001-05:00

Katie and I went to Finland for the first time in our lives for the wedding of two IMD friends and we absolutely loved the place! A cynical MBA friend of mine once advised me that the best benefit of business school was that it provided many travel opportunities for weddings of classmates. As international as IMD is, it really takes that benefit to the extreme! This was our third wedding outside of the US in the last 10 months but the first in a place that was totally new to us.

We arrived Thursday in Helsinki, where we were immediately impressed by the architecture. Many buildings were designed by famous artists and were both unique and beautiful. We were also astounded by how many and how well people spoke English. In fact, not only did they speak English better than many Americans, they were incredibly hospitable, nice, and gracious - which was a good thing, because everything was very expensive there! Still, given the quality of the people, buildings, and open spaces (many parks, plazas, sea views, and tree-lined promenades), you clearly get what you pay for!

Thursday evening we met up with other IMD couples for dinner and it was great to see people from Finland, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, India, China, Hong Kong, Romania, New Zealand, and France. In all there were eight alumni from the IMD MBA Class of 2008 - nearly 10% of our class - and amazingly I had only worked closely in a group with one of them. Accordingly, in addition to celebrating the wedding of our classmate, Tuomas, and his awesome bride, Emilia, this weekend turned out to be a great chance to bond with other classmates as well. Dinner Thursday evening was a great way to kick that off!

While we were at dinner, we bumped into an older gentleman who had noticed us talking about IMD. It turns out that he was an MBA graduate from 1988. Small world! Or rather, global network!

CleanTech Open National Academy

2011-07-18T22:08:00.000-05:00

I've just returned from the National Academy of the Cleantech Open, for which Smart Office Energy Solutions was selected as a Regional Semifinalist, in San Jose, CA. The Academy was a four-day affair of workshops and networking for Cleantech entrepreneurs who had made it into the semi-finals. The jury is still out on whether competing in the Cleantech Open will be worth it, but following are my thoughts so far.

When we were notified of our selection as semifinalists, I was honored of course but I was also skeptical. Attendance at the National Academy was required and the costs were steep. It costs $1,000 to attend. Add airfare, hotel, and other expenses and the total out of pocket is easily up to $2,500+. The greatest expense is time, though, an entrepreneur's most precious resource - what else could I have been doing for the company during these four days? I am immediately leery of organizations that purport to help entrepreneurs yet sap them of precious time and money early on. Perhaps the Cleantech Open is actually more of a scam, swindling entrepreneurs by feeding their vanity.

However, if indeed the competition could deliver on its promises of helping cleantech entrepreneurs advance their companies, raise capital, find clients, and increase profile, it could easily be worth it. I decided to take a risk on it because of two people involved. One is a cleantech private equity fund manager in Boston whose opinion I respect. The other is someone with whom I have worked before in Austin and who is now the Cleantech Open's coordinator for its new South Central region.

Having now attended the four-day Academy, I still have mixed opinions. To start, the event was somewhat disorganized. This wasn't a deal killer but they may have outgrown their ability to run a mostly volunteer organization.

Additionally the "academics" were very basic. The classes on market analyis, financing, IP, etc. were probably extremely beneficial to first-time entrepreneurs or tech people with little business experience but for me they were mostly repitition. I am not by any means claiming that I know everything and I fully appreciate the need to get the 150 semifinalist teams all on the same page. However, if we were hoping to learn something new for our $2,500++, then we were disappointed.

That said, they did line up some amazing speakers, including Randy Komisar (author of The Monk and the Riddle, required reading at IMD), Geoffrey Moore (author of Crossing the Chasm, required reading at Poken), and Steve Blank (author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, required reading at Smart OES!), as well as several prominent VCs and entrepreneurs. So in this regard, the Academy totally delivered.

The main benefit we were seeking on this trip was networking. Houston doesn't have much of a Cleantech community. Austin has more of one, but still it is clear that the epicenter of Cleantech in the US is the San Francisco Bay area. Therefore I was hoping to meet a slew of great conacts in the Cleantech ecosystem - entrepreneurs, sources of capital, business partners, potential customers, etc. Here again, the event really delivered.

Moreover, I now feel like part of the Cleantech Open community, which I think will be beneficial in the long run. As we undergo the next four months of workshops, events, and judging, I believe we will continue to build this "bond" with the organization that will transcend the value even of winning if we are so able.

Finally there should be PR value to participating in the competition - and especially if we continue to advance. PR for us as a company, for me as an individual, and even for our region, state, and city - which are not known as Cleantech hubs.

So there are known costs and unknown benefits - just like everything else in the startup world! I am looking forwad to the experience, though, and I will post my thoughts as it progresses.

While I was in the Bay area I had a great chance to catch up with other friends and colleagues. Wednesday evening I had dinner with the cofounder of my first two startups. he just finished his MS in computer science at Stanford and is now ready to take on the world again. Friday night I met up with former Rice computer science classmates who are now at Google. One of them is intimately involved in the Google+ rollout so I had a receptive audience to my fanboyness. Saturday I had lunch with a high school classmate who is now a Silicon Valley VC and that evening I had dinner with an IMD alum who is sharing time between San Francisco and Brussels.

There is never enough time to see everyone while I'm in town but each such meetup is a real pleasure. Social networking tools make staying connected much easier than it used to be but there is still no substitute for spending time with people in person!

Ah, Summer in Switzerland

2011-07-08T15:11:00.000-05:00

I've just returned from a week in Lausanne, Switzerland that was both productive and refreshing. The original purpose of my trip was to attend IMD's annual meeting for presidents of its global alumni clubs. As the founder and president of the Houston alumni club, I was invited this year for the first time. As this is a great time of year to be in Lausanne and a terrible time of year to be in Houston, I extended my stay a bit to work from a different location.

I flew out Wednesday evening, arriving in Geneva early Thursday morning. Instead of sleeping on the plane, I got on a real roll of catching up on some work, which was great for productivity but less great for feeling rested upon arrival! Still, I knew that I couldn't sleep during the day Thursday if I hoped to synchronize my body clock with the new time zone.

After checking into my "hotel," the exquisite house of a former IMD professor and mentor of mine, I spent the afternoon at IMD, attending a session of OWP. OWP, Orchestrating Winning Performance, is IMD's flagship event every year, featuring a full week of cutting edge research presentations to the 500 execs who come in from around the world to stay up-to-date. It was my first time attending a session and it didn't disappoint!

Thursday evening I had dinner with another IMD professor / mentor and a new colleague of his. The three of us will be presenting together at the Academy of Management's annual conference in August so it was a great chance to coordinate our goals, content, and logistics.

Friday and Saturday I spent at the Alumni Club Presidents meeting. Many of the presidents come from much larger markets than Houston (where we have 500+ alumni) and have been running their organizations much longer than I have. Therefore it was interesting to hear about their challenges, successes, and ideas.

Many of the discussions reminded me of the same discussions we have in Rice University alumni leadership meetings - philosophical questions about the purpose of school-alumni relations, metrics of success, debates about best practices, etc. Hopefully I can bring some of our good ideas from the Rice community to IMD and vice versa!

Sunday was a relaxing day as I met a high school classmate (who now works in Geneva!), showed her around Lausanne, and went out on the lake with one of my IMD classmates and his family. The weather was absolutely perfect, the lake was gorgeous, and the company couldn't be beat - what more could I ask??

Monday we hosted a 4th of July party at the "hotel." They have a great house for entertaining - big yard, nice patio, great pool, amazing view - so we BBQ'ed out, lit up some fireworks, and celebrated American independence. What a blast!

Tuesday and Wednesday I worked from IMD as my "remote office." This afforded me the opportunity of catching up with several contacts for lunch or coffee and it felt good to be back in the setting where I worked very hard not so long ago. It helped, of course, that the food at the restaurant is still AMAZING!

Wednesday evening I attended the Euro Tech Tour Cleantech Summit's gala dinner in Geneva. Well, at least we *met* in Geneva but the dinner itself was on a big boat lake cruise. Meeting other cleantech entrepreneurs to learn about their innovative ideas, networking with European cleantech investors, and fine dining on the beautiful lake - what a fantastic way to wrap up the trip!

This morning I left for the airport WAY too early and the trip was over WAY too soon, but it was a welcome change of scene even if just briefly. Although there are many things I love about being back in Houston, there are many things I miss about Lausanne as well. I feel fortunate to have developed a good network there which makes it still feel like a second home. I hope this will always be the case!

Another weekend at The SHOP

2011-06-22T11:26:00.032-05:00

Last weekend I underwent an epic 36 hours of working out at The SHOP in Dallas. As you might recall from my previous post about my first SHOP experience, it is not for the faint of heart. The SHOP is run by Drew Skaggs (S.H.O.P. stands for the Skaggs House Of Pain), a member of Rice's 2003 national championship baseball team. After graduating with degrees in Chemical Engineering and pursuing a career in commercial real estate, Drew finally stopped pursuing a "double life" (working to pay the bills and pursuing his interests in his offtime) and devoted his efforts fulltime to his passions: fitness, nutrition, strength, conditioning. He was already an incredible resource of information about the most cutting edge research in these areas but now that he is living and breathing it fulltime, The SHOP has become a mecca for elite athletes. Drew is more than academic, though; he practices what he preaches and leads by example.

To set the context, I'm in better shape than I was during my first SHOP visit in January. With Drew's help I've added three pounds of muscle, shed four pounds of fat, taken a minute off of my 5k PR, and taken 80 seconds off of my 10k PR. I was only going to be in Dallas for about 36 hours but Drew promised that we could do plenty of damage in that amount of time. To add to the excitement, we were joined by a mutual acquaintance, a former professional athlete, who is quite a fitness enthusiast himself. He happened to be in Houston so it was easy for him just to drive up to Dallas with me.

We arrived around 8:30 PM Thursday evening, changed clothes and immediately hit The SHOP. As had happened last time, Drew took me way out of my comfort zone with many exercises and movements I had never done - or even heard of - before. We started with Turkish Get-Ups using a dumbbell or kettlebell. I have no idea why the Turks would ever want to get up that way but it was a really intense way to begin a workout! We followed this with heavy dumbbell Farmer's Walks superset with ab wheel rolls. At this point it was clear to me already how out of shape my forearms were because they were completely exhausted already!

We finished off the workout with anaerobic conditioning. Drew set up three stations: battle ropes, mountain climbers, and the airdyne bike. Each us was at one station performing 20 seconds of maximum intensity exercise. Then we rotated stations and rested for 40 seconds. We completed a full circuit three times and I never thought 9 minutes could last so long! My heart rate peaked in the 190s and finally we were done. Drew made his famous SHOP recovery shakes and then we were off to bed for recuperation.

No rest for the weary, though, as we were up at 5 AM for pre-workout nutrition: omelets with plenty of fresh veggies. Some other SHOP regulars joined us at 6:30 for workout #2. We began with heavy deadlifts. I used a trap bar instead of a straight bar just because I'm less accustomed to it. Next up: single arm dumbbell bench press superset with kettlebell swings. Then we wrapped up with overhead press superset with single leg glute bridges. For post workout nutrition we had second breakfast at Company Cafe, where I had a deep bowl of sweet potatoes, eggs, and grass fed buffalo - Mmmmm!

My business meetings took me most of the day Friday, but I made it back to The SHOP in time for workout #3: Wrestlemania! Drew has been studying Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu so we rolled out the mats and he taught us a few moves. Then we had six two-minute rounds of one-on-one grappling, with one person sitting out to rest each round. The goal was to get the other person to submit without any intentional punching, kicking, or other strikes, just grappling. Just as I remembered from my days wrestling back in school, such an experience is absolutely exhausting. Maybe people with great technique are less exhausted by it but, for me, I basically end up with all muscles flexed all the time.

Because I didn't really know what I was doing, my approach can best be described as a "turtle" strategy. Each round I found myself pretty quickly with my face in the mat so most of my effort was focused on countering my opponent's attempts to manipulate me into a submission hold. While I was mostly "successful" with that - in that I managed to fend off such attempts until the end of the very last round, when I found myself in a choke hold - I wasn't "winning;" I was "not losing." Next time I'll need to take more risks to get more offensive practice. Still, it was a lot of fun and a heck of a workout.

Friday evening we grilled up steaks and salmon that Drew had caught in Alaska. Add some spinach with lots of garlic, tomatoes and avocado, Napa cab, and raw milk white russians (in honor of all the Big Lebowski references we had been making) and it was a heck of a meal. Then back to sleep before the final round.

Saturday morning we woke up early again for sprouted grain english muffins with peanut butter then began workout #4. As most of our muscles were pretty decimated by this point, more crazy lifting would have just led to overtraining. Accordingly we focused on mobility first with lots of PNF stretching. We then superset forearm captains of crush with reverse situps on the incline bench. My torso was already so sore from all of the stability work that I wasn't able to do much on the situps.

We then changed location to a hill near The SHOP. I don't know exactly how long the hill path was (estimate: 200 meters) or how steep (estimate: 10% grade) but we sprinted up it three times and then recovered with SHOP shakes. As we returned to The SHOP it had been almost exactly 36 hours since we had arrived and we had completed four killer workouts.

Looking back, two insights stand out to me:

1. We really didn't do that much. The volume of our work was pretty significant for a 36-hour stretch, but nothing exceptional for four separate workouts. However, the quality of what we did was through the roof: difficult exercises conducted with 100% focus and maximum intensity. This corresponds with my desire to work out smarter, not longer, and it's an aspect of The SHOP that I love: a commitment to results, not simply to tiring you out.

2. Most of what we did was new/different (to me, at least). No matter how optimally you train, there is always benefit to mixing it up and shocking your body out of its adaptation. This is another aspect I love about The SHOP: because Drew is so committed to staying abreast of - and even innovating beyond - the cutting edge of fitness research, I can always count on it for a shock.

I'm back in Houston now and I still hurt. My neck especially (the muscles, not the spine) is reeling from the wrestling. There was a time when I had a 19" neck that would have been ready for it. While my narrower current neck is certainly more practical for finding bow ties that fit, I could have used the extra bulk during Wrestlemania! I am thoroughly convinced that it is no coincidence that "SHOP" has the same number of letters as "EPIC" because that's the only way to describe the 36 hours and 4 workouts we undertook. Now I'm pumped and ready for more - but maybe after a little R&R . . .

Winning

2011-06-19T10:09:00.001-05:00

Last week was a great week that brought many accomplishments both professionally and personally. First off, I am pleased to announce that Smart Office Energy Solutions closed its second round of funding! While our first round comprised mostly smaller investors with whom I already had a personal relationship, this second, larger round was made up of more professional investors - both as individuals and as companies. Once again it is an honor to have had such faith placed on our shoulders and once again we will do everything within our power to ensure an overwhelmingly positive outcome.

And now, with this round closed, we've wasted no time in launching fundraising efforts for our next, much larger round. I pitched to two VCs last week and have already had very positive feedback/interest from one. As I have expressed before, fundraising is new for me and it is easy to become frustrated with the time and attention it takes. However, each of these small successes re-energizes me and keeps us moving forward.

Another piece of good news came in last week when we were selected as semi-finalists for the Cleantech Open, a prestigious nation-wide contest between cleantech startups. It is an honor to have been selected among such talented companies and we will work hard in the next round to live up to the "hype."

Finally, business meetings took me to Dallas toward the end of the week so I used the opportunity to squeeze in some time at The SHOP while I was there. I will detail that experience in a subsequent post but suffice to say that the incredibly intense workouts were exactly what I was seeking.

It was a great week so now I'm working on making this one even better!

Atlas Shrugged

2011-06-10T14:14:00.000-05:00

At long last, after several months, I have finished reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. While reading The Fountainhead back in high school, I fell in love with Rand's school of philosophical thought, Objectivism. I always meant to follow up by reading Atlas Shrugged but between college, startups, and the myriad other distractions in my life I just never quite made time for the 1,000+ page novel. Finally, at long last, I have accomplished this task and it was interesting to read it 14 years after I read The Fountainhead - my perspective has changed a lot since then!

The Good

Rand's advocacy of free market capitalism certainly resonates very strongly with me. I'm not anti-government but I do believe that the government has a pretty focused role to play in the maintenance and advancement of society. Capitalism is an efficient system for fostering innovation, advancing ideas that are worthwhile and discarding those that aren't. The capital and where it flows provides an intrinsic metric of success, incenting businesses to evolve, streamline, and innovate.

When the government gets too involved not only does it lead to wonky results due to decision-making by people with little business experience, it also mucks up the entire capitalist system, blurring the incentives and obfuscating the metrics of success - further compounding the wonky results (I have blogged before about such wonky results.). I'm glad to have read this book now, after 11 years as an entrepreneur and business executive, as the government meddling in business affairs (e.g. the Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule and Directive 10-289) evoked much more significant responses in me than they would have back when I was a student!

That said, in this book Rand argues for an extremely laissez-faire, almost anarchist, form of capitalism, which I do not support. The government does have a role to play in business and that is to set the rules of the system in which the market operates. These rules include fair laws and equitable taxes with frequent review and update. After that, businesses should be left free to optimize their operations around those rules.

I also bought into Rand's theme of Sanction of the Victim, the willingness of the successful to suffer at the hands of the "evil" (In this novel, "evil" is done by mooches and looters who have no capacity to achieve in and of their own right.), feeling guilty for the "sin" of their achievement. This corresponds with Transactional Analysis, specifically with the playing of games. It is easy to blame the "evil" person/company/country/organization but it takes two or more actors to play a game and they all are equally complicit in the result.

Rand's "rational egoism" or "ethical selfishness" still resonates with me in many ways but not nearly as much as it did in high school. If "self" is extended to represent collective units such as "family" or "company," I think this position is a good operating principle. However it must not be followed myopically and it must not be considered absolute. Part of what makes us human is that we have the capacity for love and human empathy, not just for maximizing self interest 24/7/365.

The Bad

Rand's philosophy really falls apart, though, on her premise that rationality is every human being's highest virtue. Here I disagree completely. Human beings are inherently irrational creatures although we spend an enormous amount of time and energy rationalizing irrational decisions we have already made - consciously or subconsciously. Several times in the novel characters are derided for sharing their feelings or instincts. This is flat-out wrong. We can either ignore / suppress our emotions or we can embrace them, even capitalize on them.

Again, our capacity to feel is a critical element of the human experience and, without it, life is less rich, less meaningful. This shows in Rand's characters who never seem to know joy. She writes that they are joyful when they achieve something great but it isn't very convincing. The moments of greatest joy in my life have been almost entirely irrational and they have involved people, not achievements. By condemning irrationality, Rand really misses the boat.

The Ugly

Because of the dogged focus on rationality, the characters in Atlas Shrugged simply aren't believable. Or, even if one believes that humans like them might exist, it is hard to identify with them. There is some dialogue, of course, but the book feels like one preachy monologue after another. Because of this inability to write "human" characters and because of her insistent commitment to rationality, I wonder what Ayn Rand was like - and I suspect that she repressed a significant amount of her own feelings.

More practically, Atlas Shrugged is too long. The story could have been told in 1/3 the pages and without sacrificing any character development (since, as described above, the characters weren't really developed). A prime example is Galt's radio address, which really is the expression of Rand's philosophy packaged up into one monologue - and what a monologue! After three hours of reading, of Galt repeating himself over and over again, of rhetorical questions and allegories, I finally finished his address. There was a lot of great stuff in there but it was way too long - if it had been a real radio address, he would have bored his audience to tears and no one would have followed. In Atlas Shrugged, however, people around the country are inspired by this message - once again exhibiting Rand's inability to grasp how humans really work.

Conclusion

I'm really glad to have read the book and I would recommend it for others as well. My reaction is very mixed: the businessman in me loves it while the human in me rolls his eyes at it. The fact that it evokes such strong and mixed reactions is a good thing and I'm sure I will have many lively conversations about the book. I just wish that Rand would have understood the latter reaction and found a way to reconcile her philosophy with it.

Houston Heights 5k 2011 Race Report

2011-06-06T10:50:00.000-05:00

Saturday I set a new 5k PR at the Houston Heights 5k race. As we are now in the time of year when Houston is murderously hot and humid, I had intended to be done with races until late Fall. However, our Norwegian intern, Anders, who is a much more accomplished runner than I am, pointed out that this would be our last chance to run in the same race before he headed back home - how could I pass up such an opportunity?

My previous 5k PR for a certified course was 20:58, set back in February. In theory I should have been in better shape now, but it would also be much hotter/more humid now so I didn't know exactly what kind of performance to expect. With race-time temperatures expected in the 80s, online calculators were predicting that I would run up to a minute slower than my cool weather potential. Plus, now I'm a married man and I'm sure that sets me back a few minutes too! :-P

I disregarded the weather for my race plan, though, and set a strategy to set a new PR. The course would be very straight and flat so there was no need to worry about adjusting for turns or hills. As usual my intention was to start and finish very strong with a fast, consistent pace in between:

KM 1: 4:04 (Big burst at the start then settling into my pace after 200m)
KM 2: 4:17
KM 3: 4:17
KM 4: 4:17
KM 5: 4:00 (4:17 pace for 650m, cover the next 260m in 60s - 3:51 pace, and sprint the final 90m in 15s - 2:47 pace)
Race goal: 20:55

The morning of the race was definitely pretty sticky. I didn't allow as much time between my big breakfast and the race as I usually do, so my GI was grumbling a bit as I warmed up. My stomach settled down right before the start, though, so all was well. I found Anders, we wished each other luck, and then we were off.

The first km went very well. Heights Blvd is a wide, straight street and there was plenty of room for runners to spread out after the starting line. I had a good start (~3:30 pace) and then eased back, finishing this km in 3:58 with an average heart rate of 166. Heading into the next km I was 6 seconds ahead of my goal and my heart rate was 174 - right on target.

The second km was consistent and felt strong. I finished it in 4:13 with an average heart rate of . . . 174 - my heart rate had stayed steady as well. I was now 10 seconds ahead of my goal and feeling very good.

The third km worried me a bit as it included a 180-degree turn (as we turned around and headed right back up Heights Blvd). I finished it in 4:12 but my heart rate had now begun to climb, averaging 178 throughout the km. 60% through the race I was 15s ahead of my goal with a 180 heart rate and straight, flat road ahead.

The 4th km was once again consistent (My heart rate stayed at 180.) but I struggled to stick to my pace, finishing in 4:18. A woman in green who had been just ahead of me (and who had a coach biking alongside her) began to extend her lead. Still, I was 14s ahead of my goal so I would set a new PR barring any disastrous meltdown.

The next 650m were again a struggle and I completed them at 4:20 pace. My average heart rate for that leg was 183 and my current heart rate was 185. Still, I was 12s ahead of my goal as I kicked it up for my penultimate push.

My pace was good during this push, 3:44, but something unexpected happened before I completed the 260m. Anders, who of course had finished several minutes prior, had come back along the course and was encouraging me on. I was 13s ahead of my goal, my heart rate was now 189 and, with 120m left, I began my final sprint.

I could see the woman in green way up ahead of me and, urged on by Anders, I committed to beating her. I passed several guys along the way but, for whatever reason, she was my focus - my nemesis! I blew by her maybe 5m before the finish line and it felt great! I had completed the final 120m in 23s (2:55 pace) for a final time of 20:44.9, 10s below my goal and a new PR by 13s! Perhaps most interestingly, my hear rate soared to 197 - the highest I have ever recorded - during the sprint.

I cooled down, found Anders, and together we jogged back along the course to find Katie and run her in. By this point it was getting very muggy and we were incredibly thankful for all the tree shade along Heights Blvd. Some others from our office had come out to support us so we all met up - but we runners kept our sweaty distance!

Anders finished 2nd overall with a 16:06 time - very impressive. My 20:45 was 69th of 1,022 runners (93rd percentile), 60th of 495 male runners (88th percentile), and 8th of 71 males 30-34 (89th percentile). It was a good race with decent competition, plenty of room, a nice course, and effective organization - I'll hope to run it again next year.

Also, to make this run more meaningful, I ran it in honor of GIVEWATTS. Some family members sponsored me and I managed to collect enough donations for three watts of clean renewable power to be installed at a school in East Africa. Over 10 years those three watts will create approximately $2,250 of value there, so this aspect of the race was much more impactful than my PR!

Wedding Part 6 - Final Reflections

2011-05-15T16:40:00.000-05:00

A great deal happened on and around our wedding day. William and Kate were married a week before. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver split up. Our dear friends gave birth to their first child. Animal Kingdom, a horse with ties to Hot Springs, Arkansas, won the Kentucky Derby. Rice baseball swept UH to continue its annual tradition of winning the Silver Glove. For us, though, all the magic in the world was at Castello di Montalto with us and our friends and family.

At the end of the day, the location was amazing and it certainly added the "fairytale" dimension to our wedding celebration. However, I think if we had gathered that group of people together anywhere in the world it would have been just as special. It really wasn't the castle or lush green hills or the incredible food and wine that made our wedding so special; it was the people. We are truly, truly blessed to have the people in our lives that we do and not a day goes by that we are not thankful for them.

It seems too that we are not the only ones to benefit from the great people with whom we celebrated in Italy. Since returning to the world of Internet connectivity it has been a joy to see all the facebook notifications of them connecting with each other. As we catch up with each of them it is also a thrill to hear of many of their adventures and stories from the week that were totally unrelated to us or our wedding. These stories bring broad smiles to our faces.

Now we're back at home and we're both still just beaming. My cheeks still hurt; not just from all the picture taking but from all the smiling and laughing. As I wrote at the beginning of my wedding blogging, it was the greatest week - and May 7th the greatest DAY - of my life thus far. But, as I look over at Katie sleeping in the seat next to me, I know that the best is yet to come! Thanks to everyone for the good wishes as we begin our next chapter together!

Wedding Part 5 - The Aftermath

2011-05-15T08:54:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning we woke up for the first time as husband and wife. Practically speaking, nothing had changed. Emotionally speaking, everything was different. We had taken a big step and everything just seemed to shine. At breakfast the honey was a litte sweeter, the smiles a little broader, and the laughter a little louder - life a little better.

Sunday morning we went to Siena and walked around a bit. I've always preferred the "Renaissance" of Florence to the "Medieval" of Siena, but, as we were at the cusp of tourist season, it was nice being in a place that was a little less mobbed. In line with Katie's and my travel philosophy, we spent most of our time in Siena eating!

Lunch was at a restaurant called Antica Osteria da Divo, a little place near the Duomo built into Etruscan caves. They set up tables for our group in one of the caves and we dined all afternoon. After that we moved onto San Gimignano for towers, gelato, and vino. We capped it all off with home cooking back at the Castello - what more can you really want in a day?

Monday we went wine tasting again - this time in the Chianti Classico region. First we traveled North to Greve, where we tasted at Villa Calcinaia, owned by the Capponi family, including my former professor. The other brother, Sebastiano, runs the wine business and honored us with some storytelling while we tasted his organic olive oil, sangiovese, Chianti Classico, and Chianti Classico Riserva.

We arrived at Calcinaia more than one hour late (Consistency!) but tarried there even longer than anticipated because everyone wanted to buy their wine afterward. As a consequence, we didn't reach our next appointment, Castello di Brolio, until three hours after our appointment time. We were scheduled to have lunch there followed by a tour and wine tasting. However, by the time we arrived, their osteria was already closed. They were kind enough to provide lots of food with our wine tasting - which was fortunate since we were starving by then!

The tour of the castle, where Chianti was "invented" was interesting and further fueled my desire to have a castle someday. The tasting reinforced my opinion that the Chiantis of Barone Ricasoli are really outstanding and can go head-to-head even with some Brunelli. Another night of dining "in" at the castello was a great finish to the day.

Tuesday was our last full day at the Castello so Katie and I decided just to hang out. Once again the weather was gorgeous so we walked the grounds a bit, spent time with those who were leaving, and had a long lunch with plenty of wine - which was, of course, followed by a similarly long nap!

Tuesday night we went into town for dinner in Castelnuovo Berardenga. We found a very nice little enoteca/trattoria where we dined on local specialties for hours. To accompany the typical Tuscan fare, we drank 2006 Dievole Chianti Classico Riserva Novecento, which was fantastic - one of the best wines we drank the entire trip, which is saying something!

Wednesday came and at last it was time to depart. It had been an incredible stay at Castello di Montalto and we would strongly recommend it to anyone looking for home base in Tuscany - tell them we sent you! On our way down to Rome we stopped in Orvieto for lunch. Orvieto was really charming and next time we are around it will merit more time than we gave it on this brief stop.

We spent Wednesday night in Rome, which was like an entirely different world. Driving in traffic was stressful, menus were in English, and the fantastic surreality was gone. Still, Katie and I were grinning from ear to ear recounting the amazing week we had had.

Wedding Part 4 - The Big Day

2011-05-14T16:32:00.000-05:00

Saturday morning Katie and I arose; the sun was shining, birds were chirping, and excitement was in the air. After breakfast many of us set about making final preparations. Many of the women decorated the granaio, which would be the scene of dinner and dancing, while others picked local wild flowers from the countryside. We used empty wine bottles from the previous 48 hours (And there were many!) to hold flowers as table decorations. Some of the other men and I set up chairs, tables, and the sound system.

Many people had their own excellent ideas for little touches that we would never have thought of, such as tying a ribbon (tied by Lee, who has been tying beautiful ribbons around my presents since I was 10) around the linden tree under which we would be married. This was exactly what we had in mind as it eliminated our stress and made the entire event a shared experience. I kept trying to find things about which to stress or worry but I really couldn't - everything was just . . . perfect.

Finally it was time to get ready for the ceremony. The common themes in Katie's and my outfits were "vintage," "castle," and "meaningful." Several months ago I found a midnight blue dinner jacket from the 40's and, with a little tailoring, it fit me very well. The formal shirt I wore under it was handmade with a bib design known as "Swiss pleats," a nod to the place where Katie and I were engaged. My studs were given to me by my mother, a set of four handmade silver dragons; they paired very well with my cuff links, also handmade silver dragons! Apparently the special ladies in my life know how strongly I believe that castles should have dragons! Instead of dress shoes I wore a pair of black ostrich boots given to me by Sam, my mentor in all things Texas. In my front breast pocket I had a white linen pocket square with a hand monogrammed "KJBGH" (Katie's initials joined with mine). Finally, I of course wore my Rice ring.

Adorned as such, I was ready - or I thought I was. Still nothing could prepare me for seeing Katie in her wedding outfit! We had planned a small, intimate ceremony with no "aisle" down which to walk so I showed up early, milled about, took pictures, etc. while we waited for the bride and her sister to show. When they did, WOW, what a sight to behold! Katie was wearing a long, flowing ivory dress (new) with a low back and plunging neckline. Her crystal earrings and aquamarine (blue) ring were gifts from my mother. An art deco bracelet (borrowed) graced her wrist while strappy silver/gold wedges clad her feet (Castles are not great places for stiletto heels!). She also had a special sixpence piece in her shoe to bring a little tradition to our most nontraditional wedding.

Most meaningful to me, though, were the vintage 30's crown tiara and 40's crystal rhinestone necklace (old). They were both wedding gifts from me and I was pleased to see how perfectly they adorned her head and her heart, her two most important parts! While I tried to remain poised, all I could think was, "OMGOMGOMGOMG I'm going to marry her!!!!" She was truly the vision of a "princess bride," the references to which continued throughout the entire day.

On a related note, I gave Katie a second vintage tiara as well because I didn't know much about her dress, how she would wear her hair, etc. and I wanted her to have options. The other tiara turned out to be a perfect match for Kelly's dress and so I was thrilled almost to tears to see my sister-to-be also wearing something from me. "Keep it together, Hassin; the ceremony hasn't even started yet!"

Once we were all together under the linden tree, in a courtyard between the castle's two major towers, it was time to get the show on the road. At this point it was no longer about the wedding-to-come but the wedding-in-the-here-and-now. Much of my IMD subconscious-oriented training was directed at experiencing the "here and now" so, surreal as the experience was becoming, I resolved to savor it. Every word that was spoken, every movement of someone's hand, even every breeze on my neck . . . I soaked up every ounce of it!

We were honored to have Sam as our "Captain of Ceremonies." As this was a secular ceremony and as we had already been civilly wed, our qualifications for this role were for someone meaningful (Sam had been like a father to me and in recent years he came to know Katie as well.), checklist-oriented (Sam is a career pilot - check!), and well spoken (Double check, especially since Sam's oratory skills come with the incredible "bonus" of Lee's co-authorship!) - Sam was a shoe-in, and we were just so glad that he undertook it even with many, many, many other important things going on in both his and Lee's lives right now.

The specific details of what was said and undertaken during the wedding ceremony belongs to the "here and now" of "there and then" so will not be included in this blog post. Suffice to say, though, that our parents and siblings played major roles (Even Katie's brother/sister-in-law and their family, who were unable to attend in person, joined us via Skype!), our IMD friends/spouses contributed international perspectives on marriage, and we publicly committed ourselves to each other before the people we hold most dear.

Speaking our vows to each other was the most surreal, positive moment of my life to date. It felt like something out of a movie, when the rest of the scene fades out and all that is left is sunlight and music and love. For months, ever since I began writing my vows, this was exactly how I had envisioned it, even down to the bridal wreath petals blowing in the breeze and landing softly in our hair and on our shoulders. I had practiced my vows in the shower, in the car, and in the mirror, but this time I spoke them into the beautiful blue eyes of my life partner. Incomparable, amazing, perfect.

Once we finished bawling, being pronounced husband and wife, and kissing (Finally!), we kicked off post-ceremony festivities by sabering the first bottle of La Marca Conegliano Prosecco di Valdobbiadene. Instead of using a sword, though (tough to carry on a plane!), we used the best we could find in the castle's kitchen: a huge meat cleaver!!! We sabered that bottle without cutting anyone, took a billion pictures, and began partying.

There in the courtyard we played mostly classical music, including pieces by Beethoven, Bach, Schumann, and even Mark Knopfler and John Williams. We also made the first of what would eventually be many, many, many toasts. We toasted those who were there with us, those who couldn't make it, and those who were no longer with us, all of whom were celebrating with us whether in person or in spirit.

Once every possible of combination of bride, groom, and guests had been photographed under the linden tree, we processed to the granaio to begin a very, very long wedding lunch/dinner. With such a small gathering we were able to seat everyone at the same long table, with Katie and me and immediate family at the center. For antipasti we had three kinds of bruschetta: muscroom, tomato, and spinach aioli. With this we also opened the next wine, La Cala Vermentino di Sardegna, a fabulous little white wine very near and dear to Katie's and my hearts.

I had intended to use the meal as an opportunity to toast everyone there at least once (I love making toasts at the weddings of other people so I was going to make as many as possible at my own!) and, using the Swiss cowbell we received as a gift, we started a protocol of ringing the cowbell to garner attention for a toast. Very shortly after my first few toasts, though, the cowbell made its way down to both ends of the table and we were surprised, HONored, flattered, thrilled, excited, grateful, blessed, and many, many other joyous words as our guests outdid me in both toast quantity and quality. Toasts ranged from hilarious to tear-jerking, from rehearsed to improvised, from advisory to congratulatory - but they were all incredibly heartfelt. I thought that our crying had finished with the ceremony but many of the toasts started the water works right back up again.

For our primo piatto we had risotto with asparagus and fagioli, which was followed by our secondo, herb-roasted pork and roasted potatoes. With this main course we served the '99 Castello Banfi Brunello di Montalcino Riserva Poggio all'Oro. If I hadn't already been in a "savor" mindset, this would have put me there immediately. Oh wow, what a wine! Classic sangiovese with crushed cherries and tobacco, beautifully integrated, and a round finish that went on and on and on and on. Mmmmmmm!

Dessert was panna cotta with fresh local berries, served alongside 2000 Chateau Guiraud Sauternes, which we discovered during our 2008 Bordeaux trip. It was an excellent pairing.

As we progressed through the meal, some of the toasts turned creative, including a Godfather reenactment, calling of the Hogs, singing of a traditional Sicilian wedding song (including audience participation!), and an a capella rendition of Can't Help Falling in Love by Katie's aunt, mother, and sister. Not only was that moving in and of its own right, but Katie's brilliant suggestion that we get up and dance to it made for a "first dance" much more spontaneous and memorable than anything we could have planned. Once again: perfect.

As the sun set we moved from dining to dancing. Katie and I had put together a small selection of good dance songs - both fast and slow - from the 50's through today and played them off my laptop through some big speakers. We started with the older stuff to be a little more accessible to our guests who would probably retire earlier and then made our way into more contemporary dance fare. It's tough to have something for everyone and I worried at times that our music was too "American" for our European guests, too loud for our older guests, etc. Utimately, though, Katie seemed to be having a blast, which was what really mattered. We hit on a lot of our favorites, including raucous singalongs to Friends In Low Places and Bohemian Rhapsody. In hommage to Top Gun the men even serenaded Katie with You've Lost That Loving Feeling. Good times!

After 11 or so hours of lunch/dinner and dancing, we finally wound down, cleaned up a bit, and called it a night. For Katie and me, it had been the absolutely perfect day. There was no stress, only unabounding joy, amplified a thousand fold by our loved ones who shared in the celebration with us. Words, poetry, music - nothing can express how incredible our wedding was for us. It was everything we had hoped it would be - and more, through the contributions of those who shared it with us. It was perfect. May 7, 2011: Best. Day. EVER!

Wedding Part 3 - Our Last Day as Singles

2011-05-14T13:26:00.001-05:00

Friday many of our guests went out exploring on their own. Some went to Florence, some to Lake Trasimeno, some to Cortona, and some just drove around. Katie and I stayed at the castle to enjoy the estate a bit and make any final preparations for the big day.

Castello di Montalto is on 700 hectares (~1600 acres) of contiguous land so we spent a lot of time just walking around the fields and forests, where we saw horses, deer, pheasants, wild boar, porcupines, and innumerable birds, lizards, bugs, and the like. Some of us went for runs some mornings along the gravel road which, despite the rocks, was fine in my Vibrams.

Friday afternoon was devoted to sport. My "groomsmen" (We didn't actually have a wedding party but, if we had, these were certainly guys who would have been part of it!) and I played grass volleyball, tennis, and football - a perfect way to spend my waning hours as a bachelor!

Friday evening, once nearly everyone, including my Italian cousins, had arrived, we held an outdoor BBQ to foster more "connectivity" between and among our various "constituencies." This dinner might usually be termed a "rehearsal dinner," but that was not the case for us - as there was no rehearsal! Katie and I really wanted the festivities to play out organically with minimal planning/controlling/stressing and that is exactly what happened - mission accomplished!

Toward the end of dinner, a good friend of the family, David, took over and delivered a scathing, hilarious roast. David has known me since I was 1 so he had accumulated plenty of roast material! Throughout dinner, though, he and some accomplices had also enticed people to write down wishes for Katie and me on little slips of paper. As he finished his roast, all the wishes were loaded onto little flying lanterns that were lit and then set free to carry the wishes up to the heavens. The effect was magical: an ascending "staircase" of balls of light in the night sky. As they floated upward some people called out the wishes they had made for us - some common themes were laughter and adventure, wishes that I am certain will come true! Some other wishes, such as fielding an entire football team with our children, well . . . we'll just have to see about that! Finally, by late Friday night, all 43 of us had arrived, ready for the big day.

Wedding Part 2 - Brunello di Montalcino

2011-05-14T06:58:00.000-05:00

Thursday's focus was on my favorite aspect of Tuscany: the WINE! After breakfast together (featuring exclusively food grown/prepared there at the castle or baked/prepared in the nearby village), we lined up an eight-car caravan to travel to the wine region of Brunello di Montalcino. The Garmin GPS that came with our rental car led us the wrong way down one-way streets a couple of times so we abandoned it in favor of Google Maps on my phone, which was much more effective--until we neared our destination! Then Google tried to send us to basically the right location but just a little ways up the hill, which wasn't very useful! So then we went back to the Garmin GPS, which didn't fail us this time. Finally, more than an hour late (which would be a theme in our wine tasting all week!), we arrived at Fattoria dei Barbi.

For wine tasting in and around Montalcino, I am used to being just 2-4 people, which, it turns out, is very different than being a group of 30! Many of the smaller Brunello houses simply aren't equipped to handle larger groups, rendering them ineligible for visits. Similarly, many of them don't have anyone on hand who speaks English, which is fine for a small group in which I can act as translator, but which is impractical for a larger tour. This means that our choices of wineries to visit were somewhat limited.

Also, there is generally no fee to tour/taste at wineries in Italy, but, for large groups, they do charge a per person tasting fee. Finally, leading a long caravan of cars (for many of whom it is their first time driving in Italy, Europe, or even outside the US) is simply a pretty slow affair. This - combined with our ongoing navigation antics - had me very ready for some wine by the time we arrived!

Barbi was very gracious, though, and still gave us an abbreviated tour (skipping over some of the finer vinification points) followed by a very unabbreviated tasting. At the tasting we sample their three Brunelli: 2006 Brunello di Montalcino, 2005 Brunello di Montalcino Vigna di Fiore (single vineyard), and 2004 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva. The first was a pretty basic Brunello; the second offered a little more flavor depth, and the riserva had a bit more tannic structure - all very good to taste and good to whet our appetites.

Lunch took place at Boccon di Vino, where I had eaten before with both Katie and Cox on separate occasions. There we were treated to delicious pasta dishes, a fantastic selection of Brunello wines (We had Silvio Nardi, Argiano, and Valdicava), and possibly the best panoramic view outside of San Gimignano in all of Tuscany. Usually we follow up lunch at Boccon di Vino with a nap in the parking lot but, given how far behind we were, we simply couldn't afford it this time. Fortunately the chocolate mousse we were served for dessert had plenty of coffee bean in it, so that helped.

Our afternoon tasting was at Castello Banfi. American-owned and the largest (by far) producer of Brunello di Montalcino, Banfi is about as commercial and "un-charming-Italian" as it comes, but their wine is just so damn good that I can't help but love them. We tasted their 2009 Rosso di Montalcino, 2006 Brunello di Montalcino, and 2005 Brunello di Montalcino Poggio alle Mura (single vineyard), which went from good to very good to very very good but still too young. We did not taste their riserva Brunello (Poggio all'Oro) because the '99 vintage of that wine would be served Saturday night at the wedding dinner. As we milled about, Banfi offered us another tasting of their sweet white Muscadello and, as I picked up the case of '99 Poggio all'Oro (their very last 12 bottles of it - good thing I reserved them a few months ago!) they threw in a magnum of Rosa Regale, their sparkling red wine, as a congratulatory gift.

Spoils in hand we returned in the evening to the Castello. After a late, heavy lunch and lots of wine consumption, several guests called it an early night. Some stayed around the castle to continue wine tasting. We went out to dinner at Il Corte di Bacco with some of our guests who just arrived Thursday afternoon. By the time we finally made it back to our villa, we crashed hard! Driving around a beautiful place tasting incredible wines with wonderful people - what a perfect way to kick off our wedding festivities!

Wedding Part 1 - Arrival

2011-05-13T18:46:00.001-05:00

The best week of my life - including the best day of my life - has just ended. I have had some really tremendous previous best weeks and days of my life, but this wedding really blew them all away. Everything was just so . . . so . . . perfect.

Katie and I departed for Italy Tuesday, May 3, arriving Wednesday morning. I had contacted Continental customer service months ago to see if they would do anything special for a couple on its way to be married, hoping to surprise Katie with a shout-out or something similar. The generic "no" response I received was disappointing but wasn't a big deal. However, when the flight attendant saw Katie's hanging bag, she guessed at our impending nuptials and did make an announcement, which was a surprise and a lot of fun. She even called us Mr. and Mrs. Barrett, which may be closer to the mark than she intended! As always, Continental's good people came through, even when their systems and processes didn't.

We arrived in Rome, picked up Chris, Kelly, and Mike (Katie's father, sister, and sister's boyfriend - I usually try to anonymize other people in my blog entries but it just won't be possible in the ones about the wedding!), and set off for Castello di Montalto. Instead of heading straight to Castelnuovo Berardenga, though, we detoured through Montepulciano for some sightseeing and a late lunch. The weather was overcast but it already felt great to be re-immersed in the rolling green hills of bella Toscana!

Katie - now my co-author-for-life - insists that I elaborate a bit more on the food. At lunch many of us had Pici, the local handmade pasta (kind of like very fat spaghetti noodles) in various forms (mine with extra garlic naturally). To cleanse our palettes afterward, we walked back to our car with some fig and ricotta gelato that was out of this world!

When we arrived at the Castello late Wednesday afternoon, some of our guests had already checked in and the weather was already clearing up. For the rest of our stay, the weather remained perfect for castle life: sunny with highs in the low 20s C (low 70s F) and lows around 10 C (~50 F). We were greeted upon arrival by the Count and Countess (who reside in the main building of the castle) and by Leo, their noble German Shepherd, who demanded tummy rubs as hommage.

One of the villas in the hamlet - the one with a large balcony and a gorgeous view, naturally - quickly emerged as the "party suite." Most of our guests arrived Wednesday evening so we picked up 30 pizzas from a local pizzeria and served them up (along with plenty of vino!) in the party suite. This was a fantastic event as people from our various worlds began connecting. Family met coworkers, coworkers met friends, friends of one side met friends of the other side, etc. We only had ~40 guests all-in-all but all of the chapters of both of our lives were represented. We made merry until pretty late and then called it a night to deal with jet lag.

The energy brought by all of our guests was palpable and Katie and I knew that this was the beginning of a very special experience!

Thoughts on Osama bin Laden

2011-05-03T18:40:00.000-05:00

When news came through Sunday night that Osama bin Laden had been killed, everyone in my house rushed to the TV. We turned it on just in time to catch Obama's address and then to see coverage of celebrations around the country. I was a bit shocked to see what looked like college kids outside of the White House jubilantly cheering (Literally! There were cheerleaders being thrown up in stunts!), singing, and chanting, "USA! USA!"

I rushed to post the following tweet and facebook status immediately:

"No matter how heinous the person, I don't believe killing someone is ever cause for celebration. Tonight is a time for somber reflection." My primary intention was not to criticize the actions of others; rather it was to share my values, especially with my international friends/colleagues/followers.

In this medium I have more than 140 characters so let me elaborate on my position. The killing of Osama bin Laden surely represents a very significant event. In real terms, hopefully it will lead to "less terror." In symbolic terms, it is valuable to many people because he had been built up for so long as the symbol/personification of terrorism.

No matter how monstrous, Osama bin Laden was still a human being, though, and we ("we" being our citizen soldiers financed by our tax dollars and operating under orders of leaders we empowered through our democratic process, so we are all complicit in it) took his life. We place value on human life and, even if our enemies don't, it is by sticking to our values that we remain who we are. Without our values, we have no moral ground on which to stand.

I fully recognize that violence and killing are sometimes necessary "for the greater good" (The Grindelwold reference is intentional because determination of "the greater good" is often a very subjective affair.) but it should always be the course of last resort. I believe (perhaps naively so) that it is usually our country's course of last resort. When the decision must be made to resort to violence or killing, it is a weighty decision that should be made "reluctantly and without joy." (not my words)

So when we have succeeded in killing someone, be it Osama bin Laden or Hitler or the Wicked Witch of the West, even someone we consider to be pure evil, my heart is not filled with joy; rather it is sorrowful that this most severe step had to be taken. Instead of jumping for joy at the news of bin Laden's death, I took some time to reflect on why the death was necessary and what could be done to avoid similar circumstances requiring similar action in the future. I reflected on what the consequences of the killing might be, both here and abroad. I reflected on the brave men and women who put themselves in harm's way to effect this outcome - and I especially reflected on those who didn't return home. I reflected on the innocent human beings who lost their lives (on both sides of the "War on Terror"). This was my way of reacting to the news.

With such a significant event come signifant and significantly varied emotional reactions. This is fine and normal and I don't fault anyone for how he/she feels about it. However, how we feel and act are different. This is why we have penalties for bad sportsmanship (e.g. excessive celebration in football). This is why in media we tend to sympathize with the humble, gracious winner (e.g. the Karate Kid) rather than the taunting, celebratory one (e.g. his Cobra Kai opponent).

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it much better than I can:

‎"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Practically speaking, much of the international community already sees the US as a global bully that pushes other countries around and assassinates unilaterally at will. I suspect that images of Americans jumping up and down in celebration of the killing (metaphorically "dancing on the grave" of a fallen enemy) will further this image and maybe add bloodlust to our charicature as well.

For my part I try to represent the US differently, but perhaps the learning here is that this other representation is in many ways accurate - that the jubilant celebrators are simply being authentic and that it doesn't take WikiLeaks to reveal that truth. Regardless, I take comfort in the fact that each of us has the right to celebrate in whichever way he/she sees fit and that brave and competent men and women are working every day to protect that right.

Schaefer Wedding

2011-05-03T13:07:00.000-05:00

This weekend Katie and I had the pleasure and honor of celebrating someone ELSE'S wedding just a week before our own! The wedding was in Key West, Florida so we were excited to relax a little in the sun for the weekend.

We flew down on Friday and immediately removed our watches to enforce that we were now on "island time." We settled into our little B&B on Truman Avenue and spent the afternoon just walking around Duval Street. We found a little hole in the wall called The Conch Shack where we had some excellent conch fritters. Friday night was rehearsal dinner at El Meson de Pepe (Cuban cuisine) and then we spent the rest of the night lounging around the pool and catching up with friends from Rice.

Saturday morning Katie and I woke up early to combine exercise with scenery. Katie walked around and explored some of the local parks while I went for a jog along the southern coast of the island. Lots of other people were out walking, running, biking, and roller blading around the island and everyone was very friendly.

We met up with our friends for brunch at Sarabeth's, where we also began daydrinking with a carafe of mimosas. After that some of our party went kayaking but Katie and I and RT decided to take the daydrinking to the next level by playing a few holes of Pub Golf.

Pub Golf is a drinking sport that goes along with a Pub Crawl. Each bar/pub stop on the crawl is considered a hole of golf. Participants are scored based on their consumption: drinking a beer is Par (0), a shot is Birdie (-1), a beer and a shot is Eagle (-2), and two beers or two shots is Albatross (-3). Sounds pretty straight forward, right? There is some strategy involved too, though, because each time you go to the bathroom you are penalized with an additional stroke (+1). If you vomit you are penalized with +2 - but if you "puke and rally" it's only +1.

This game was new to Katie and me but we were excited to play. We were both a bit nervous as our days of heavy drinking are pretty much behind us but it would be fun to see if we could stil hang. As the undefeated champion of the R7 Solutions "Shut Up And Drink" Challenge, I had a bit of pride at stake, but I also had more concern for my health and being in good shape for the wedding several hours later, so I would tap out if need be.

Our first hole was Fat Tuesday, a bar known for mixed frozen drinks. Katie started strong with their strongest drink, the 44 Magnum, for which she was awarded -2. She was also assigned a -2 handicap for her lower bodyweight. As with most competitions, my strategy was to come out swinging, so I ordered two shots (-3). Because I was in the islands, I chose two rums: Barcadi 8-year and Bacardi Reserva. The 8-year was OK but the Reserva was rich and complex with a refined finish - hardly appropriate for a debaucherous competition such as ours! RT decided to keep pace and took two shots of Goldschlager (-3). At the end of this hole, Katie had the lead with -4, followed closely by RT and me with -3 each.

Hole two took us to Irish Kevin's, RT's favorite bar on Duval St - and I can see why! It had many things to recommend it: Guinness on tap, a bartender who taunted patrons and drank along with them, a standing Guinness CHUGGING contest, and an awesome live singer/guitarist who sang Skynyrd, CCR, and Johnny Cash. Katie had a Smithwick's (0) and RT and I opted to slow our scoring pace a bit to stick with the Irish theme; we each ordered a Guinness and a Jameson's (-2).

We had an awesome time at this place, singing along at the tops of our lungs. A couple walked in wearing Redskins shirts too, so it was fun to chat/commisserate with them. Katie was already seriously feeling the effects of the first hole, though, so she neglected her beer and bogeyed. Not one to let a perfectly good beer go to waste, I finished it off to drop another stroke (-3). At the end of this hole, I had the lead with -6, RT was right behind me with -5, and Katie was a little further back at -3. Long story short: I never relinquished the lead so I'll stop updating our scores from here on.

Our third hole was The Lazy Gecko, which happened to have an Irish bartender. As such, we continued the Guinness + Jameson's combination. They also had a Nintendo Wii so we exercised something other than our livers with Wii Bowling and Homerun Derby. Re-energized by the Wii, Katie was back in the game.

The fourth and final hole was the Hog's Breath, where we sat at the bar and just drank liquor. Katie had a sapphire martini, RT went back to Goldschlager, and I tried some other exotic rums plus vodka distilled from local oranges.

By the end of Hole Four it was clear that we needed something in our systems that was not alcohol. We found a restaurant that was creatively named "Cheeseburger." RT ordered the eponymous menu item while Katie and I shared a fish sandwich, conch fritters, and sweet potato fries. By the time we left it was 2 PM and it was clearly time for all of us to nap. RT yak'ed on the way back (+2) but I had a pretty insurmountable lead by then anyway. All in all it was a very good time and I'm glad we gave it a try!

After a refreshing nap and shower we attended the actual wedding of our friends, which took place at the Key West Lighthouse, a really pretty location. The ceremony was officiated by another friend of ours who did a really good job of combining meaningful words with humor. It was a very nice little ceremony and we were pleased to share in the joy of our two newlywed friends.

Afterward the reception was upstairs at 915 Duval, which was a nice venue with good food and very friendly staff. There we ate, drank, chatted, caught up, and generally had a good time for several hours. When it came time to send off the bride and groom, though, we called it a night too. After all, we had had a pretty intense day and we're not as young as we used to be!

Sunday we hopped on our plane back to Houston, very excited for the couple and we were honored to be included in the weekend's festivities. Now the countdown has begun to our OWN nuptials, for which we depart on Tuesday!

Legally Married!

2011-04-25T11:51:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday Katie and I took a major step by formalizing our civil union with some of our best friends in Houston. Because our "real" wedding will take place in Italy and because it's kind of a pain to be legally wed there, we decided to be legally wed in Houston first.

We originally intended for it not to be an event but really just an official procedure of filling out some documents. However, as it became clear that some of our best friends would not be able to join us in Italy, we decided to use the occasion for a little "pre-wedding" celebration.

Our moms and Katie's sister flew in for the affair and it was officiated by one of our best friends from the Rice community - who also happens to be an ordained minister! We held the event on April 16th, the 10-year anniversary of our first date, which also happened to be Jimmy Buffett Day this year! We held it at Antica Osteria, a restaurant that has been a special part of our relationship since the very beginning.

We had lovely weather all weekend and the star jasmine was in full bloom, providing an incredible scent everywhere we went. The night of our dinner the sky was clear and the full moon was shining brightly. There were 17 of us all-in-all in a private area, which proved to be a great size, allowing everyone to meet everyone else and for us to visit with everyone.

We had picked out our favorite dishes for the meal: pepperoni arrostiti with anchovies and garlic and burratta pugliese to start, the "Memari" salad dell'osteria, and a choice of fresh Gulf snapper, eggplant parmigiana, or Maine lobster fra diavola. We knew everyone would be stuffed by dessert time so we went for a lighter option: fresh mixed berries and cream.

To drink we served an Angelo Sassetti Brunello di Montalcino 2004. Katie and I had been to visit Angelo's brother / next-door neighbor, Livio, in 2009 and absolutely loved the wine so we gambled that Angelo's would be good too. Our gamble paid off and we had a very nice, mellow brunello that got better as the evening progressed.

The food was delicious, the company was great, and we couldn't have asked for a better way to kick off our wedding festivities. We closed down the restaurant and ended the night feeling incredibly positive about our future together and the great people in our lives. Now we are looking forward to more time with family and friends during the coming weekends and finally the wedding itself in May. Life is good!

My Metabolic Profile

2011-04-16T08:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had a full metabolic assessment performed to calculate my body's profile for converting oxygen, fat, and carbs into energy. Frankly I didn't really know what this meant when I signed up, but it seemed like it would provide some really interesting data (and it is well documented how much I drool over data!) with which to fine tune my training and racing.

The specific assessment product to be used is called New Leaf, which I discovered at DC Rainmaker's fitness equipment blog. At the New Leaf website, I learned that the closest New Leaf site is in Pasadena (TX) at Third Coast Training. I would have to break my usual rule of not leaving the safety and comfort of Houston's inner loop, but it would be worth it.

The New Leaf assessment required 12 hours of fasting beforehand so I scheduled mine in the morning. At 7:45 I arrived at Third Coast Training and met Johnny Shelby, the owner and former world class middle distance runner for the US Army's track team. I was immediately relieved to find that Johnny is extremely knowledgeable, not just some yokel spouting off sound bites that he learned during a weekend training course.

The first test of the assessment measured my resting metabolic rate (RMR). This is the number of calories I would burn if I were to lie around in bed all day. There are various methods for estimating this number and most predict (based on my height, weight, gender, and age) that my RMR should be 2,000-2,200 calories per day. Instead of estimating, though, now we were going to know for sure.

The test required me to lie down with a "gas mask" attached to my face. I felt kind of like I had an alien from the "Alien" movie series stuck on my face - which didn't help me to relax! The mask measures the oxygen and CO2 content of each exhalation, which it uses to calculate to total number of calories your body has expended. This test lasted 15-20 minutes and the greatest challenge was staying awake the whole time.

RESULTS: it turns out that my metabolism is really sluggish - with an RMR of only 1,600 per day! I don't know why it would be so slow, especially given my high amount of muscle mass, which is ostensibly a metabolic furnace! My theory is that I have undernourished on some of my really active days (e.g. volleyball tournaments), which has left me with a caloric deficit of 1,000+ calories. Perhaps my body reacted to those instances by really slowing down my metabolism. Or maybe I just have a genetically very slow metabolism. Regardless, I want to boost this number so I will work at ensuring adequate nutrition especially on "big" days.

The next test was my full metabolic profile. This also involved wearing the "gas mask" but this time on a treadmill (at a 2.0% incline to simulate outdoor running better) instead of lying down. We started at 5.0 mph for three minutes. At the end of three minutes, Johnny pricked my finger and took a blood sample, which was used to measure my lactate levels. Taking a blood sample while someone is running is a tricky business but Johnny was a pro and it went off without a hitch. Without stopping my speed then went up by 0.5 mph and we continued like this in 3-minute stages; I was told to tap out when I felt that my legs were too fatigued or that I was too out of breath to continue.

This went on for awhile until, at 9.0 mph, I finally tapped out. It turns out that I am basically a big sissy and I probably could have gone up two more stages based on where my lactate levels were when I quit. This is a big blow to someone who prides himself on mental toughness! When I tapped out I didn't know what my heart rate was or how much time was left until the next stage. I hadn't eaten for 13 hours, I was wearing a crazy new gas mask, and my finger was being pricked for blood every three minutes - all of this was new/unsual to me. When there is uncertainty in my running, I become anxious. But, like any good nerd, when I have data, I stay calm and I have the confidence to push through. When I know how much longer I have to go, I can dig down and pull it out; when I don't know, though, my natural inclination is to give up. This seems like a big weakness to me, especially when one thinks about the implications outside of the running world--in business, for example. So I will work on it but, in the meantime, I will also make sure to avoid "running blind" in critical situations.

RESULTS: I was pleased that my metabolic profile and lactate levels showed pretty strong signs of fitness, my processing of oxygen actually increasing in efficiency as exercise intensity increased. Through 6.5 mph my body stayed in an aerobic zone, heart rate under 160 BPM, lactate levels under 2.0 mMol, and VO2 in the 32-38 ml/kg/min range. Through 7.5 mph my body began using more glycogen as a fuel source, heart rate under 170 BPM, lactate levels up to 3.53 mMol, and VO2 in the 38-46 ml/kg/min range. While running at 8.0 mph my body crossed the 4.0 mMol lactate threshold, reached 177 BPM, and VO2 pushed up to 50+ ml/kg/min. At 8.5 mph, the last full segment I completed, lactate levels spiked to 7.55 mMol, heart rate reached 184 BPM, and VO2 reached 53 ml/kg/min. According to Johnny I probably could have continued for two more segments, reaching a lactate saturation of ~12 mMol and a VO2 max of maybe 56 ml/kg/min.

This shows that my aerobic fitness is "pretty good" but shows plenty of room for improvement. Similarly my anaerobic performance has plenty of upward room - good! Johnny worked out 5 heart rate training zones for me and they differed considerably from the "standard" zones provided by estimations or my Garmin ForeRunner. The first zone is my aerobic "base," where I operate at peak aerobic efficiency. Zones 2 and 3 are more of a mix between oxygen and glycogen energy systems. Zone 4 is above my anaerobic threshold so is basically my Lactic Acid system. Zone 5 is unsustainable peak exertion, my ATP-PC system.

My goal is to push up my aerobic base while simultaneously increasing my my anaerobic speed and duration. This will be accomplished by mixing in 100% Zone 1 jogs with interval runs that alternate between the peak of Zone 4 and Zone 1 for recovery. I have been running too hard in recent months to do anything beneficial for my aerobic system and it is so hard for someone like me to accept that you can slow down in order ultimately to run faster but I'm going to give it a try. By not running hard all the time hopefully I will be less prone to injury/exhaustion too. Also the New Leaf website makes it easy to upload your heart rate zones and true metabolic calorie burn rates to your Garmin ForeRunner, which is really convenient.

Of course I'll be submitting all of these results to The SHOP for their interpretation of the results and training ideas as well. I will post updates on progress but, in the meantime, I highly recommend the New Leaf product and, specifically, Third Coast Training, to those interested in an analytical approach to energy system training.

Capitol 10k 2011 Race Report

2011-03-27T22:30:00.001-05:00

Today Katie and I set new 10k PRs at the Capitol 10k in Austin, the largest 10k in Texas. Katie and I drove up yesterday and had our pre-race dinner at Mother's Cafe and Garden. Mother's offers great vegetarian fare and most of their produce is grown there onsite. We ate there last year before the Cap 10k and we both PR'ed so we figured that we shouldn't mess with what seemed to work! Katie had the vegetables ranchero and I had the BBQ tofu sandwich. We had dinner with an Italian IMD friend of mine and we all shared some chocolate cake at the end. Stuffed, we repaired back to our hotel (With 23,000+ runners we decided to avoid logistical uncertainties this year and booked a hotel near the race start/finish.) for an early night.

My morning began at 6 AM with a breakfast of 900 calories worth of granola, almond milk, avocado, and fresh fruit. I stretched a bit, listened to Texas rock n' roll, and went over my race strategy: Start strong, ease up a bit on the uphills, fly down the downhills, and finish strong. Last year I made great time on the downhill stretches by really striding it out. The only problem was that the long strides meant a heel-toe foot strike, which is not how one is supposed to run when barefoot (or in Vibram FiveFingers, as I run). This year I intended to bend my knees and take short, high-RPM strides with ball-of-the-foot strikes--the consensus "best practice"--on the downslopes. My "base" pace would be 4:38/km with 4:46 for the uphill kms and 4:24 on the long downhill kms. If I could stick to this plan, I would finish with a new PR of 45:37.

At 8 I went down to warm up a bit, which was a good idea. The weather was overcast and ~62 degrees F (16 C) and was expected to remain so throughout the race. A healthy dose of wind made it pretty chilly before the race for a shirtless runner like me. I knew that, once I was surrounded by 23,000+ runners and once I was running hard, I would warm up significantly.

The Cap 10k does an excellent job of lining up runners based on pace. At the very front are the elite runners, who must show proof of having finished races under pre-defined threshold times (38:00 for men, 41:00 for women). The next section is for timed runners under some other threshold, the section after that for timed runners under another threshold, etc. etc. until, at the very back, are untimed walkers. The end result is a much smoother start, even with 23,000+ participants. I was assigned to the first section after the elite runners; Katie was two sections back.

At 9:00 AM the starting gun went off. 5 seconds later I was across the starting line and hurtling across the Congress Ave bridge toward the capitol. Last year I finished the first km in 4:38 with an average heart rate of 160 BPM. This year I was aiming for a more aggressive start, though, so, despite the gentle upslope (~5%), my goal was 4:29. I finished the first km in 4:16 with an average heart rate of 162 BPM - 13s ahead of pace.

My goal for the 2nd km, which featured a much steeper slope up and around the capitol building, was 4:46 (Last year I did it in 4:37 at 172 BPM). However, the course had changed slightly since last year such that now there was a steep downslope section as well. I tried out my new short, rapid stride technique on the downhill section and it worked like a champ. I finished in 4:20 with an average heart rate of 175 - 39 seconds ahead of pace. If I could just run the rest of my race plan, I would accomplish my 2011 goal of running a 10k under 45 minutes.

The 3rd km started with a steep uphill segment but was followed by a good downhill stretch. Last year I completed it in 4:32 at 173 BPM but this year I wanted to stay on my base pace of 4:38. The downhills were really working for me, though, and I finished in 4:27 with an average heart rate of 177 - 50 seconds ahead of pace. My heart rate was high but I felt good.

The 4th km also seemed to have a downhill and then uphill segment so, again, I was shooting for base pace (Last year I completed it in 4:40 at 176 BPM.). However, due to the change in race course, this km had much more uphill than downhill and I finished it very slowly: 4:49 with an average heart rate of 180 - now only 39 seconds ahead of pace but still on track to beat the 45 minute barrier.

Last year I finished the 5th km in 4:46 (175 BPM) but this year was shooting for base pace. However, the gentle downward slope made this km easier than anticipated and I finished it in 4:22 with an average heart rate of 178. The first half of the race had taken me 22:14, a personal best. I was 59s ahead of last year's run and 55s ahead of this year's pace. My heart rate was high but the hardest part of the race was behind me and my form was holding up well.

Kms 6 and 7 were race makers for me last year, featuring long downhill slopes. Last year I finished them in 4:25 (177 BPM) and 4:24 (178 BPM) respectively and I was shooting for 4:24 for each of them this year. I finished the 6th in 4:22 with an average heart rate of 178 BPM and the 7th (despite a course change) in 4:24 with an average heart rate of 179 BPM - 57s ahead of pace.

The 8th km was quite flat and last year I finished it in 4:41 (176 BPM). This year, shooting for base pace, I came in at 4:37 with an average heart rate of 177 BPM. Last year the uphill of the 9th km killed me, slowing me to 4:51 (176 BPM). This year I resolved to stay below 4:46 and succeeded, finishing in 4:42 with an average heart rate of 177 BPM - 62s ahead of pace. Heading into the final km I felt pretty good and actually noted that this was the most lucid and clear-headed I recalled feeling at this point in any 10k race to date.

My goal for the final km was 650m in 3:00, kick it up for 260m in 60s, and then the final 90m in 14s. I hit the 650m mark at 2:58 (178 BPM) then the next 260m in 1:01 (182 BPM). I then kicked it all the way up but it took me 23s (186 BPM) to cross the finish line. According to my GPS that was 160m, not 90m, so who knows exactly where the discrepancy arose. Final time: 44:41, a new PR by more than a minute! I finished #563 of 10,165 timed runners (94th percentile), #494 of 5,147 male runners (90th percentile), and #87 of 734 male 30-34 runners (88th percentile).

I was pleased with this result. My heart rate spiked up quickly but it stayed in the appropriate range for the rest of the race so I think my body is figuring out how to maintain higher levels of performance longer. In previous races I have consistently shown an inability to keep up my pace in the second half of the race but not so today. Good progress!

Just as with my last 10k, there were no dry heaves at the end, so I think there is something to this big pre-race breakfast idea. After I finished, I ate, drank, stretched, and cheered on Katie as she came in, breaking her PR as well. We cleaned up, checked out of our hotel, and then met several Rice friends at Shady Grove for brunch. Katie had a garden burger while I opted for the tortilla-fried catfish - great recovery food! A local beer would have been perfect but we needed to head back on the road to Houston immediately so it wasn't meant to be.

It was a very brief trip to Austin but we saw several friends and beat both of our 10k records - not a bad trip, all-in-all!

The Most Pressing Question: How To Price Food, Energy, and Health?

2011-03-25T11:03:00.000-05:00

I was recently invited to throw my hat in for participation in the conference on "Ecosystem Services" hosted by the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative. It is a "think tank" style event at which people from all disciplines, sectors, and backgrounds come together to address weighty topics. One question on the application was, "Which one question or topic related to 'Ecosystem Services' is most pressing and most deserving to be addressed by [conference attendees]?" Following is my response, which was required to be fewer than 250 words. What do YOU think?

How to price food, energy, and health

Capitalism is an extremely efficient system for organizing resources to produce a desired outcome. However, as with all systems, garbage in results in garbage out. Subsidies, protectionist economic policies, and the externalization of costs result in prices for food, energy, and health that do not reflect reality and that are completely misaligned with desired outcomes.

For example, fast “food” is an incredibly cheap source of calories in the US but its costs do not reflect market reality. Its ingredients have low costs due to agriculture subsidies. The economies of scale used by the industry require massive infrastructure and energy use. The cost of infrastructure is externalized as overhead. The cost of energy is undervalued because the energy industry receives high tax breaks and externalizes the costs of environmental damage and health risks. Overconsumption of fast food drives up nation-wide health costs to cope with rising diabetes and obesity. The health costs themselves are inflated under the burden of overhead for an incredibly complex multi-payer system and prices are based on services rendered rather than on outcomes achieved.

This brief, US-focused example illustrates not only what dire situations food, energy, and health are in but also how complex and interrelated they all are. These issues must be addressed at the system level and the primary parameter for the capitalist system is pricing. Addressing pricing will require an interdisciplinary and inter-professional approach, which is why the NAKFI conference is a perfect venue for its discussion.

Bayou City Classic 2011 Race Report

2011-03-12T22:15:00.000-06:00

This morning I PR'ed in my second ever Bayou City Classic 10k race. There was some uncertainty around this race as A. I had been sick for most of the preceding week and B. once I beat the cold I was eager to run but I pulled my hamstring on Thursday. I took Friday off to rest but I was still hacking up phlegm and I had no idea whether or not my hamstring would be runnable. The race would have to be a game-time decision.

My day began at 5AM with breakfast with Max. I had an egg and some avocado on sprouted grain toast (Max gets an egg and some avocado mixed in with his morning dog food too.), sprouted grain cereal, almond milk, and fresh fruit. Taking in 1,000 calories only 2-3 hours prior to running a race runs contrary to the conventional "eat light before a race" wisdom. However, I went this route for two reasons: 1. My dry heaves at the end of previous races have shown that there was nothing left in my system to process (after ~600-calorie breakfasts). I therefore hypothesized that I had room to process a little more before the race. 2. This is essentially what I have for breakfast every day so it didn't present much of a risk of indigestion.

As I digested, hydrated, and waited for the time to depart, I ran over my race strategy. Last year this course surprised me with elevation changes and a finish that came sooner than expected but this year I knew exactly what was coming. My race plan was as follows:

1. Start close to the starting line and begin with an anaerobic 3/4 speed launch, settling into pace after ~200m. Shoot for a 4:30 first km.
2. Consistent pace of 4:39 for kms 2-9. Ease up a bit on the uphill grades and stride it out on the downhills. Because the course is of the go-out-and-come-back variety, the uphills should be equaled out by downhills and a consistent pace should be possible.
3. At 300m from the finish line, pick up the pace, covering 240m (the last uphill stretch before the final push to the finish line) in 60s.
4. Turn the corner and sprint the final 60m in 10s.

This race plan would have me finishing in 46:07, close to my Rodeo Run time of two weeks ago but on a more consistent, intentional pace.

At 7:30 Katie and Max dropped me off near the starting area downtown (They went for a run of their own while waiting for me to finish.). I ran some blocks to warm up and test out the hamstring. I could definitely feel that it wasn't 100% but it seemed to be holding up OK. Would it stand up to strong start and [hopefully] strong finish? We would see very soon!

As runners took starting positions I lined up very near the starting line. At 8:30 the air horn blared and we were off. It only took me two seconds to cross the starting line and then wide open Louisiana St offered plenty of room to spread out. As seems to be the pattern, I started off faster than intended. I couldn't tell, though, how much faster. Once again the tall buildings downtown confused my GPS and it told me I was running a 5:00+ pace. I didn't believe that but I didn't know exactly how fast I was going.

After half a km I realized that I was breathing really heavily and my chest was feeling quite congested. As I settled down my pace my hamstring was noticeable, but manageable. If I couldn't breathe due to cold remnants, though, it would be a long, tough race! My heart rate was pretty high, nearing 180, so I concluded that indeed I had been running quite quickly. No problem there; even if it had been faster than intended, it was coherent with my strategy and now my aerobic activity would process the lactic acid to provide me with more anaerobic energy at the end. We emerged from downtown, my GPS stabilized, and I finished the first km in 4:03 with an average heart rate of 164 BPM.

The next few kms were unremarkable. The music along the course was good and I kept a relatively even pace. Now that I was running a much slower than 4:03 pace, I was passed frequently by runners who had had slower starts but were running faster paces.

km 2: 4:35, 174 BPM
km 3: 4:37, 174
km 4: 4:39, 176
km 5: 4:43, 175

I finished my first 5k in 22:37, my fastest first 5k in any of my 10k races or training runs. There was a marker for each km so I knew I was actually running the times/distances, not having to trust my GPS blindly. My heart rate had stabilized but my pace was clearly slowing. Still, I was 29s ahead of my target so, if I could just run the second 5k within 19 seconds of my target, I would beat my PR.

At this point we turned around on Shepherd and began the trek back toward downtown. By now the runners around me had thinned out. There was an old guy who was a real trooper. Every time I pressed him, he fought me off and pushed ahead faster. There was also another guy wearing Vibram FiveFingers, which was great to see. There was also another stocky guy running along with us. For the next several km we basically all ran together.

km 6: 4:43, 177 BPM
km 7: 4:40, 177
km 8: 4:43, 177
km 9: 4:43, 178

Entering the final km I was only 19s ahead of my target, 9s ahead of my PR. This km began with an uphill segment, which went really slowly for me--at a 5:00+ pace! It began occurring to me that I could "lose it all" in this last km if I kept that up! I made up time on the corresponding down slope. "Flow like water," I told myself. While people around me were wasting energy leaning back and resisting gravity, I tried to let it guide me forward. I passed the old guy here but the stocky guy and the other Vibrams wearer were still ahead of me.

At 9.5 km, my left calf cramped up. I reasoned that I was overloading it by compensating for my tender right hamstring. With only half a km left, though, there was nothing to do but soldier on. We turned the corner for the final uphill segment and I decided to pick it up a little bit early, with 350m left. The previous 650m had taken me 3:02 (181 BPM), which was right on pace. Now I wanted to take the hill in 60s. I pumped my arms and passed several people, including the Vibrams guy. At 61s (185 BPM) I passed the stocky guy and turned the final corner.

It turns out that the finish line was actually 90m from this corner. I began to sprint and saw on the clock that I would easily beat my PR. There was one runner between me and the finish line. He was much closer to it than I, but he was definitely "pacing" his way in instead of sprinting. I set a new goal to beat him and I gave it all I had. My body wouldn't go nearly as fast as I knew it could but I was closing the gap quickly. Finally, with a last burst of effort and a grunt, I lurched forward, crossing the finish line just ahead of him. I had crossed the last 90m in 14s (181 BPM) resulting in a final time of 45:43, beating my previous PR by 13s! Also, despite my intense effort at the end, there was no dry heave, which could be an indicator of success of my big breakfast experiment.

I finished #178 of 1,420 runners (87th percentile), #155 of 755 males (79th percentile), and #15 of 124 men aged 30-34 (88th percentile). The after party was great, with lots of good food and Saint Arnold beer. This was a very successful race for me (both in terms of the PR and pacing - each middle km was +/- 4s of my target pace) but I'm disappointed in my second half fade again. Hopefully this is something I can address in the Capitol 10k in Austin in two weeks!

Computer Science and IMD

2011-03-10T16:43:00.000-06:00

A prospective applicant to the IMD MBA program recently contacted me to ask about how my computer science (CS) background affected my IMD experience and whether or not IMD was a good fit for him. It got me thinking, especially since I had just received an invitation to talk to the current crop of Rice undergrad CS majors. Following is an abbreviated version of my response:

No one else can answer whether or not IMD is a good fit for you - only you can. And in fact, you probably can't truly answer that question until after you've completed the program! For example, I thought IMD might be a good fit for me before I applied. After my second round, onsite interview day, I thought IMD would be a great fit for me. After completing the program, I knew it had been a great fit for me--but for very different reasons than I originally thought!

Still, I'm glad to provide some contextual information about my experience in the hope that it helps you better anticipate what the program is like.

To answer your practical question first, yes, the international organizations you have mentioned recruit very heavily at IMD. The World Economic Forum is probably the most prodigious; 4 of my 89 classmates took a job there after graduation. Something I didn't realize until I was already in business school is that your location has a significant impact on the job opportunities that just come your way. If you're looking to work in San Francisco after business school, Stanford is your best choice hands-down. If you're looking to work in Geneva, there is no better pedigree than IMD. Can you go to Stanford and then take a job in Geneva or go to IMD and then take a job in San Fran? Of course, but it's more of an uphill battle.

As for my CS degree, I didn't find that I used it much at all during the program. Certainly my engineering-driven problem-solving approach came into play every day. Certainly my experience pulling all nighters to study/do problem sets/build software helped prepare me for the intense IMD work load. Certainly my skill with software programs like Excel was very useful, but I would guess that your career in the Finance world has imbued you with more of those skills than did your CS studies.

Honestly some of my greatest take-aways from the IMD program were really the result of unlearning my CS education. In studying CS I was taught that everything is rational/logical and that everything can be modeled with deterministic formulae. However, at IMD I learned that actually most people--myself included--behave quite irrationally. Recognizing that and learning to identify "what's really going on" in intra- and interpersonal dynamics has been one of the most useful skills I have ever developed.

Is this helpful background information for you? Again, only you can decide whether or not it's a good fit (although the Admissions team is pretty good at gauging that too!) but I applaud you for seeking out some more data. In the end you'll just have to do something that you probably didn't learn in CS class (but that you might learn at IMD): trust your feelings.

Houston Rodeo Run 10k 2011 Race Report

2011-03-05T15:17:00.001-06:00

Last weekend I ran the Houston Rodeo Run 10k for the first time. It was my least favorite of the three 10k races I have run to date, but it was still a fun experience.

My day began at 6 with cereal, almond milk, bananas, toast, avocado, and a banana. Normally I would have had an egg too, but we were out. This was only 500 calories or so, but it left me very full (in concert with all the water I was drinking!) and, besides, my energy for the race should have been coming from my meals of the previous 48 hours.

At 7 I drove downtown and parked at the office. The race wouldn't start until 9:35 but hundreds of thousands of spectators were expected to take up all the parking pretty early and many of the major roads would be closed for the race route. I made it in before the road closures and was sitting comfortably in my office (conveniently located one block from the starting line) with easy access to water and clean bathrooms by 7:15.

I continued to hydrate, got some work done, and ran over my race strategy one final time: a 4:40/km "base pace," slightly faster (4:35) for kms with net downhill slopes and slightly slower (4:45) for kms with net uphill slopes. I also intended to start with a strong anaerobic start (4:35), then use the middle 8 km for aerobic recuperation, and finally exhaust my anaerobic capacity at the end for a fast (4:26) final km. This strategy would have me finishing in 46:21 (25s behind my PR) with a 23:20 first 5k and a 23:16 second 5k.

At 9 I went down to the starting area, dropped off my warmup clothes and mobile phone (which would be waiting for me at the finish) and lined up near the sign that said 7:00/mile pace. As we moved closer to start time, many people who clearly weren't going to run sub-7 miles lined up in front of me so I scooched forward a bit, close to the 6:00 sign. The temperature was in the low 60s F - a bit warmer than ideal but not too bad, all things considered.

When the starting gun (air horn) finally went off at 9:35, I was appalled at how slowly things got moving. People in the very front were very slowly running forward and many were even walking - WTF? It took me 26s just to reach the starting line! And then, once I did, I had to juke and jive to pass dawdlers. So much for my plan for a strong start! I was anaerobic all right, but I was wasting too much energy dodging rather than hitting my pace.

Finally, after the first turn, I found an outside "lane" and was able to get down to business. The sudden feeling of freedom that came with emergence from the pack made my feet feel light and springy and I bounded forward. The race organizers did an excellent job organizing "hoopla" teams to line the early parts of the race and this also motivated a faster pace. By the end of the first km, I had more than caught up with my target (4:35) by running a 4:32 with an average heart rate of 161 BPM.

The second km had a modest incline so my target for it was 4:45. Apparently my springy pace kept me going forward quickly, though, because, before I knew it, I had finished this km in 4:15 with an average HR of 171. Whoa, easy there, tiger! I was now 33s ahead of my target so, if I could just run my race plan for the rest of the race, I would beat my PR.

The third km had a modest decline so I prepared to stride it out for a 4:35. The hoopla teams were gone now and there were just 20 or so runners in my vicinity so now it was time to focus and execute. I finished this km in 4:31 with an average HR of 172. I was now 37s ahead of my target and 12s ahead of my PR pace but my HR was good so there was no need to adjust / scale back.

The fourth km featured our first real incline up the Elysian viaduct on the way out of downtown. My goal time was 4:45 and I passed many runners who were struggling up the hill, ultimately finishing in 4:41 with an average HR of 174. I was now 41s ahead of my target and 16s ahead of my PR.

The fifth km was pretty flat so my goal time was 4:40. It turned out there was still some incline, though, and I slowed way down to finish in 4:48 with an average HR of 171. Having lost some ground, I was still 33s ahead of my target and 8s ahead of my PR. My HR had declined a little so hopefully that boded well for kms to come. According to my Garmin I finished the first 5k in 22:47. However, the official D Tag pad didn't come until a little ways later (22:57) so possibly I hadn't been running quite as fast as I thought.

The 6th km had some downhill again so I shot for 4:35 and exceeded it with 4:27 and an average HR of 174. The race course included a shower mist station, which I avoided like the plague. As I understand it, sweat can't conduct heat away from your body very efficiently when your skin is already saturated with water. I was now back to 41s ahead of target and 16s ahead of my PR - but I was starting to feel it.

The 7th km was largely flat so the target was 4:40 again. Unfortunately I finished in 4:45, again with an average HR of 174. The 8th km featured another steep uphill as we hopped back on the viaduct. My target was 4:45 and I finished in an abysmal 4:53 with an average HR of 175. I felt like I was running my pace and, in fact, I was passing runners who had been with me the whole way. It turns out, though, that they were just slowing down even more than I was. So, at this point I was 28s ahead of my target and only 3s ahead of my PR.

The 9th km was another slow one, finishing 4:49 at an average heart rate of 174. I was now only 14s ahead of my target and a full 9s short of my PR. Fortunately it was to be smooth sailing until the end so, with a final push, I might still break 46:00 for only the second time ever.

My goal for the final km was to finish the first 700m on pace (in 3:16), then kick up a bit for 60s to bring me within sight of the finish line, and finally sprint the final 50m in 10s. Thus my goal time for the full km was 4:26. Long strides on the final downhill portion helped me hit 700m by 2:58 (HR 179) but it took me 65s to cover the next 250m (HR 184). When my Garmin told me I had 50m left it turned out I really had 100m left, which took me 19s to sprint (HR 187). Thus I finished my final km (although my Garmin thought it was 1.05km) in 4:22.

I dry heaved once then recovered with water, bananas, and Honey Milk - but there was no beer there--LAME! My final time was 46:03 - just missed breaking the 46-minute barrier! While I beat my target time by 18s, I felt let down after my strong start had me on PR-breaking pace for much of the race. I'm especially disappointed in my much slower second 5k. It appears, though, that I wasn't the only one to slow down in the second half (where most of the topography was experienced):

According to my Garmin I ran the first 5k in 22:47 and the second 5k in 23:16. According to the official race chip measurement, though, my splits were much closer: 22:57 and 23:06 respectively. I finished the first 5k #293 but the second 5k, which I ran more slowly, I finished #243 - so it appears that others were experiencing an even greater slowdown. I was passed by 13 people during the second 5k but I passed 143 runners - not bad.

I finished the race #262 out of 5,689 runners (95th percentile), #221 of 2,800 men (92nd percentile), and #33 of 445 men aged 30-34 (93rd percentile).

Lessons learned:
1. I just don't really like the Rodeo Run very much. It's set up more for recreational runners, the course isn't great, and the afterparty was kind of underwhelming.
2. I need to crowd the starting line since apparently people will disregard the line-up guidelines. I don't want to be caught behind so many slower runners again.

I'm battling a cold right now so resting up and not training. I should be over it with plenty of time to get back into form for next weekend's Bayou City Classic 10k.

Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 3/3: What Now

2011-02-17T12:55:00.163-06:00

This post is the third of three that detail my running of a 5k last weekend.

The first entry is Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 1/3: Preparation

The second entry is Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 2/3: The Race

With one of my annual goals accomplished so early, I have two options: 1. check it off the list and rest on my laurels for the rest of the year, or 2. adjust the goal and challenge myself to continue improving. As I did in the middle of the race, I choose option 2 here as well. The new goal is < 20:30, shaving off roughly 6 seconds per km. This won't "just happen," though, so following are my thoughts on how to realize this goal.

First I must look back at this race and ponder why I was able to achieve a time a full minute lower than the best time of my recent 5k training runs. There are a few possible explanations: 1. Adrenaline / competition brings about higher performance. This is certainly true, but I don't think it alone can account for a full minute's improvement. 2. Being rested and well nourished / hydrated brings about higher performance. Again true, again inadequate to account for the full improvement. 3. My training runs aren't intense enough. I think this may be the real crux of the issue and it will be addressed in subsequent runs.

Looking forward, I believe the path to my new 5k goal is training each of my energy systems. The human body generally uses three energy systems to do work:

1. The ATP-PC system, which anaerobically uses the ATP stored in cells for quick bursts of high-intensity energy lasting up to 10 seconds. This is the system used when sprinting.
2. The Lactic Acid (fast glycolysis) system, which anaerobically converts glycogen stored in the muscles and liver to glucose, which is broken down into pyruvic acid, which provides slower bursts (up to 60 seconds) of moderate-intensity energy. This is the system used when running 400m.
3. The Aerobic (slow glycolysis and lypolysis) system, which aerobically breaks down glucose (faster) or fat (slower) to provide long durations of low-intensity energy. This is the system used when running distance.

Even though a 5k is pretty high-intensity, my understanding is that you are still using the Aerobic system to produce energy most of the time. By training your Aerobic system, you are able to increase its efficiency and ability to supply energy at higher intensities / speeds. Before I started running, a 4:20 / km pace would probably have "winded" me so quickly that I couldn't have kept it up for even an entire km. This is because my Aerobic system would not have been able to produce energy quickly enough for that speed, forcing my body to rely on the anaerobic systems, which would have depleted quickly. After training, though, I can now sustain a 4:20 pace for at least several km because my Aerobic system has adapted and is able to provide enough energy.

My training thus far has really been focused on building up my Aerobic system. As illustrated above, this goal has been achieved and I will continue to train my Aerobic system with runs of varying pace, incline walks, and other low-intensity activities. Additionally, though, I now need to train up my anaerobic systems.

I believe (although I welcome advice from much more experienced runners / coaches) that the "best" way to run a race, especially races of longer distances, is in three phases:

(0. Prepare)
1. Aerobic: maintain a pace that is supported by the Aerobic system for the vast duration of the race (For long distances, this can include refueling during the race so that the faster glycolysis can be used instead of the slower lipolysis.)
2. Anaerobic 1: pick up the pace for the last 60 seconds, using the Lactic Acid system to get the most out of every last glycogen molecule stored in muscles / liver
3. Anaerobic 2: sprint all out for the final 10 seconds, using the ATP-PC system to get the most out of every last ATP molecule floating around
(4. Recover)

I don't believe I'm getting enough out of my phases 2 and 3 right now. During a race I am covering 275m in the final 60 seconds. However, when rested I can cover 400m in 60 seconds. During a race I am covering 55m in the final 10 seconds. However, when rested I can cover 90m in 10 seconds.

This discrepancy is significant. Let's say I'm running a 4:20 Aerobic pace. My current final km comes out to 10 seconds (final 55m) + 60 seconds (previous 275m) + 2 minutes 54 seconds (previous 670m @ 4:20 / km) == 4:04. If instead I hit my "potential" numbers described above, my final km would come out to 10 seconds (final 90m) + 60 seconds (previous 400m) + 2 minutes 13 seconds (previous 510m @ 4:20 / km) == 3:23. That shaves 41 seconds off my total time - yowza! I could reach my new goal without changing my pace if only I could hit my "potential" during the "end game" of a race.

I believe I'm failing to run fast enough at the end because 1. I'm still using some Lactic Acid system during the first phase of my run (including the too-fast starts) and 2. My anaerobic systems are just out of shape, having not been trained intentionally in some time. 1 can be addressed with aerobic training and 2 can be addressed with interval training, sprints, and high-intensity workouts. I believe that, if I can address these two issues, I can shave 30+ seconds off my race times without modifying my pace.

Note that this assumes that one can still access the full power of the ATP-PC system after fully depleting the Lactic Acid system. I'm not sure if this is true or not. My experience in this last race seemed to indicate that there was still ATP-PC juice left even as Lactic Acid gas was running out, but perhaps there were other (e.g. psychological) factors at play as well?

I have three 10k races to run over the next six weeks so I intend to test out this training and race running strategy.

Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 2/3: The Race

2011-02-16T12:52:00.016-06:00

This post is the second of three that detail my running of a 5k last weekend.

The first entry is Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 1/3: Preparation
The third entry is Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 3/3: What Now

I got off to a nice pace (I thought!) with the balls of my feet lightly springing me forward and level of exertion in a good range. When I looked down at my Garmin, though, it said I was on a 3:30 / km pace! Yikes, way too fast! Because I didn't trust the GPS as much when surrounded by all those tall hospitals in the Houston Medical Center, I didn't let up too much at first.

After more than a minute, though, I decided to pull back a bit. I was frustrated with myself for falling prey to the classic "rookie" mistake: firing out of the starting gate too quickly, spurred on by adrenaline and the paces of the other, much faster runners who start at the front of the pack. I just hoped that it wouldn't kill my ability to keep up the pace later on in the race. Still, I was pretty optimistic; I had made this mistake in every one of my competitive races to date and it had yet to really hold me back. Plus, I was well rested and nourished, so I tried to adjust to the right pace and keep on trucking.

I finished the first km in 4:01 (WAY ahead of pace) but my heart rate was only at 166 BPM, almost exactly where I would have expected it to have been if running my pace, so I was optimistic that I had gained 21 seconds without it costing me much. If I could just stick to my plan for the rest of the race, I would kill my previous PR.

I finished my second km in 4:13 (Still significantly under pace) and my heart rate was doing just fine at 173 BPM. Just as had happened during my 10k PR run at last year's Capitol 10k in Austin, it began dawning on me that, 30 seconds ahead of my 21:40 race plan as I was, I could actually break 21:00 (my 5k goal for 2011). I adjusted my race plan in stride; I would now need to run my final three km at a 4:19 pace and get the most I could get out of my final kick. I was feeling good, though, and this all seemed very possible. By this point I was feeling very overdressed, so I rolled up the sleeves of my long-sleeve mock and pressed on.

I finished my third km in 4:19 and my heart rate was just 176 BPM - excellent, keep on going! Toward the end of the fourth km was a 180-degree turn. Last year I slowed down and hugged the turn tight to ensure that I ran the shortest distance possible. The slow down felt good but the subsequent speed up was hard. This year instead I decided to swing out wide and keep up my momentum / pace. I'm not sure what the best practice is in this situation, but I think it helped me.

I finished my fourth km in 4:20 and my heart rate was still down at 177 BPM - I knew I had plenty of gas left for my final km. By this point in the race we were all very spread out and, after I passed a few runners on that slingshot turn, there really wasn't anyone around me. There was someone about 30m ahead of me. From what I could tell, he was significantly younger and lighter than I was, so I became fixated on him as my must-beat target. This was just the motivation I needed to push me through this last km. Slowly I gained ground on him, but I made sure not to press too hard. If I could just close to 10m or less, I was sure I could leave him in my dust on the final kick.

As we approached the final turn, I pulled up even with this temporary arch nemesis of mine and my watch informed me that we were at 4.75 km. I had made it here in 3:11 - a 4:16 pace - and my heart rate was 180 BPM. My total race time at this point was 20:04 so I could beat 21:00 if I could just execute my 55 second 250m final kick. My nemesis, unfortunately, was all gassed out and offered no competition after I passed him, so I had to look inward for the motivation on this final stretch.

I pushed forward with what felt like everything I had. Looking at the data now, it appears that I temporarily sustained a 3:05 pace but that this gradually slowed down to about 3:30. As I came into the last 50m, though, I could see the clock ticking away at 20:54, which helped me find that extra gear and fly into an all out sprint (~2:30 pace, according to the Garmin). One of the advantages of being the only runner around is that the crowd around the finish line has no one else to cheer for, so you know they're cheering for you. As I gritted down for this final sprint, the crowd reacted positively and the cheers grew louder, which really helped.

The final 250m took me 54 seconds (average heart rate: 183 BPM). Interestingly, my heart rate had been climbing to 186 during the first 200m but then, when I went into the full sprint, it dropped to 180, only increasing again once I slowed down after the finish line. I suspect this has something to do with the transition from the lactic acid energy system to the ATP-PC energy system, but I'm not sure exactly why / how.

My official race time was 20:58 - a new PR and under my 2011 5k goal. I finished #48 of 961 runners (95th percentile), #39 of 447 men (91st percentile), and #2 of 49 in my age group - men 30-34 (96th percentile). After the race there was a great after party. Lots of good music, natural food, sports drinks, and, of course, beer! After official race times were posted, they stopped the music to give out awards. Since they gave awards to the top three finishers in each age group, I won an award for the first time!!! What a thrill! It must have been a pretty weak / sparse competitive field, but I'll take it!

Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 1/3: Preparation

2011-02-15T14:34:00.001-06:00

This post is the first of three that detail my running of a 5k last weekend.

The second entry is Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 2/3: The Race

The third entry is Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 3/3: What Now

Saturday I ran my first competitive race of the year, the Texas Med Center 5k. Last year I PRed in this race with a time of 21:43, thus meeting my 2010 goal of running a 5k race under 22:00. This year my training runs had been coming in around 22:00 so I didn't think this would be the race at which I would meet my 2011 goal of running a 5k race under 21:00. However, I did think I could PR again so I set the following goals for this race:

1. PR
2. Chip time < 21:40
3. Run final km faster than any other kms
4. Run final 250m < 0:55

To accomplish these goals I planned to run my first four kms at a 4:22 pace. The fifth km would be at a 4:22 pace until the final 250m, at which point I would kick it. This kick should result in a 54-56 second final quarter km rather than the 66 second quarter km that would result from staying on the 4:22 pace.

As I didn't think I could push the pace much lower than 4:22 for the rest of the race and keep it up, this last kick was going to be especially crucial - the 10-12 seconds it would shave off my time would be the difference between setting a new Personal Record and failing to do so. I knew from my training that I had the capability to execute such a kick so I turned to nutrition to ensure that my body would have all the resources it needed on race day.

I consulted with the experts at The SHOP about my race week nutrition program. They refreshed my memory about the different energy systems involved in such a race (aerobic, using oxygen and fat for most of the race, then anaerobic lactic acid using glycogen for the final kick). In a race as short as a 5k there clearly wasn't a need to engage in carbo loading (the efficacy of which has been questioned anyway) but I would still want to ensure that my body came into the race with as much glycogen stored as possible to fuel me for that last kick. We also modified my daily breakfast a bit for more balance of carbs, protein, and fat, resulting in me feeling fuller and more energetic throughout the rest of my days.

The day before the race I rested, hydrated, and drove along the race course with my GPS on so I could visualize the km markers and get a feel for the changes in elevation (which were almost non-existent). We attended a Symphony performance that night (a whole evening of Ravel!), which kept me out a bit later than optimal but also ensured that I was relaxed when I went to bed.

When I woke up at 5 I really had to go to the bathroom, so I knew that I was well hydrated - but not so much so that it had woken me up in the night - resulting in good, uninterrupted rest. I usually get up at 6 but I like to start race day breakfast early just to ensure that digestion has plenty of time to complete - I never want to be blindsided by indigestion in the middle of a race and far away from the nearest bathroom!

Race start time was 8:30 and I arrived a little later than intended, about 8:10. It then took awhile to park, which stressed me out a bit. Note for next year: arrive by 8! The outside temperature was about 36 degrees F but rising quickly due to the clear, sunny skies. At this temperature (and based on memories of last year's race, which was COOOOOOOOOLD and windy / wet), I arrived really bundled up: Under Armour Cold Gear leggings + long sleeve mock, shorts, gloves, wool cap, and - of course - my Vibram Five Fingers Bikila running "shoes." As I got out of my parked car (T - 10 min until start, ahhh!), I could feel that, regardless of what the thermometer said, it was way too warm for all that insulation! I ditched the cap and gloves and jogged to the start line.

While waiting for the starting gun, I could tell that there were many walkers / slow runners far forward (In larger races they are staged to start later than the competitive runners.) so I made sure to line up pretty close to the starting line. After the gun went off, it was only two seconds or so until I crossed the starting line and my timing chip registered that I was "in play." I hit the "start" button on my Garmin ForeRunner 405 CX (GPS / heart rate monitor watch) and I was off!

Green Job Creation is the Wrong Argument

2011-02-11T13:59:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine asked for my response to an article titled The False Promise of Green Jobs. The article contends that "green" governmental policies will not result in net creation of jobs because

A. these new green jobs will be offset by job losses in the "conventional" energy sector and
B. green energy is more expensive than conventional energy so its increased costs will cut overall productivity and spending.

In response to A, all I can do is wonder if anyone really bemoans the rise of the IT sector (and IT jobs) at the expense of, say, the typewriter industry. Clinging desperately to obsolete industries may prop up employment in the short-term, but it ensures a decline in competitiveness in the long term.

In response to B, I can't disagree more with the notion that "green" energy is more expensive than "conventional" energy. We currently externalize the environmental, health, and social costs of producing energy "conventionally," such that the price the consumer sees is much lower than reality. Our governments also provide significant tax breaks and incentives to conventional energy companies, which allow them to sell energy so cheaply while still generating record-breaking profits. This is all part of an implicit contract we have that guarantees citizens access to limitless, incredibly subsidized energy. Capture the true costs of conventional energy and take away all of the big corporate incentives, and I think you will see a very different cost comparison result.

Furthermore, this author is very narrowly only considering green energy generation when making claims about costs. However, he neglects the companies making great advances in greener energy distribution, storage, and efficiency, all of which make energy - regardless of its source - much less expensive. My company, for example, reduces a business's energy costs 25%, freeing up capital that can be used for, say, employment.

The biggest fallacy of all in this article, though, is the focus on job creation. If a government is pursuing a policy in the name of creating jobs simply for the sake of creating jobs, well, that's socialism. This isn't a big surprise coming from a Scandinavian (where governments are generally relatively socialist) author. In the US, though, where we claim to be capitalists, green businesses should be supported not because they charitably create jobs, rather because they make sound economic sense, increase energy security, and help us operate as a much more robust, independent, efficient society.

My green business has created only two green jobs so far and we plan to create many more. However, policy arguments focused on green job creation alone are totally missing the point.

2011 Goals

2011-02-07T23:28:00.000-06:00

Last year I defined many yearly goals and, as I described in my 2010 wrap-up, I accomplished many of them. Looking back at the system for goal definition and tracking I set up, though, I've found several areas for improvement.

Most notably, I need to focus more on measuring outcomes, not just on the ways of attaining those outcomes. Most of my goals last year were very "tactical," e.g. "accomplish XYZ each week" and I lost sight in some cases of the bigger picture. This year I am defining higher-level strategic objectives first and revisiting them frequently to check whether or not meeting my tactical goals is helping me achieve them.

Relationships

My objective here is to maintain positive, engaged relationships with my friends and family - as well as to meet new interesting, positive people. Last year I tried to quantify my success in this area by tracking how many times I met up with others - physically or virtually. I easily achieved my targets but I'm not sure there is necessarily a correlation between such activities and meeting my objective. This year I will measure success in this area in a more qualitative way: by tracking my feelings. I will periodically check how good I feel about my personal relationships. To start, I am trying out a website called Mercury App for this tracking. If I really wanted to take it to the next level, I would track how my friends and family felt about their relationships with me too - but I'm not ready to impose that on others just yet!

Health

1. Body Composition: I'm beginning the year at 39 pounds fat and 156 pounds lean. I'd like to finish the year at < 30 pounds fat and more than 160 pounds lean. There are two components to this objective:

Lose fat: To lose fat I am aiming to create a daily caloric deficit of 250 calories. Getting adequate activity for calorie burn has traditionally not been much of an issue; my major challenge has been in restricting caloric intake. Although I generally eat healthy, natural, good foods, I eat a lot of them, sometimes when I'm not even hungry. I like the way food tastes or I use it for procrastination or the obsessive-compulsive side of me just wants to see the food gone because it feels more clean / complete that way. This year, each time I eat, I will ask myself, "Am I hungry?" "Am I savoring / appreciating this?" I will track how many "no" answers there are, ultimately going for zero on an ongoing basis.

Gain muscle: Last year there was a wide range of intensities in my resistance training workouts. This year, I will track how exhausted / sore each workout makes me and, whenever the result is suboptimal, adjust that workout the next time for a better result.

2. Increase flexibility: I'll measure this with a pretty crude - but valid - metric: the distance between my the tips of my fingers and the floor when bending forward, straight-legged, from the waist. My starting point is 10" so I have tremendous room for improvement! Last year I tried and failed to focus dedicated workout days on stretching. This year I'm trying a more "decentralized" approach, spreading out a little bit of stretching every day. This includes stretching immediately after each exercise activity and going through a full body stretch routine each time I sit down to watch TV. I'll tally a "demerit" each time I catch myself having skipped one of those stretch times and aim for zero such demerits on an ongoing basis.

3. Volleyball: I failed to meet last year's objective of winning a men's A tournament so that is back on the list for this year. One way I can give myself a better chance is by creating more opportunities. Last year I only entered two tourneys all year; this year I need to enter more. I'll also add winning a BB coed tourney to the objective list for this year as I am hoping that Katie and I will start playing 2s together consistently. I also plan to attend at least one volleyball skills workshop this year for more focused improvement than just playing.

4. Running: I hit my running goals quite early last year but now I have a better idea of where my current limits are. My objectives for 2011 are to run a 5k race under 21:00 and a 10k under 45:00, taking about a minute off my PR in each event. I'd like to finish top 5% overall and top 10% in my group at least once this year. To achieve these objectives I will continue my 5k and 10k training runs, introduce additional aerobic training and add sprint workouts back into the mix for the first time in several years.

5. Balance: To round out my health and well being, I have resolved to continue reading at least one book for pleasure each month and to introduce a new practice of taking time each morning for meditation. I've found this so far to be a very helpful exercise in centering myself before each day, reflecting on what is really important, and preparing for the hustle and bustle that follows. To measure 'balance" in my life, I will once again let my feelings be my guide, polling them periodically.

Professional

1. Smart Office Energy Solutions: As I learned last year, setting goals / objectives for a business this early / dynamic and then trying to measure myself against them 12 months later is a real exercise in futility. As such, within Smart OES we will continue to set goals, measure our performance against them, and update them frequently as our business changes. I personally will track my feelings about "how it's all going" at Smart OES.

2. Relationships: Last year I mentored three entrepreneurs on an ongoing basis and many more professionals on one-off or temporary bases. As anticipated this was a highly rewarding experience and this year I hope to increase the scope of this part of my professional life. Instead of just tracking the quantity of mentorship I am providing, though, my objective is to provide more real value. Therefore this year I am asking the people I work with to rate me on how much value I contribute and to provide feedback regarding where I can improve. I will also do a better job this year of engaging my own mentors on a weekly basis.

3. Development: Last year I successfully read one professional book or article each week but I have come to realize that reading the material alone isn't enough. Top business schools teach with the case method because applying knowledge to real situations is much more valuable for development of business skills than is just reading something. Accordingly, this year I have set aside time each Friday to apply the lessons from each week's book to my own business / life.

Last year I also successfully worked on new language development each week. Working on it a little each week is just a means, though. My objective this year is to use the new language skills I'm developing. With trips to Italy and France already planned, I can brush up on my existing languages but several potential trips might also give me the chance to study for and then practice Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and German.

4. Brand: Last year my professional brand as a global greentech executive went from relative obscurity to gaining some recognition. I finished the year with 50 Klout, which is only one [very course grained, very social media-focused] way to measure. This year my objective is to reach 65 Klout and to contribute two original pieces of thought leadership. I welcome ideas of other ways to measure the success of my professional brand!

Service

GIVEWATTS is growing by leaps and bounds and I am so incredibly proud of what we have accomplished. This year will be even more demanding but I know we can really take this organization to the next level. The Board has its own metrics of success and I frequently poll the CEO for feedback on my performance as a Director. I intend to contribute significant time to both Rice and IMD this year but I'm not sure how to measure the efficacy of my contributions. Again, ideas welcome!

There you have it, my 2011 objectives and targets. It took me over a month to publish this so you can see that I'm already behind!

US Cleantech Energy Policy => #fail

2011-02-04T12:55:00.006-06:00

A recent post by Battery Ventures VP Mike Dauber on the Obama administration's challenge to cleantech entrepreneurs generated some discussion among my friends and colleagues. One point of focus was whether or not this really is our "Sputnik moment" and, if so, whether the race to the Moon was really worthwhile anyway.

Responding to this point first, any reader of my blog will know how strongly I feel about our successful efforts to put a man on the moon. Aside from all of the economic benefits the follow-up to this program yielded, the greatest benefits were less tangible. JFK's challenge inspired a nation (the world?), galvanizing us to achieve a nearly impossible goal in a nearly impossible time frame. And the nation responded with the very best of its capabilities. Nearly 50 years later, the race to the Moon still inspires at least this engineer / entrepreneur / leader and, I suspect, many more.

That said, saying that cleantech is our new Moon race doesn't make it so. I look around me and it definitely doesn't feel like a Moon race. Some of the nation is divided about whether cleantech efforts are valuable but most of the nation is blissfully ignorant about what cleantech even means. I wasn't alive during the Moon race, but I believe that it captivated the nation almost entirely. Those who were alive, feel free to contradict me. So my first response to the administration's attempt to paint cleantech innovation as "the new Sputnik moment" is: #fail. It will take real leadership to inspire that kind of moment, not a few soundbites in a few speeches.

Now, when it comes to evaluating this post and the White House policy that it references, I can't claim to be objective because I am professionally right in the thick of it. Objective or not, though, I'll tell you exactly what I think.

The stated policy to use government funds to incent cleantech innovation is, at best, ineffective and, at worst, intentional BS that just pays lip service to a current "buzz" topic. As Dauber pointed out in his blog, almost all government funding goes to university / research labs where they work on multi-year / multi-decade cycles and are completely insulated from commercial outcomes. The result: technologies that may pay off in 20+ years and may or may not ever be economically viable.

There is also a great deal of stimulus money going to large, established companies to deploy existing (and often outdated) technologies in the name of cleantech. This includes smart meter deployments and solar installations. While this is a little bit more helpful because it produces results in the here and now (and helps some companies move a little further along the scale curve), it does nothing to foster innovation, it lets large companies live temporarily in a capitalist fantasy world (in which their products / services are paid for by an irrational consumer) - which doesn't actually help them in the long run - and, most importantly to me, it does absolutely nothing to incent / motivate/ support small business entrepreneurs. Of course, fostering small business entrepreneurship is another alleged goal of the administration since these organizations are the source of so much job growth but, if that really is the goal, put your money where your mouth is.

So where does that leave the cleantech entrepreneur? Looking for capital from traditional private sources: VCs, etc. That sounds well and good except that the VCs aren't investing much in early stage cleantech deals. There is lots of great PR about the $4B invested last year in cleantech - that sounds great! When you dig deeper, though, the vast majority of this is mezzanine (late-stage) investment in companies that are already quite mature (relative to new startups) and project finance (e.g. financing the construction of a wind farm).

So you have cleantech entrepreneurs like me, with a market-validated concept that is so much more than just green for green's sake. Smart Office Energy Solutions reduces office and office-like building energy consumption by 25% with payback periods of less than two years for our clients! You don't have to be a green zealot, you don't have to care about our nation's energy security, you don't have to care about dwindling energy supply for this to make sense - you just have to care about saving money, which we do so much better than the traditional, capital-intensive retrofit solutions that are already out there. And yet we're spending months out there trying to raise capital from professional and private sources that are still pretty risk averse / gun shy from the beating everyone took in the recent downturn. Oh and by the way, the government just passed regulations to make it harder for us to legally take investment from private sources! We are the exact poster child of what the administration claims to want to support and yet we are killing ourselves just trying to move along.

Maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe our idea sucks. Maybe I'm just very bad at raising funds - it is my first time, after all. I readily admit that this is quite possible. But I see many other great ideas / entrepreneurs out there in the same situation while, at the same time, the capital markets are throwing ridiculous bubble-style money on social media companies that have yet to show any true value creation.

I was in Washington DC the week that Obama was elected and I was electrified / excited. In front of the Lincoln Memorial I signed a huge card to him. Above my signature I wrote, "Lead us to a better energy future!" Instead I've seen him spend a lot of political capital getting more people insured by a healthcare system that is totally broken (Stay tuned for a subsequent blog post on this.) and take very few, ineffective steps on energy.

A better energy future will not be attained by doling out government funds for slow, academic research and deployment of existing technologies. In fact, it isn't the government's position to dole out funds for these purposes at all. The government has no competence in taking risks and it is actually built from the ground up to avoid such risks. Doling out funds should be left to private industry so that efficient capital markets can determine what gets funded. If the government wants to help - and I believe it should want to help - it should set a better economic context to motivate cleantech endeavors. This means eliminating massive tax breaks for dirty energy production and ceasing to subsidize energy as heavily as we do throughout the value chain. This means more money for the government to reduce its insane deficit and more motivation for investment in newer / riskier startups.

Finally, the government should step up and show some true leadership. Create a sputnik moment by inspiring people. Obama has many more eyes on him than I do but, as long as he continues to fail in this regard, I'll keep trying to inspire people from the ground up. Day by day I get a little bit further and I have little bit more effect. If Obama lets me beat him to inspiring a generation to focus on cleantech, then shame on him.

The IMD Global Leadership Challenge is Over!

2011-02-03T21:55:00.004-06:00

I'm so grateful for all the support I received in my participation in IMD's Global Leadership Challenge! I finished #27 out of 5,380 contestants from 124 countries on five continents and I couldn't have done it without all of the help I received.

The contest was broken down into three sections, each of which embodied a different aspect of global leadership: Open, Pioneering, and Collaborative.

The Open section was essentially a test of global political, commercial, and historical knowledge. It reminded me a lot of my IMD MBA "International Political Economy" course. As with the initial quizzes in that class, I fared poorly in this event, garnering only 115 out of the maximum 400 points. Still, it seems that others found the questions challenging as well; my score was still #543, top 10% in the event.

Pioneering was a matching game, matching pictures of pioneers (individuals or organizations) who have profoundly affected the world with pictures of the results of their innovations. I did better in this game, earning 358 out of 400 points, which was good for place #45, top 1%.

My best event by far was Collaboration. In this section each contestant wrote a short quote in response to, "Imagine you could be someone else for one week. Who would you be and why?" Then three months of online voting revealed the most popular responses. My quote was:

"I would be...myself. I can't think of anything more worthwhile than working feverishly to address the global energy challenge with innovative business ideas. Entrepreneurs can change the world. Many of us may fail, but those who ultimately succeed ensure that none of our attempts has been in vain."

This turned out not to be very original as many other quotes also bore the "I would be myself" theme. However, thanks to the efforts of my friends, family, colleagues, and others, who not only voted for my quote but also called others to do the same, I finished with 532 votes, #18 in the entire contest, earning me 392 out of 400 points.

The Collaborative section is clearly the one that boosted my total score up to #27, top 1%, and that is incredibly fitting. In real life as well my major achievements are attributable to the contributions of others, whether those on my immediate team or those who provide me with the support I need to achieve on my own.

Tremendous thanks go out to those who kept voting for me day after day and, especially, to those who engaged others to join them. As always, I stand on the shoulders of giants and I only hope that I can give back even a fraction of what you have done for me.

Intense Workout at The SHOP

2011-01-27T17:17:00.006-06:00

This morning I had one of my most intense workouts in recent memory, courtesy of The SHOP. The SHOP is an awesome gym in Dallas. It is a no-frills, high-intensity gym with lots of heavy equipment - it's basically what Rocky's gym would be like. It is owned and run by a good friend of mine, Drew, who also blogs about fitness / nutrition.

Although I have referenced The SHOP several times in my blog, this was my first time actually visiting. I was in Dallas to pitch Smart Office Energy Solutions to the newly formed Dallas Angel Network last evening so I stayed the night and scheduled a workout before driving back to Houston.

This morning began early with a 4:55 AM alarm. After a brief pre-training breakfast (just a grapefruit for me; a yogurty / oatmealy / fruity concoction for Drew), we were in The SHOP warming up. Warming up was necessary because The SHOP is in a non-temperature-controlled garage environment (coherent with the raw, hardcore workout philosophy) and the temperature this morning was in the low 30s Fahrenheit.

We were joined about 5:30 by one of The SHOP's regulars, a professional athlete who also happens to be a Rice alum. Drew played on Rice's national championship-winning baseball team that sent many players to the pros and it is partially through that network that he winds up coaching so many professional athletes. I suspect that they like the same things in his methodology that I do: a highly analytical approach (What else would you expect from someone who double majored in Chemical and Environmental Engineering?) and a commitment to research / results, not fads.

I made my requisite excuses about taking it easy because it was my first time (and I had a long drive ahead of me that wouldn't be too comfortable with a traumatic muscle strain / pull / tear); then at 5:45 we had "wheels up" and began the workout in earnest. We started with box jumps and sledge hammers. I was barely able to jump up onto the first level of boxes; when they added three more levels I had to swallow my pride (and resolve to improve!) and stick to the first. I had never used a sledge hammer before, but there was something immensely satisfying about slamming it into a huge tractor tire with all my force. It took me awhile to get the technique down (and I still have room to improve) but it was fun.

Next up were dead lifts. It has been a long time since I have dead lifted and this time I chose to use a trap bar instead of straight bar just because I had never done it before. I kept the weight pretty low but it felt good and I'm sure my glutes are going to be sore tomorrow.

This was followed by push press and glute ham raises. Push press (standing military press with a little help from the hips) felt good but my form had me catching the weight too much with my back. I did half my sets and then switched to incline dumbbell press for the other half. Glute ham raises were a joy - by which I mean basically the opposite of joy, but the severe pain they caused brought about joy that they were accomplishing their objective.

The next round featured ring pushups and single leg hip thrusts. Ring pushups are done with hands grasping gymnastics rings (for additional stability work) and feet elevated. Because that's not hard enough we also wore weight vests - 20 lbs for my first two sets and then 90 lbs for the last one. The last set took me to total failure and I only managed to squeeze out that last rep with an epic grunt.

The grand finale comprised two circuits of heavy rope drills. Each circuit had 3 20-second variations: short alternating arms, long alternating arms, and two-arm power slams. I had never done heavy rope drills before and I was really impressed with just how much of a workout 20 seconds of super anaerobic activity could provide. When we arrived at the last variation (the power slams) of the first set, I challenged everyone to go shirt-off (which was humbling since these guys were way more ripped than I . . . for now!) - it was freezing cold but our internal furnaces were going full bore.

I mistakenly thought we were only doing one circuit so I really sold out on the power slams, completing a couple extra reps after my 20 seconds were over - I didn't want to leave anything out there. Much to my chagrin, Drew informed us that we were only halfway there. After the first two variations of the second circuit, I was totally spent. Again I had to swallow my pride as I wussed out of the final variation. My heart rate was through the roof and I was feeling faint / nauseous. I was bumping up against my limit and the last set would surely have pushed me over - not something I needed right before hopping on the road for four hours.

Afterward we refueled with pumpkin-berry-banana-yogurt-oatmeal-flax seed-protein shakes which, after a few minutes of deep breathing / recovery, I was able to handle. Wow, what an intense experience - lots of new (for me) movements and nothing left by the end. This inspired me in a few ways:

1. I had forgotten how much I loved morning workouts. Despite the exhaustion level I achieved, I remained pumped and energized all day. It also feels great not to have the "I need to find some time to squeeze in a workout" monkey on my back all day.

2. The caveat here is that I clearly need to do a better job of fueling up before morning workouts so as to avoid the depletion at the end. In the last year I've reached that about-to-faint level four times and actually thrown up on one of those occasions. Each time it was a morning workout after not consuming much nutrition.

2. Anaerobic activity is awesome. In recent years I've tended to think of aerobic activity as my main weapon in my fight against body fat but this morning's workout showed how effective anaerobic activity can be as well. By the time I left Dallas at 10 AM, I had already burned more than 1900 calories - the most I've burned before 10 AM as long as I've been measuring! Without doing much else all day (spending a great deal of the time stationary in the car) I finished the day having burned 3800 calories - 550 more than my daily goal.

I was very excited about my first ever The SHOP experience and it didn't let me down. Now I need some rest as the soreness is already starting to set in.

Official The SHOP post including limited video of this workout: here.

2010 Wrap-Up

2011-01-12T09:59:00.013-06:00

Wow, 2010 was a hell of a year! I got engaged, got a dog, started up a company, lived in Switzerland for the summer, and really advanced a number of my personal and professional goals. A year ago I posted my resolutions for 2010 and periodically I have posted status updates (one week, one month, three months, and seven months into the year). Now is an appropriate time to look back at what was accomplished, what was not (and why) before putting forth goals for 2011.

Relationships

1. Date night once a week with Katie

2. Spend social time in person with friends or family once a week

3. At lease one Skype or phone call with distant friends or family once a week

I am pleased that these relationship goals were far exceeded almost every single week. The Switzerland trip was helpful in keeping distant relationships alive with personal contact but, even without it, I was Skyping with friends and colleagues around the world frequently.

Health

1. Calories in less than 3,000 per day: I originally targeted 3,250 calories per day then revised down to 3,000 as it became clear that that would be necessary for me to reduce body fat. By midyear I was still averaging 3,141 calories consumed per day and my final average for the entire year was 3,119. While I failed to meet my goal, 3,119 is MUCH less than the 3,700 I averaged last year and the 3,900 I averaged the year before. At my age my base metabolic rate should be getting a little slower each year so this trend of improvement is good.

2. Calories out greater than 3,250 per day: I originally targeted 3,500 calories per day but revised down at the same time that I adjusted my consumption goal. By midyear I was averaging 3,163 calories burned per day and my final average for the entire year was 3,168 so I failed to achieve this goal as well. This is a huge drop from my 3,750 average the year before (although it's unfair to make a direct comparison; the year before my expenditure was based on estimates while this year I have been using BodyMedia, a much more consistent measurement), which I attribute to the non-pedestrian lifestyle of Houston, lots of sitting at a desk (When there are no other employees in your company you rarely get up to go ask someone down the hall a question!), and more socializing leading to more skipped workouts. For the first half of the year, some of the workouts I was doing simply didn't burn very many calories either. Wii Fit, for example, really is fun but not hard. Midway through the year I eliminated it from the workout rotation and my average daily expenditure increased a bit after that.

Even though I missed both my intake and expenditure goals, I still maintained a caloric deficit throughout the year. By the end of the year I theoretically burned about 17,500 more calories than I consumed, meaning I theoretically should have shed about 5 pounds of body fat. But did I? Bod Pod analysis at the end of the year indicated that in fact I lost about 2 pounds of body fat. While that is positive, it is far short of my goal. In the year to come I will multiply the BodyMedia measured caloric expenditure by 99% as that produces results more in line with the actual fat loss I achieved last year.

3. Maintain lean weight greater than 155 lbs: Although cutting was a higher priority for me than gaining muscle, I didn't want to lose strength and lean mass. Despite a few dips throughout the year, I generally stayed above this 155 lb lean mass threshold and finished the year with about 1 lb of extra muscle.

4. Less than 90 g fat intake per day: I failed to achieve this goal every single week and ultimately disregarded it. Fat gets kind of a bad rap in the US; it is a very essential part of a complete diet. The calories I was consuming were relatively balanced and came from fresh (mostly local) sources and that is my real priority.

5. 1 hour of Wii workout / week: See above for explanation about why I eliminated this goal.

6. 1 hour of flexibility work / week: I adhered to this pretty strictly for the first half of the year but A. it was tough to meet my calorie burn goals when devoting so much time to stretching and B. I just really had a hard time getting psyched up for it. I'm a big believer in doing what motivates you; exercise shouldn't be a chore. So eventually I began incorporating flexibility into other areas of my life (like reading), freeing up dedicated exercise time for higher-intensity activities.

7. Win Men's doubles "A" beach volleyball tourney: Failed. I competed in only two tournaments this year with a #3 out of 5 best placing. Heading to Switzerland for the summer (prime tourney season) hurt my opportunities and the last tournament of the season here in Houston (in which I was scheduled to compete) was canceled, wiping out my last chance. Doh!

8. Run three races: Accomplished by early April

9. Run a 5k race under 22:00: Accomplished by the end of January! My PR going into 2010 was 23:45 but my first race of the season brought me a new PR of 21:43. As I trained throughout the rest of the year I brought my best time down to 21:07.

10. Run a 10k race under 47:00: Accomplished by early April! I originally set this goal at 55:00 but my training run times were coming in in the low 50s in January. So I revised this down to 50:00 but my first really hard training run (in preparation for a March 10k race) finished in 47:50. So I set my new target at 47:00, which I barely missed in the March race (47:02!) but blew through at a 10k race in April (45:56).

11. Swim 2,000 consecutive meters: Accomplished by the end of March.

12. Read one book for pleasure each month: Accomplished (even read one more!)

Professional

Relationships

1. Mentor / help at least one person each week: Accomplished!

2. Engage at least one of my own mentors each week: Accomplished!

Development

1. Read at least one professional book, book summary, or article each week: Accomplished!

2. Develop foreign language skills at least once each week: Accomplished!

Productivity

1. Post "to do" goals at the beginning of each day and accomplishments at the end of each day: Accomplished but I'm not sure this was as useful as it could have been. Look for a subsequent post from me about this issue in greater detail.

Smart Office Energy Solutions

1. Close $100k seed investment round by end of March: Accomplished! Even oversubscribed by 50%!

2. Several other goals that were no longer relevant weeks into 2010! Perhaps it was a bit naive to post annual goals for a business so young and dynamic; more fundamental targets might be more appropriate.

Professional Brand

1. Present original thought leadership / research: Accomplished by end of July (Leveraging Social Media for Executive Careers)

2. Earn 300 twitter followers: Accomplished by end of August (finished the year with 400 followers)

3. Achieve Klout level of 50 for social media influence: Accomplished by end of December

4. 5 daily LinkedIn profile views: Failed. There were some peaks and troughs but I spent most of the year at the same level: 2-3 views per day.

5. 1000 blog hits per month: Failed. Again, peaks and troughs but most of the year was spent between 300 and 500 views per month. One reason I'm sure was my decline in content production (53 posts in 2010 vs. 78 in 2009 and 197 in 2008!).

As hinted at earlier, I'm currently giving serious thought to my social media strategy for 2011. 2010 was a great year of experimenting and data collection but 2011 needs to be more focused.

So there you have it: some successes, some failures, some almost-successes, and some total flops. I'm proud of the successes and have tried to learn from the failures. I'm also proud of having adapted goals as I moved throughout the year; some goals became irrelevant and I didn't stick to them blindly; some goals needed to be tweaked and I did. Goals are great to have, but one must not lose sight of the bigger picture. The next post will be about adapting these learnings into goals for 2011!

A White Christmas

2010-12-29T14:52:00.003-06:00

Katie and I spent this Christmas with her family in Minnesota. I have been there several times since we started dating, but always during the summer. Both my parents earned their PhDs at the University of Minnesota so I grew up with plenty of warnings about the Minnesota winters; this was my first time experiencing one first hand!

On the flight up we had the fortune to sit next to Michael Skelly, whom I voted for in the 2008 congressional election. It turns out that 20 years ago he and his wife-to-be were celebrating their Christmas and engagement with her family in Minnesota as well. They are still together and doing well so hopefully that is a good omen for us!

We arrived late morning on the 24th and were less-than-thrilled that our economy car rental had been "up" graded to a minivan. Is this how it works? As soon as you are engaged they start automatically putting you in soccer mom vehicles? Oh well, it got us where we needed to go and had plenty of room for transporting around others. My mom had arrived the night before so was already situated and ready to party.

We spent the afternoon at Katie's parents' house, where it was truly a winter wonderland. Minnesota is on pace to obliterate previous December snowfall records and there were feet of the white stuff everywhere. As Katie and I were already suffering from Max withdrawal (He was being very well tended by good friends of ours in Houston.), it was helpful that her parents have a golden retriever too.

We spent Christmas Eve at her aunt/uncle's house, which was filled to the brim with family, food, and song. The Martin clan (Katie's mother's side) definitely has a much more musical orientation than I grew up with but they seem willing to accept me anyway. :-) I won the coin toss and the other boyfriend (Katie's sister's) had to don the Santa outfit and bring presents for all the kids. He was a good sport about it and hammed up the role.

Christmas Day was spent at Katie's parents house. We had a tremendous Christmas breakfast, opened presents, and then spent awhile playing in the snow. Snowball fights, snow angels, snow fort construction--even a snow scavenger hunt for hidden tins of Katie's mother's famous dark chocolate waffle cookies! It was a blast and our four-year-old nephew who loves pirates was particularly excited when we began firing snow cannon balls from our snow pirate ships!

The evening was spent at the new house of Katie's brother and his family. When I first met him 10 years ago, he was still in middle school. Now he is married, expecting a second child in March, owns a house, and has already served his country with a foreign tour of duty. I've seen many middle school "good kids" somehow lose their ways as they grew older so it is heart warming to see it the other way around: good kids growing into good adults with good lives. And it helps that their first son is frickin' adorable. :-)

Katie's family threw an engagement party for us on Sunday, which was really fun. There were family members, friends, and--of course--lots of food! It was fun meeting some new folks, catching up with some whom I hadn't seen since the very first time I came to Minnesota, and just generally feeling incredibly welcomed into a big, awesome family. Katie's family catered the entire affair, which I know was a real undertaking, but the end result was just marvelous! We capped off the evening with a bonfire to celebrate Katie's aunt's birthday--a big old bonfire in the middle of the snow!

We returned on Monday after a wonderful trip that was too short. I don't understand all of these complaints I had heard about Minnesota winters. Sure there was a lot of snow, but that was very welcome to this snowball fighter. Sure it was cold, but there was so much warmth from family and friends that you could hardly notice. So, while I am currently enjoying the 70-degree weather back in Houston, my first Minnesota winter experience was pretty darned good.

Happy Birthday, Smart Office Energy Solutions!

2010-12-19T11:36:00.004-06:00

Wow. One year ago today we incorporated Smart Office Energy Solutions. As impatient as I am, it is never moving along quite quickly enough for me, but it is still important to look back at all we have already accomplished in a relatively brief time.

When we incorporated last December, we had completed tremendous analysis of the building energy efficiency industry. We had identified a very specific market gap, a large segment of potential clients that were being under- or unserved, and we had sketched out a rough solution that we thought could fulfill that pent-up need. In short, we had the makings of a business. At the time, our business was built on hypotheses and analyses, but instinct told us that we were onto something.

The year since incorporation has been focused largely on customer development. We have been using prototype products to validate our hypotheses, challenge our assumptions, and test our business model with paying customers. We raised a seed round of funding to finance these efforts and we have now developed a strong emerging brand. All of our close work with clients has also yielded new insights into generating maximum energy savings--insights which we have developed into intellectual property.

So here we are at the precipice of a new year. In some ways, very little has changed. For example, we are setting out to raise a new round of investment--exactly as we were doing this time last year. In many ways, however, our world is totally different. As we look to the future, we have a business plan rooted in proven facts rather than hypotheses. We have an extended team of contributors many times larger and more effective than the original set of founders. We have a growing set of stakeholders (clients, investors, policy makers, resellers, suppliers, policy makers, and cleantech pundits) who believe in what we are doing and provide daily encouragement. Moreover, through our modest efforts thus far, we have eliminated almost a full megawatt-hour of energy use, saving more than 10,000 tons of CO2, the equivalent to having planted more than 200 trees. Relative to our grand ambitions, that isn't much--but it's a great start!

As I have blogged about before, this path hasn't been easy. There is great uncertainty as we develop a market that doesn't exist yet with an approach that hasn't existed before. I must always give credit to my secure bases, my business and personal relationships who provide the support I need to keep going; without them I would be lost.

So happy birthday, Smart Office Energy Solutions . . . many happy returns!

The Price of Freedom

2010-12-12T20:23:00.003-06:00

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to d0 my civic duty of jury service and it got me thinking about all the costs involved in this process. Previously my experience with jury service had been quite limited. Each time I was called in I sat around for 30 - 180 minutes and then was ultimately dismissed without any need for my service. This time I still didn't wind up sitting on a jury but I did come close, which gave me my greatest insight into the entire process to date.

I showed up at the courthouse at 8:30 AM and waited around with about 100 other potential jurors until the judge showed up to brief us at 9. We spent about an hour going through jury orientation/training and then we waited around for our names to be called for a specific courtroom. Waiting was not onerous at all; the seats were comfortable and the courthouse offered free WiFi.

Meanwhile upstairs each courtroom held 30 - 50 accused citizens. Each defendant talked to the judge and plead "guilty," "not guilty", or "no contest." For those who plead "guilty" or "no contest" they settled immediately there with court administrators. Those who plead "not guilty" had the right to a fair and speedy trial--which is where the jurors come in.

Once a courtroom processed all of the non-trial defendants, they began the jury selection process for the trials. Down in the jury room the administrator periodically called out 14 random names of potential jurors; these formed a single group which was then marched upstairs to a single courtroom. There a jury of six jurors was selected for each case and the trials were held. Because this was municipal court (traffic tickets and such), all trials were guaranteed to end the same day.

I spent the morning working on my laptop and my name was never called. There was a lunch break and then my name was called in the early afternoon--how exciting! In the courtroom, each juror introduced himself out loud (name, profession, area of town inhabited) and then underwent voir dire. There wasn't too much biting examination, just general questions about prejudices, biases, and understanding of the judicial process. Frankly I don't think the lawyers were as concerned about selecting a jury as they were about pre-seeding all of the potential jurors with the main arguments of their cases. I was not one of the six selected for that jury so I returned to the jury room downstairs. After another hour or so I was paid $6 for my time and released. $6--jury service sure pays better than cleantech entrepreneurship!

While I was in the courtroom for the jury selection process, I was struck by how much the whole ordeal was costing. Following is a very crude back-of-the-envelope estimate of the costs involved for a single day:

Building: $10,000 to rent a building that size for a day, another $10,000 for utilities, insurance and other assorted operations costs == $20,000

Personnel: 100 county employees averaging $50,000/year (~$200/workday) == $20,000

Juror missed work: 100 jurors averaging $50,000/year == $20,000

Juror pay: 100 jurors at $6 == $600

Transportation: $10 per employee/juror/defendant (let's say there were 1,000 defendants) == $12,000

Total: $73,600

There were maybe 10 cases that went to trial all day so that's $7,360 per case! Wow, more than $7k to try a $100 traffic ticket! At first blush that seems incredible--but on closer inspection it actually makes sense.

This goes back to something we studied at IMD: a group's decision-making process can be evaluated on two criteria: efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency measures how quickly the group arrives at a decision while effectiveness measures the quality of the decision the group produces. Generally the more efficient the process, the less effective it is (E.g. a quick straw poll with no discussion for an immediate decision) and vice versa. More effective decision-making processes (E.g. long debates, careful evaluation of all options, striving for consensus, etc.) come at the cost of efficiency.

Our judicial system is set up to be WAY out on the "effective" end. At the other end of the spectrum would be a single judge autonomously pronouncing judgement on each case without even hearing any arguments. $7k per trial buys us the guarantee of due process and an impartial jury of our peers. It is, literally, the price of freedom, the price of fairness. Put in context like this, I'll pay it gladly!

Thanksgiving with Max

2010-12-01T09:33:00.003-06:00

I'm running way behind on blogging but here is a belated entry for Thanksgiving, which was a real joy. Katie and I drove up to Hot Springs, Arkansas, as we usually do for Thanksgiving but this time there was a major difference: we had Max in the back seat!

He is very good in the car, mostly snoozing and occasionally poking his head up front for a few ear scratches. We stopped every two hours or so to give him a chance to stretch his legs, do his business, etc. However, when we did so, he was always very nervous and desperately tried to get back to the car if we weren't both with him. We hypothesize that he was abandoned once by someone just dropping him off out of a car and then driving off--heart-breaking!

When we arrived in Hot Springs, Max went crazy. He's used to being a city dog, couped up in a house most of the day and only going outside on a leash. We turned him loose at my aunt's house out in the country and at first he just ran laps around the house he was so excited to be free out in the open. My aunt and uncle have their own dog too and she got along very well with Max. The two of them were regular Tom Sawyer/Huck Finns, exploring the woods together, chasing after animals, and wrestling around.

Wednesday evening another aunt of mine threw Katie and me a little engagement party, which was a lovely affair. We wined and dined and celebrated with our family and some close friends. It must have been a great ordeal to organize and execute but it was a really wonderful way to start off the long Thanksgiving weekend!

Thursday we attended two different Thanksgivings meals, both of which were absolutely excellent. Friday we spent all day cooking, lazing around, and watching football - what a great way to spend time! Saturday there was one final Thanksgiving get-together and then we hit the road back to Houston. Max's hips were so sore from all the running around that he actually needed some help getting into the car. Needless to say, he slept allllll the way home, tuckered out from his great country adventure.

Sunday we headed over to a Houston friend's house for yet another Thanksgiving dinner and yet more football - I wish this could go on forever! It was a fantastic holiday weekend but it was also a time for reflection. Katie and I both are so very thankful for so many things in our lives, but most especially for the people. For loving, supportive families, for fun, interesting friends, for capable, driven colleagues, for good neighbors...for all of these we are incredibly thankful. We try our best to give back and be as positive a force in others' lives.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

The Right Path

2010-11-09T16:56:00.004-06:00

Last Friday I had the privilege to attend the dedication event of the new Rice Center for Engineering Leadership. What an exciting new center, dedicated to helping engineering students identify and solve the world's most pressing problems. How I wish something like this had existed back when I was a Rice engineering student! The event was an excellent opportunity to reconnect with the engineering school, former professors, and other alumni.

Perhaps most exciting was the address by legendary venture capitalist John Doerr. After beginning his talk by asking the audience what we wanted him to address (a tactic I love), he used that feedback to focus 45 minutes on his thoughts regarding Rice, engineering, careers, the environment, and technology.

At several points during his talk, I couldn't help but feel like Doerr's words were meant specifically for me. To start with, the talk took place in the McMurtry Auditorium of Duncan Hall, the very room in which Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley's "Be a Scientist; Save the World" talk inspired me to quest for ways to use IT entrepreneurship to work toward a better energy future. Also, Doerr was an Electrical Engineering major from Lovett College, just as I was. After a brief stint as an engineer, Doerr branched into sales, finance, and other aspects of business, just as I did. These similarities combined to create a feeling of connection for me.

Doerr addressed emphatic evidence of man-made climate change and warned of the massive gap between the developed and population-booming developing world. He talked of healthcare, water, and democracy but he contended that ultimately energy is the keystone that must be addressed. I agree.

He challenged the audience--especially the students--to come up with innovative ways to produce, transmit, and use energy. Again, I agree--I have devoted my professional career to it. He espoused the Silicon Valley mantra of "shots on goal," an admission that many such ventures will probably fail to induce massive change but we have to take those shots to ensure that eventually some of them score.

This mentality is part of what motivates me every morning: even if Smart Office Energy Solutions were to fail spectacularly, we would have helped advance the state of the art such that the next shot has an even greater chance of reaching its mark. Of course I believe that Smart OES will succeed, rather than fail, spectacularly but it is encouraging to hear words of encouragement from someone older, cleverer, and much more successful than I. More pointedly it is encouraging when such words come from a really "big deal" investor while we are in the midst of our new capital raise!

Of course Doerr's words weren't meant for me per se, but everything in them seemed to say to me, "Keep at it; you're on the right track!" Being an entrepreneur can sometimes be a lonely, frustrating exercise--especially when you are as extroverted and impatient as I am! "Success," however you define it, always seems to be just an inch further than you can reach or just a step further on the path than is illuminated. As such, Doerr's words fell on receptive, re-encouraged ears.

Hassinspiration

2010-10-25T15:57:00.006-05:00

This weekend I had the honor of talking to my former high school football team before their Homecoming game. Three years ago I was asked to come in and do the same and it turned out to be the only game they won all season. As the mighty Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Colonials were winless so far this season, we all hoped that my talk this year would have the same effect.

There are so many things I know now that I wish I had known back then, but I only had a few minutes with them before the game so I just focused on the two themes that I thought would be most worthwhile for them. Following is a rough transcript of how the pre-game talk went (subject to my memory, which isn't getting any younger!):

"Gentlemen, I am truly honored to be back here in front of you today. As Coach said, I was TJ Class of 1997. I played football for four years at TJ, three years as a two-way starter on varsity, and one year as Captain. After TJ I studied computer science and electrical engineering at Rice University, where I played fullback for the Owls. Professionally I have spent my career starting up and leading clean technology companies. It has been 14 years since I sat where you're sitting right now and it is clear to me that, even though I got a lot out of TJ football during the four years I played, I've gotten so much more out of it in the 14 years since. I'm hoping that, by sharing some of that with you today, you'll be able to get even more out of your own TJ football experience.

So what do you get out of TJ football? Lifelong friendships, certainly. Matt and I (Note: my classmate and TJ quarterback, Matt Young, came too, reinforcing this point very well.) are at the age when everyone's getting married and it's amazing how, when a TJ football player gets married, there are invariably many other TJ football players there at the wedding--and often some standing up there beside the groom. We went to different colleges, took different jobs, and are now scattered around the globe . . . but there is a bond that is forged when you stand together on the field of battle, united against a common foe, and that bond is not easily broken. So look at the player on your left, look at the player on your right, and understand that, for better or for worse, you'll be stuck with each other for quite some time!

But you get so much more from TJ football than just relationships. You see, what happens up there on the football field is really a manifestation of that which happens to you in real life. Think about it: every day billions of people and organizations and businesses and teams set out to achieve some goal or overcome some obstacle or conquer some foe--just as you do on the football field. And, just as happens on the football field, it's not the team with the most resources that wins. It's not the business with the most capital or the athletes with the most physical prowess. No, it's the team that executes on the field of play when it counts. It's the team that demonstrates the greatest teamwork, leadership, discipline, and heart when it matters most. This is why startups are able to go up against Microsoft and win. This is why PhDs from schools you've never heard of are able to win the Nobel prize. It's not about what you have; it's about what you do.

Teamwork, leadership, discipline, heart . . . these aren't subjects you can learn in a classroom. These aren't traits you can read about in a book. These are intrinsic characteristics that you develop up there on the football field. So you think you're out there playing a game but you're really training yourself for the rest of your adult lives. I certainly didn't realize that when I was playing football here but it is so abundantly clear to me now.

The greatest lesson that I learned from this TJ football training ground is how to deal with failure. The world's greatest leaders are defined not by how they deal with success, rather how they respond to failure. This is because the path to success invariably winds its way through many failures first. Some people--most people--accept these and give up. Others learn from their failures, growing stronger, better prepared and even more motivated for success. These are the people who become truly great.

Sounds easy, right? But failure is hard. When you really set your heart on something and then fail to achieve it, it hurts--it hurts bad. I know. Lord knows we experienced plenty of failure in my TJ football days. And I know you guys have had your share of failure so far this season too, so I can imagine how you guys must be hurting right now--maybe a little frustrated, maybe a little downhearted.

A natural response to repeated failure is to stop caring. If you don't yearn so much for victory, it doesn't hurt so much when you don't achieve it. If that's how you feel right now about tonight's game against Marshall, I won't think any less of you. As I said, it is a very natural defense mechanism that saves a lot of people a lot of pain. But, if that's how you feel right now about tonight's game against Marshall, then don't you dare set foot on our football field. Decades of players before you have shed blood, sweat, and tears on that field--often against very long odds--so, if you're out there with anything less than 100% commitment to and belief in victory, it's a dishonor to yourself, to your team, and to everyone who's ever worn the uniform.

There is so much I'd like to share with you through the benefit of 14 years of 20/20 hindsight, but I just have these few minutes. I hope you will at least take away from this that what happens out there tonight will be more meaningful for the rest of your lives than you can possibly realize right now. The question is: are you going to let it be just some silly pastime? Or are you going to take it, own it, and ensure that is a source of strength and pride for you that pays dividends throughout your professional and personal lives?

I can't answer that question; only you can. I would give just about anything to be out there fighting alongside you tonight, but I can't. My time is passed; now it is your time. I will be cheering hard for you and sending you every ounce of strength and energy I have but, at the end of the night, it's you guys who have to get it done on the field.

Seniors, I'm especially talking to you. You have less than three hours of game time left in your TJ football careers. Three hours! That's a blink of the eye in your lives. Every play, every minute, every moment counts; you'll never get a second chance. So get out there tonight and get it done. Don't let up for even a second and leave it all on the field. Do it for TJ, do it for the fans, do it for your coaches. Hell, do it for me; I flew halfway across the country because I want to see you win! But most of all, do it for yourselves. You are Thomas Jefferson Colonial football players and you deserve victory. Go out there and take what's yours."

Wow, written out like that it seems really long but I don't remember it taking more than a few minutes. Regardless, the team fought a hard battle and won the game at the last moment. I don't know if my words "reached" anyone but I hope those young men found them beneficial.

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying Fall weather and catching up with family and friends in Northern Virginia. Now I'm back in 90-degree Houston but still glowing from a wonderful weekend.

Phoenix

2010-10-15T12:44:00.003-05:00

Last weekend Katie and I went to Phoenix to visit her sister. When we planned the trip, we had an ulterior motive too: get our canine fix with Kelly's newly adopted dog, Kona! Now, due to the timing of our own adoption of Max, we no longer needed the fix but we new it would be a wonderful trip anyway.

After having Max just one week, we dropped him off at Pet Paradise to be reunited with his buddies for the weekend and then we headed to the airport. I pulled a really dunce move and left my driver's license at home. I had scans of both my driver's license and my passport on my laptop but that was obviously insufficient. Just when it was looking like I would have to return home (in rush hour) to retrieve my license and then take a later flight, we received a very welcome surprise: TSA offered to help.

They took me into an isolated area and grilled me with questions about my identity, verifying my answers against a database of everywhere I had lived, which cars I had registered, etc. Then they gave my luggage the full treatment, checking every nook and cranny of it for sketchy stuff. Finally they gave me the full treatment, patting me down--well, up, down, and every other which way too! I passed all the tests so, after 20 minutes or so, they let me through. I was incredibly impressed with the professionalism and courtesy they showed me throughout the process. I know it's not easy to keep millions of travelers safe every day but they did it with aplomb. Seriously, well done, TSA!

Kelly and her boyfriend, Mike, picked us up and took us immediately to The Vig, a bar/restaurant. We ate, drank, watched college football, and met up with their friends there; it was great weather for outdoor merrymaking! Then we went back to their house to meet Kona. We had another pleasant surprise, though: they were sitting two other dogs for the weekend! All the dogs were sweet and fun and it was clear that it was going to be a good couple of days.

Saturday we went to the dog park, had some breakfast, and then hiked Camelback Mountain. Mike and Kelly had made the hike many times but this was Katie's and my first time hiking anything in awhile--and we decided to make the attempt in our Vibram FiveFingers barefoot "shoes." The terrain was very desert-rocky so it put our Vibrams to the test, but we scrambled up OK. Coming down was a little slower as we focused on ensuring we had enough grip and tried to avoid stepping hard on jagged rock surfaces. It was hot and tiring but a very rewarding experience.

Afterward we treated ourselves to Thai food at Fresh Mint. The food was excellent, the oldies playing in the background were great, and the Joe Montana memorabilia on the walls (The owners are from San Francisco.) was very welcome. The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing by the pool, cooking dinner, and watching 300.

Sunday we played some beach volleyball then had brunch at a vegan restaurant that offered many raw food options. I put together an entire meal made of raw dessert items: black cherry cheesecake, blueberry acai pie, chocolate donut, chocolate walnut brownie, chocolate macaroon--all raw! It was delicious and very filling.

We stopped by a microbrewery to watch some football before being dropped off at the airport for the ride home. A friend of mine had very kindly overnighted my driver's license to me so I managed to avoid extra TSA attention on the way back. Max was elated to see us again when we picked him up.

Now, after nearly two weeks with him, he seems really to have adjusted to our house and life. We were sorry to leave him for a weekend but it certainly was a wonderful 48 hours!

Why I Donate To Rice

2010-10-12T18:38:00.001-05:00

After reading Falan Mouton's article laying out her rationale for not donating to Rice ("Rice just a business; donations are purely optional for graduates," October 8, 2010), I was tempted to write a response pointing out flaws in her logic--e.g. contending that the Rice "product" ceases creating value for its "consumers" the moment they graduate--and her apparent misunderstanding of how businesses work--e.g. most businesses with the aim of having "no upper limit" will need to raise capital too.

Instead, though, I would rather focus my words on why I *do* donate to my alma mater: because I love Rice. I loved Rice as an undergrad. I loved Rice as a grad student. And I have *really* loved Rice as an alum. The cost of educating one undergrad is roughly twice what Rice takes in as tuition. Rice isn't just trying to meet its costs, though; it has grand ambitions to be better each year, but such ambitions aren't realized for free. When I donate to Rice I know my money is going to make a positive difference for the entire Rice community.

I'm not selfless either; some of those funds come back to me directly via alumni activities. The Association of Rice Alumni is an incredible network of interesting, diverse, successful alumni and, unlike at our peer institutions, there is no fee to join and there never will be.

In the nine years since I've graduated I've learned that you get out of Rice what you put into it. So donate time if you can. Donate money if you can. But don't do it because you think you "owe" it to anyone. Do it because you love Rice.

Happy Rice Day!

Bryan Guido Hassin

Lovett College 2001

Master of Computer Science 2002

Max the Golden Retriever!

2010-10-04T08:20:00.004-05:00

Katie and I took a big step this weekend by adopting a golden retriever from Golden Retriever Rescue of Houston. We both grew up with goldens so we were sure that we understood what we were getting into in terms of temperament, activity level, size--and volume of hair! We also felt that this was the right time in our lives to move forward with this kind of commitment. Even as recently as a couple of years ago it would have been unthinkable but now we have settled into enough of a routine and committed to a future together such that we know we can handle this new responsibility.

After spending some time on the GRRH website, we filled out an application which had a primary purpose of verifying that we understood the cost, time, and discipline commitments involved as well as screening for any signs of abuse.

After GRRH approved our initial application, we received a call from their coordinator to discuss in greater detail our lifestyles, home environment, and preferences. We were hoping for a young (1-3 years) but already trained golden that would socialize easily with other dogs and people. Katie and I are both very social so a dog that we could take to the dog park and to friends' houses would fit best with us. We were targeting youth so that its joints would be OK with all the stairs in our three-story townhome. Katie and I both grew up with female goldens so we had a natural bias toward getting a girl but we also knew we would love a boy just as much.

Based on the profiles on the GRRH website and on our phone conversations with them, we identified 5 candidates for potential adoption. The next step was to talk with the trainers and foster parents of each dog. The first trainer we contacted was actually training two of the dogs on our list. One of the dogs was incredibly sweet but apparently had a really hard time being around other dogs and the trainer just wasn't sure that was addressable. The more we talked with the trainer, though, the more we fell in love with her other dog, a three-year-old boy named Max.

On Thursday we made the decision to meet Max in person Saturday morning. He came in with his foster mom to Pet Paradise, where he had been boarded. We met them both there and had a chance to play with Max a bit, witness him showing off his tricks/training, and chat with the foster mom about her experience with him.

In short, it was love at first sight. He was incredibly sweet and very gentle but still with great enthusiasm and energy. He was quite smart and had been picking up his training very quickly. Unlike any golden I had seen before, Max was a very light cream color, almost white; apparently this is the British style of golden retriever.

At the end of our session, Katie and I said our polite goodbyes and let them know we'd come back to them with our reactions shortly. We made it maybe four steps out the door, though, when we looked at each other and, without words, we both knew that this was the dog. We decided to skip the formal decision process, turned right around, and said we'd take him if they would let us. By the time we reached our car in the parking lot, we had a call from the coordinator saying that the trainer and foster mom enthusiastically approved of our adopting Max so we could sign the adoption contract and pick him up as soon as we liked.

As we didn't have any dog supplies at home we delayed pick-up until the afternoon. In the meantime I picked my brother up at the airport and we worked out together for the first time in three months (Consequently I can barely move now out of soreness.) while Katie went to PetSmart for our first stock-up.

After lunch all three of us went to Pet Paradise to pick up our new boy. He was very excited to see us again and super easy to manage on a leash, in the car, etc. We introduced him to his new home, which he took to immediately, and spent awhile showing him around, taking him for walks, and just getting to know him a bit.

His first night was a rough one. While boarded (presumably) he had contracted kennel cough, the canine equivalent of the flu. This meant he was up all night with a hacking, productive cough (worse than Smuckers, on Seinfeld!) and, hence, we were up all night as well. Around 5 AM we finally took him to the vet just to make sure it wasn't something more serious but they put him on some antibiotics and confirmed that we would just have to wait it out for several days. No problem, as long as he's OK!

Sunday was a lovely day for all of us, lazing around the main floor, watching football, and introducing Max to the housemates. His cough is already getting better and he loves all the people around him showering him with attention. He still needs some training around where and when to do is business and not jumping up on people/things but, again, he's a smart boy and learning quickly. We have all the patience in the world to work with him because he is such a wonderful addition to our family and we just love him so much!

Business Schools and Buffett

2010-09-27T12:26:00.002-05:00

The last two weeks have been full of "B"s--business schools and Jimmy Buffett!

September 16th was the 8th annual Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship Energy and Clean Technology Forum. We won an award at the elevator pitch competition last year and we were excited to be asked back to compete again this year. I love these forums as there is so much energy, so many good ideas, and so many great people throughout them. Anyone who knows me knows how competitive I am, though, so I don't consider such events successful unless I come away with an award. Some people go into such events casually and speaking extemporaneously. I do not. I come to win and prepare obsessively for it.

I spent the plane ride back from Italy refining our message down to just the bare minimum and rehearsing it to ensure that it could be delivered in less than 90 seconds. In my IMD marketing course, we learned that branding is about sacrifice; people can only absorb a few messages. Nothing could be truer about elevator pitches; they are like branding statements for your company or idea. There were many things I would have liked to have included in the pitch but there just wasn't enough time. In many ways, this is similar to the "How do I spend my time?" challenge with which the entrepreneur is faced every day: distilling the top 3 most important things from the top 30 really incredibly important things from the top 300 really very important things. For this reason alone, I think periodic pitch preparation is a helpful exercise in prioritization.

If you would care to see the fruits of my labor, a video of it is available at The BusinessMakers Radio Show's review of their favorite pitches from the event. Looking back at it, I clearly rushed delivery a bit and didn't pause to "plant" my points as much as I would have liked. I welcome additional feedback as well!

Long story short: we won an award again--2010 Rising Venture! I am once again supremely humbled, honored, and thrilled to have won. There were some great pitches and it was exciting just to have been counted among them. As was the case last year, the whole event was a very good one and we made several new very interesting contacts.

The following Sunday I had to shift out of Rice business school mode and into IMD business school mode as we hosted the very first event of IMD's new Houston Alumni Club. It turns out that there are 500+ IMD alumni in Houston so I and a few other "enthusiasts" thought it was criminal not to have some kind of organization to bring us together.

Our first event was a simple networking and brief talk event. IMD professors Don Marchand and Michael Wade were in town for a Shell program so they came and talked with us about their research. The rest of the evening we sipped wine, networked, and discussed the future direction of our nascent organization--it was a great first step!

Then last weekend Katie, I, and my favorite wingman made a very quick (~48 hours) trip to Paris for the Jimmy Buffett concert. It was marvelous and exactly what I had hoped it would be. We spent most of our time walking around Paris, eating, dropping into museums, and drinking great wine. Friday night we tailgated with 96-point Bordeaux (Chateau Pontet-Canet 2005, way too young but still delicious) then made our way to the concert. The total attendance was maybe 1,000 people and, because everyone there was a big fan, it was basically one long, glorious sing-along. It was so much fun, as was the after-party at O'Sullivan's!

Now we're back in Houston with no travels abroad planned until our wedding in May. We came back just in time too; the weather is gorgeous! As Jimmy Buffett would say, the weather is here; wish you were beautiful!

Wedding in Italy

2010-09-16T07:48:00.002-05:00

No, not my wedding! Last week Katie and I attended an IMD friend's wedding in Italy, which was absolutely marvelous.

The day before we departed we attended the Rice-UT football game at Reliant Stadium. There was just a splotch of Rice blue in the very UT burnt orange crowd but we cheered disproportionately loudly. The Owls gave us something to cheer for too, scoring first and outscoring UT in both the first and fourth quarters. A few key mistakes led to a 34-17 loss but overall we felt pretty good about our performance against one of the top teams in the nation--this should bode well for the season to come!

Sunday we departed for Bari in Puglia (the "heel" of Italy's "boot") via Milan via Newark. Both our Houston-Newark and Newark-Milan flights were on older Boeing 767 planes with two significant disadvantages: 1. Their entertainment systems are fixed, offering just a few movies at regular times and 2. They have special power ports that require a special adapter to use. I had become so spoiled by the 777s flying back and forth to Geneva (offering hundreds of on-demand movies and normal power outlets) that I was already in a sour mood when I realized that I would only have a few hours of laptop time and that I wasn't interested in any of the movies. Shame on me for not checking on this in advance, though.

On the international leg, Continental forgot my vegetarian meal request (At least they remembered Katie's.) so that left me with an even worse impression from the flight. Then Milan Malpensa airport lost Katie's luggage so that she arrived in Bari without any toiletries or changes of clothes. All-in-all, not one of our best flight experiences.

No matter, though, we were determined not to let it affect our trip. We swung by a clothing store outlet near Bari and picked her up some essentials then drove North to Lucera, where the Italian side of my family lives. We spent two days with my Italian cousins and it was a grand time. Touring around Lucera (which is older than Rome and has tremendous ruins of a castle and anamphitheater), eating, clothes shopping for Katie, eating some more, and just catching up with family. Oh, and eating even more! No matter how short it is, it is always a special experience to spend time with this distant family. These are my humble roots and it is important to stay connected.

Wednesday we drove further North to Tuscany to check out a venue we are considering for our own wedding. It was everything we hoped it would be and it had a few surprises for us--like a ping pong table and volleyball net on the premises! We spent the night there just to be sure but it is clearly the right choice.

Thursday we turned back around and drove South to Fermo, where we met up with dear friends from IMD. They weren't going to be able to make it to the IMD wedding so we were very excited to be able to see them regardless. We spent the night with them and their family and, once again, ate very, very well. It was our first time in that region (Le Marche) and we were very impressed. Mountains on one side, the Adriatic Sea on the other, rolling green hills in between . . . Le Marche has it all!

Friday we returned to Bari, where we were informed that Katie's bag had finally arrived--better late than never! We settled into a villa we were sharing with other IMD friends, including GIVEWATTS founder Jesper Hornberg. Friday night there was a dinner hosted by the bride's family but we turned in early, knowing that we would need our rest for the late, late festa the next night.

Saturday was unfortunately rainy. The wedding was supposed to be on the beach so the bride and groom audibled to a nearby indoor venue which was quite lovely. The ceremony was nontraditional and featured two IMD friends as officiants. After the ceremony we relocated to a beach club for the reception. This place was awesome! Course after course after course of food was served and the music had all been requested in advance by the bride, groom, and guests. Nourished by great food and buoyed by great music, we danced well into the morning.

I had been asked to be the Master of Ceremonies so my job was to ensure that the program of the reception was followed ontime (at least within the bounds of Italian standards of punctuality!) and to make announcements in English and Italian throughout event. It was a real honor to be asked to serve and I hope my performance was sufficient for their special day!

Finally, after a resounding chorus of Bohemian Rhapsody (a promise I had made to the groom), Katie and I departed around 4 AM. We heard that many people stayed until 6 but we needed to be up for a flight relatively early. Our return flight wasn't much better (again a forgotten meal request and we were passed over for upgrades for some reason that Continental still can't explain) but at least both of our bags arrived. All-in-all it was a really, really excellent trip!

Starting a Company Is Hard

2010-08-30T08:48:00.004-05:00

Today isn't quite the one-year anniversary of me beginning my full-time focus on Smart Office Energy Solutions but it is about the one-year anniversary of my departure from Poken, and that gives me pause to think about what has--and hasn't--been accomplished since then. When I look back at it, the clear conclusion is that starting a company is hard even for a well resourced team and even harder for a bootstrapping lone warrior.

To be clear, this isn't my first rodeo. Smart Office Energy Solutions is the fourth company I've founded or joined very early. This experience combined with the many skills I developed in business school provides me with many tools with which to start up a company. While these tools make the startup process more effective, they don't make it any easier. 10 years ago I might have thought that, by the time I started my fourth company, I would be able to do it with my eyes closed--but I would have been wrong!

Looking briefly at the history of my current venture, it is clear that constant change is the foundation of this--and possibly any--startup. This time last year we were building a business plan around being a joint venture "sister company" to an existing European business in the smart energy space. We analyzed the North American market and put together a very detailed plan to develop it but, after four months, we still hadn't arrived at a deal with our would-be partner. We considered many different models: JV, subsidiary, holding company, etc. but time and again the other party failed to consider our interests.

Despite this, I became more convinced every day that our market opportunity was valid so, finally, at the end of last year, we incorporated Smart OES LLC, a completely separate company from the European "partner," which we engaged purely as a supplier of hardware and software products. If we were going to do this, it would be on our own.

This year began with fundraising, a process which I had never led before. Because it was new to me I was somewhat apprehensive about it, but by the end of the first quarter we had raised 50% more than was our original goal. I remain humbled and honored that so many friends, family, colleagues, and classmates had the confidence in us to put their own capital at risk.

This spring was incredibly productive as we deployed pilot installations at several clients in Houston and Austin. These validated the market for us and were a source of proprietary expertise we developed in eliciting energy savings 50% greater than anything that had been demonstrated by our European suppliers.

At the same time, though, it became clear that our suppliers simply weren't the long-term partners we needed. We still hadn't been able to work out a mutually beneficial partnership arrangement and there was no telling when we would ever be supplied with products that were electrically certified for North America. Thus, less than a year after launching a business built around partnering with them, we formally ended our relationship and began searching for other ways to serve the sizable market that was simply waiting for us to be able to sell.

This whole process has required weekly updates to our business plan, which is part of what makes starting the company so hard. If we had a clearly defined, unchanging path, it would be easy to know what to do--and to do it--every day. But with the ground constantly shifting under our feet, we are engaged in constant realignment and adjustment--it's like tap dancing during an earth quake!

That's OK; it is extremely important for a company at our stage to remain agile and to be able to evolve our business plan as we experiment with what actually works in the market. At the same time, though, we have to be careful not to lose focus--I've seen many companies fail because they have opportunistically leaped from one idea to another to another and, at the end of the day, they never saw anything through enough to build a business around. It is a fine line between strategic agility and lack of focus. The key to success here is to stay true to a clear and well defined vision while constantly adapting our tactics to realize that vision. Returning to the "path" metaphor, we must keep the end destination in sight while constantly adapting our path as we meet different road blocks and forks in the road along the way.

The other hardest aspect of this startup is one I have mentioned before: it is really lonely. Right now there are just two of us fully engaged. We have deliberately followed a "lean" approach to starting this company, outsourcing everything we can to reduce fixed overheads. This dramatically reduced the amount of capital we needed to raise to get started, a great thing for us and our investors. Some people thrive in an isolated work environment; I do not. I'm a team player through and through and, until we reach the milestone that enables the growth of our small team, I will be challenged. In the meantime I am taking extra care to ensure that I am maintaining constant contact with investors, clients, and business partners to feel like I am part of a larger extended team.

There is nothing I would rather be doing than starting up Smart Office Energy Solutions right now. Every day we move closer to our goal of making a very, very significant difference in the global energy landscape. It is hard work to be sure, but I have never shied away from hard work for a worthy cause. I finish each day with more energy than I had when the day started and that, more than anything, tells me that we are really on the right path!

Yearly Goals Halfway Point Progress Update

2010-08-15T06:11:00.003-05:00

This morning I dropped Katie off at the airport and it wasn't nearly as tearful a goodbye as our previous Swiss partings have been. This time I will be seeing her in a few days rather than a few months and that feels much better! Now that I am a lonely bachelor again, I have a chance to review my progress on the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. Just past the halfway point, how have I done so far?

Personal Relationships

So far I have been keeping pace with each of my goals for maintaining personal relationships. Starting up a company is very time-consuming but I have been able to maintain a balance with family and friends--both near and far. Katie and I have been getting our date nights in and I have been reconnecting in person in the US while still skyping with my friends abroad. This summer trip to Switzerland has really helped keep those latter connections alive too. If you feel that I have been neglecting my relationship with you, kindly let me know!

Health

I'm not burning as many calories as I'd like (3,163/day vs. 3,250 target) and I'm consuming more than intended (3,141/day vs. 3,000 target). I am hitting most of my exercise goals, though, and the net result is pretty positive: I've added about a pound of lean muscle mass and dropped four pounds of fat--not exceptional, but heading in the right direction. When I head back to the US next week I'm going to try working at a standing desk instead of sitting. I'm hoping this will help me keep moving about and widen the caloric deficit.

Early in the year I accomplished my running goals and in May I met my swimming target; now I must concentrate on beach volleyball. There are several tournaments left in the year and I hope to win one--especially now that my favorite men's partner is back in town.

Professional Development

I have been powering through one book per week on leadership, economics, strategy, green business, marketing, and just about everything else I can get my hands on. If I keep up this pace, I will meet my yearly goal. While I have been pretty diligent about reaching out to mentors, I have not been quite so systematic about helping out others. Last week at IMD I had the opportunity to share some experience and guidance with this year's MBA class (Check out the presentation that instigated these conversations.) and it reminded me how much I'm missing out on when I'm not paying it forward. In the second half of this year I must do better.

Professional Performance

The goals I set for Smart Office Energy Solutions at the beginning of this year aren't terribly relevant anymore as our plan has evolved several times since then. At this point we have hit some major milestones: closed our first fundraising round, begun generating revenue with high profile clients in multiple cities, advanced our own intellectual property to increase the energy savings we provide by 50%, and several more. I'm not a patient person, though, and I yearn to pick up the pace during the second half of this year--for personal reasons, for our shareholders, and for the very significant global energy challenge we are trying to address.

If you haven't yet voted for us, please support us at GE's Ecomagination Challenge. We are currently the #65 idea out of 1,089 submissions and every increases our visibility significantly!

Professional Brand

I'm close to achieving my twitter and LinkedIn goals but my blog hasn't gained too much additional viewership. That's probably just as well as I am now considering leaving this blog focused on my personal life and starting a more professional blog on the Smart Office Energy Solutions website.

I evaluate my progress so far this year as good but not great. There are no huge holes and there have been some early successes, but several major goals need significant work to be achieved. Now it is time to refocus, buckle down, and ensure that H2 2010 is even more productive than H1!

IMD Times

2010-08-10T03:26:00.003-05:00

Last weekend was very much centered around IMD. It began when two awesome classmates rolled into town--one from the Netherlands, the other from Zurich--with their partners. We had dinner at Le Pinnochio, an IMD standard, and then spent the night just talking and catching up back at our place, where both couples were staying with us. For one of my classmates, it was his first time back in Lausanne since graduation!

Saturday was a glorious weather day--typical for Lausanne in the summer. While most of the household had a lazy morning, one of my classmates and I got up early and headed into IMD. Saturday was Mock Interview Day, during which alumni return to campus to give the current MBA students experience interviewing with real hiring managers. It is also a great chance for us to get to know some of the students, reconnect with the school, and partake in the famous IMD lunch!

In addition to the mock interviews, I gave a presentation to the class on using social media for their own professional branding. We live in an ever more connected digital world and your online presence can either help or hurt your career--but you have the power to control which! The presentation went very well and I have posted the slides on SlideShare. Take a look and I welcome any feedback!

Saturday night we had some of my IMD classmates over to the house for a pool party. Hmm, summer, pool, good friends . . . sounds like the perfect recipe for . . . SANGRIA! We made up a big batch of French-Swiss sangria (using French wine instead of Spanish, and using Kirsch instead of Triple Sec - and all local, organic fruit, of course!) and served it along with mojitos, bellinis, beer, and wine all night. It turns out that Katie and the rest of the gang weren't idle while we were at IMD all day. By the time the party started they had whipped up tables and tables of delicious, healthy, and mostly vegetarian food.

The party was a lot of fun! We had about 30 people over the course of the night and we didn't turn out the lights until about 3 AM. Several little groups formed and people just kept switching between them, talking, and catching up. Another IMD couple stayed with us Saturday night as well, so Sunday morning we had a four-couple breakfast reunion.

It would appear too that my sangria hasn't lost its touch: as one of my classmates came down the stairs Sunday morning, another one said to him, "Oh wow, you look how I feel." Mission accomplished!

Monday Katie and I trained into Zurich, where I had lunch with the sponsor of my IMD ICP. Here again it was great to catch up with someone from the IMD world. It was excellent chatting with him and he still contends that our supply chain strategy project helped them through the difficult financial times of the last two years.

It has been a great, IMD-filled four days. This is why I came back for the summer! (OK, also for the perfect weather and gorgeous lake/mountain views!)

Engaged!

2010-08-02T05:40:00.004-05:00

Nearly 9.5 years ago, Katie and I took our first steps down the long (and not always straight or clear!) path that has brought us to where we are today. Where the path is ultimately leading we still don't know, but last Wednesday we took a major step and committed to continuing the journey together.

Several people have asked for details about the proposal and I must disappoint; there really wasn't anything clever or creative or exciting about it per se. That's something I love about being with Katie, though. When we are together I don't feel the need to be "on" or performing; everything is just very natural and easy. Accordingly, so was the proposal. Perhaps I can make the story a little more exciting, though, by filling in some of the history leading up to the proposal:

March 21, 2009: after more than a year of living on separate continents, Katie was visiting me in Lausanne again. Because her flight left before my actual birthday, we did an early birthday dinner at La Suite, which we chose explicitly for their very underpriced 2003 Valdicava Brunello di Montalcino. We were a bit chagrined to learn upon our arrival that they were actually out of that bottle--and then we were elated when the waiter returned to our table having found their last bottle of it hidden away somewhere. It was way too young, of course, but we took our time and it really opened up. The evening blossomed into wonderful discussion about wine, food, nutrition, healthcare, careers, the future, and everything else. I blogged about that evening shortly thereafter. At some point I distinctly remember looking over at Katie and thinking to myself, "Who am I kidding; my future is sitting across the table from me," if she would have me ,of course!

April 14, 2009: While on the Amalfi Coast with my mom, we broke away from the group and spent a day on our own in Capri. The weather was gorgeous and we found a little hillside restaurant along the sea to have some local wine, insalata caprese, and seafood (which I blogged about shortly thereafter). During that meal I first announced my intentions to propose to Katie, which thrilled my mom.

June 1, 2009: On another visit to Lausanne, Katie capitalized on a gorgeous summer day by taking me out for a picnic in the park of the Palais de Justice, which offers amazing views of the lake and mountains (also blogged about). Perfect weather, wonderful food, champagne, a lazy afternoon . . . I was sorely tempted to propose to her then and there but I wanted the chance to talk with her parents about it first.

July 12, 2009: On a visit to spend some time with Katie's family in Minnesota I faked a conference call to weasel out of a lunch obligation that Katie had planned. Instead I spent time with her parents talking with them about my intentions over Swedish pancakes with fresh berries out on their deck. Again the weather was gorgeous and we were accompanied by an awesome golden retriever. After initially giving me a hard time, they offered their blessing and encouragement. The next day I submitted my resignation to Poken (blogged about) and began planning for a life with Katie, not thousands of miles away from her.

So finally I had lined up all the right elements; now I just had to find the right place and time! I wanted it to be somewhere special for both of us and somewhere really nice that we would remember (and to which we could return) indefinitely. While we were wine touring in Tuscany, there were many opportunities, but I lived in Tuscany for half a year before I ever even met Katie so it wasn't as much "our" place.

There were some other opportunities in London, Sedona, San Francisco, and even in Houston, but nothing that ever felt just right. After nine years of dating I figured waiting until it just felt right would be OK.

Despite the fact that Katie didn't live with me in Lausanne, I still very much consider it "our" place as our relationship grew much stronger while I was here. My favorite memories of Lausanne by far are when Katie was here with me and it certainly has its share of picturesque locations! So when Katie came out to join me in Lausanne for this trip, I had an eye toward making the move.

Unfortunately she brought lots of rain with her! July 23 would have been a good date for a proposal as it is Katie's half birthday, but the weather gods had other plans. Finally last Wednesday, July 28, there was a break in the clouds and I suggested that we celebrate with a picnic back at the park of the Palais de Justice. Again we packed a picnic lunch and again we brought some champagne--Dom Perignon 2000 this time. I thought that might have tipped her off but she claims that it didn't raise any flags for her. Fair enough; it's not the first time I've gone a bit overboard with wine!

Again we spent the afternoon lounging on the grass, talking about the future, and agreeing that life was not so bad--especially not when we are together. At around 2:23 PM, I got on one knee and asked her to marry me. After some initial shock she enthusiastically said yes and we spent the rest of the day, week, month (and it's still ongoing) in a sort of euphoric bliss.

People ask how it is being engaged and I jokingly respond that, "Oh wow, it's so different!" as if it has somehow radically changed our 9.5-year relationship. It actually is different, though. In the business world we would call this a "credible threat." We've made a move that says this is where we're going and we are no longer considering other options. We no longer hedge discussion about the future with, "If we got married..." or "If we stay together..." or other conditionals. Now we are officially committed to that vision and that feels really, really . . . right.

I'm not sure how exactly I managed to persuade someone like Katie to spend her life with a scoundrel like me, but I'm definitely not complaining! Many thanks to everyone for the tremendous outpouring of support we have received since announcing our engagement. It really means the world to us and we love you all!

Luzern

2010-07-27T01:50:00.004-05:00

This weekend was a fabulous trip to Luzern, where neither Katie nor I had ever been. More than just a quick trip, though, this was also our first experience traveling together with a dog--especially someone else's dog! I was a little anxious that something might go wrong and we would be far away from home but, as it turns out, Acacia is an amazing traveler.

Saturday morning we hopped on the train to Luzern and she was a perfect angel. I love being in a country where dogs are just considered part of the family and are let in basically everywhere. They ride trains and buses as easily and naturally as humans; you just buy a half-price ticket for them. Acacia just plopped down next to us and snoozed for most of the train ride.

When we arrived in Luzern we met up with Katie's mom and two aunts, who had just come in from Heidelberg, where one of them lives. We spent the afternoon catching up then went out to an early dinner at Schuetzengarten, a "vegetarian restaurant . . . with meat!" Their food was great with many vegetarian and vegan options--plus plenty of meat and fish options for those in our group who were not so inclined. However, all the recent factoids Katie recently unearthed about the energy and water chains in the [US] meat industry (e.g. eliminating 1 lb of meat from your diet reduces your water consumption more than not showering for an entire year!) motivated me to go the veggie route.

We were joined by two IMD classmates from Zurich/Zug at dinner and it was a real pleasure catching up with them. After dinner they dropped us off at the KKL concert hall for a Morcheeba concert. I discovered Morcheeba almost 10 years ago while I was living in Florence but had never seen them live. For the last several years I haven't had much interest in seeing them live without Skye Edwards, their original vocalist. However, they reunited for their most recent album so the timing was just perfect.

After a really subpar warmup act (One redeeming factor: he led a Bohemian Rhapsody sing-a-long before finishing.), Morcheeba took the stage and ROCKED OUT! Their live songs bear enough resemblance to the studio originals that they are still awesome, but their showmanship definitely adds a significant "can't get this on the album" element too. They played a great mix of of their older favorites and new additions; Skye Edwards has just as an awesome voice live as she does on recordings so I'm so glad she's back.

The one downside was that the crowd was very . . . Swiss. Almost no one was dancing or singing and it was tough for the rest of us to get down without bumping into people. Oh well, the music got Katie and me so pumped up that we just had to let loose anyway. When the concert finally ended we were sweaty and satisfied after a great performance.

Sunday we spent just walking around Luzern, including a traipse around the lake to Wagner's house. We met up with another IMD classmate and his wife for a late lunch and had dinner along the river with Katie's family. No agenda, just walking around a beautiful place and enjoying good food with good people.

Acacia caused a stir wherever she went. She's a very big girl (Not sure exactly how big--maybe 100 pounds?) and tourists are either scared by her or enchanted by her. Many tourists, especially Asians, timidly requested to have their picture taken with her. She's so sweet and good natured that this was no problem at all. And each restaurant we frequented brought her out a bowl of water--again, it's so nice to be in a place that supports dogs and their owners!

Monday morning we ascended Mount Pilatus, which offered gorgeous 360-degree views of . . . mostly clouds since there was a lot of cloud cover that day. Oh well, it was still a fun trip and there was some good mini-hiking at the top. Again, Acacia was so good on multiple modes of transportation: train, funicular, cable car, and bus. It was a nice excursion to wrap up a quick-but-excellent weekend with family and friends in a new place.

Now we are back in Lutry! Katie is on vacation and I'm trying to sneak in work during her naps and reading sessions. As I've known since her first visit during my IMD year, Switzerland is so, so much better with her here!

Turkey For Me, Turkey For You

2010-07-21T02:55:00.005-05:00

The IMD MBA Class of 2008 reunion in Bodrum, Turkey was awesome! My Turkish classmate organized a trip to his homeland and invited the rest of us. As I was already on this side of the Atlantic I couldn't pass up such an opportunity!

My journey began very inauspiciously. I had planned down to the minute my Thursday morning schedule: drop Acacia off at the kennel, pack, walk to the Lutry train station, take the train to Geneva airport, and wait patiently/comfortably for my flight--very Swiss! However, it was not meant to be. There was construction on the one road into the tiny town where the kennel was located and my GPS had a hard time finding an alternative route. After an hour of driving around in concentric circles, the GPS finally locked onto a new route and we were in business--but the damage was done.

I raced back home, grabbed my suitcase, hoping that it had enough toiletries and clothes to sustain me for four days, and then realized that I was too late to catch the train from Lutry. My next chance was the train from Lausanne, so I hopped in the car and proceeded apace, intending to park the car at the Lausanne train station. Unfortunately I arrived about two minutes too late, leaving me with one final option: driving to the airport and parking there--very American!

Driving to the airport is slower than taking the fast train, though, so I would be cutting it close. And the Swiss have HUGE penalties for speeding (They take a percentage of your salary instead of a fixed fee.) so I wouldn't be able to make up time that way. It was my only option, though, so I moved ahead. And then I hit major traffic due to construction--doh! Finally I arrived at the airport, figured out how/where to park, and ran into the checkin line about 40 minutes before the flight was due to depart.

This is where the Swiss really showed their quality. It took me minutes to check in and then I was expedited through security. After a very friendly exchange at Passport Control, I made it to the gate with 25 minutes to spare. Well done, well run GVA airport!

Turkish Airlines was another story altogether. Aside from the flight that left from Geneva, all of my Turkish Airlines flights were delayed. They also kept strange things like passenger meals and newspapers in the overhead bins, a practice I had never seen before. But the food was good, even the turkey sandwich (Was that supposed to be a joke?) on my second leg. At long last, we eventually made it to Bodrum airport several hours late. After a bus and a taxi ride I finally caught up with the rest of the group for dinner at a nice hotel along the ocean. Fresh, local seafood, mmm!

I shared a room on the trip with my Danish classmate, Peter, whom I usually call "The Great Dane." Our room was small but it had enough air conditioning for us to sleep. He's super nice and very athletic so we were looking forward to playing a lot of beach volleyball together during the trip. I brought my Wilson AVP ball to be used in its 5th country.

Friday we woke up early and went for a swim in the ocean, which was cool, clear, and still. This was followed by a monstrous breakfast as we waited for others to wake up. Turkish food features many cool foods with high water content, e.g. tomatoes, cucumbers, and watermelon, which work well in the hot, dry climate. These foods plus lots of cheese, bread, and honey comprised our breakfast each morning and were omnipresent throughout the rest of our days.

We spent the rest of Friday at a private hotel beach. "Beach" may not be accurate as there wasn't any sand but they had wooden docks with shade and lounge chairs all along the coast line plus a private swimming area and great bar/kitchen. It was a very, very nice way to spend a long day in the sun.

Turkish women are beautiful, by the way. Everywhere you look there are Princess Jasmine lookalikes. This was not what I expected out of Turkey but it certainly isn't the first time I've shown myself to be culturally ignorant.

Saturday we rented a boat and motored around the Aegean, dropping anchor here and there to swim and eat freshly caught, grilled fish and Turkish pastries. What a life! That evening we were treated to a veritable feast at a local restaurant where we had an "in" with the owners. We began the meal already full and by the end we were positively stuffed. To digest we added Raki (Turkish liqueur) too and then rolled ourselves home.

Sunday we spent the day eating and lounging around the beach at our Turkish classmate's parents' house. We hadn't been able to find any beach volleyball the entire trip (Go figure with no "beaches" available!) but this place at least had a ping pong table. So finally we got some land sport in on top of the swimming we had been doing. By that evening all of our classmates had already departed so Peter and I walked along the coast, found a nice place for fresh seafood and had one final meal.

My return trip went about as well as my first one. The taxi got me to the airport with plenty of time but my flight was delayed 80 minutes. We arrived in Istanbul's Ataturk airport after my connection should have departed but, fortunately for me, Turkish Airlines is consistent and my flight to Geneva was also delayed--just long enough for me to sprint across the airport and run down the jetway before they closed the hatch.

Waiting for me at GVA was a friend from Rice who will stay here for a few days. It's good to be back in Switzerland but my few days in Turkey definitely generated positive memories that will last a lifetime! More than the eating, swimming, and boating, I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to catch up with my classmates and make some new Turkish friends.

Swiss Productivity

2010-07-15T01:37:00.005-05:00

Now that I am settling into my routine here in Switzerland, I'm becoming very productive! When not meeting with previous connections or networking with new connections, I've been spending most of my time powering through major objectives at the Smart Office Energy Solutions EMEA HQ. Sometimes this is by myself but I have also had the fortune to work with some local experts on designing some revolutionary new product features. As I am very extroverted, working with others like this makes me even more energized and productive.

I have also been pursuing a new type of workout regimen: one with no gym whatsoever! This is a first for me so I enlisted the help of noted expert Drew Skaggs in putting together a program that would continue to meet my fitness goals without requiring specialized equipment. You can see the initial results at Drew's THE SHOP blog. This first week won't be quite complete due to scheduling constraints but, as of next week, I should be into the routine.

My time here hasn't been all diligent work and working out, though; there has been plenty of time to play as well! On Tuesday I attended a concert at the famed Montreux Jazz Festival for the first time. Buddy Guy was in town and I just couldn't resist the opportunity to see him. The event was fantastic: a bunch of people packed into a small venue and Buddy playing to the crowd. The concert was basically a nonstop medley of his original songs mixed in with blues standards ("Hoochie Coochie Man," "I Just Want to Make Love to You," "Five Long Years," "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)," "Strange Brew," and "Sunshine of Your Love," to name a few). He adopted a "point-counter point" style, singing softly and slowly then answering with blistering electric guitar riffs. As is his trademark, he used a wireless pickup and came out into the audience to play a couple of songs. I was 20-40 feet away from him all night; it was a grand experience!

The following night a French classmate and his family hosted a party for Bastille Day! There were 15 of us in all (including a family from a different IMD class year) so this was my best chance to date to catch up with those whom I haven't seen in awhile. Even though I had to get up very early this morning to check everything off before departing for Turkey, I stayed at the party very late because it was so, so nice.

And on that note, I had better get moving in order to make it to the airport on time!

Returning to Normalcy

2010-07-12T01:37:00.004-05:00

After my first week back in Switzerland I'm starting to feel plugged back in to a "normal life." Although it's not routine per se, it is beginning to feel just like business as usual--a good thing.

Even though I have a car at my disposal here it is amazing how much more active I am just from walking/taking public transportation everywhere! Since my arrival, I've burned an average of 3,415 calories per day vs. an average of 3,054 per day in Houston. The fact that much of the walking is uphill probably contributes as well!

Friday night I attended an apartment party for a former Poken coworker who is leaving to join the staff of . . . IMD! I know from personal experience that it can be hard to make the decision to depart from Poken but I am very, very excited for her new opportunity--and for IMD's great new team member!. The party was a lot of fun and ridiculously international--exactly what I remember about my Swiss social life.

Saturday one of my best friends from IMD and his family came to visit so we organized a small dinner gathering with other local classmates. It was so nice to see everyone and impressive how easily and naturally we fell back into catch-up discourse. IMD is more than a name on our diplomas; it is a unique, trying, wonderful experience that binds us all together and--I suspect--always will.

Sunday was the finals of the World Cup. As I did Tuesday night for the semifinals, I attended a major outdoor viewing party in Ouchy with an enormous screen. The place was packed to the hilt with fans for Spain but we were cheering for Holland (supporting Margot, one of my French classmates's Dutch wife, who organized the get-together). It was a tough, close match but, in the end, Spain won and we had to sneak out before the mob turned on us.

Soccer really frustrates me to watch. It does have potential and I can see why so many people worldwide get excited about it whenever there's a run toward goal that makes you hold your breath. However, more of it seems to be about baiting the ref for some wimpy foul instead of just playing the game and that just totally ruins it for me. Still, it was fun to be amidst a throng of people who were very, very excited about the game.

This will be a short week as I have much to do before heading to Turkey for an IMD class mini-reunion!

Settling In in Lutry

2010-07-08T07:32:00.004-05:00

Slowly but surely I am settling into life in Lutry. It is very different than living in Lausanne--or even Ouchy--where I lived for one year each. Although Lausanne is only a city of 150,000 people, it is a bustling metropolis relative to the sleepy town of Lutry. I definitely feel less "connected" here--which is not a bad thing! It does reinforce my preference for living in the heart of a major city while choosing more "out there" settings to get away.

I've always found Switzerland to be a very magical place and the further out you go the more fairy tale-like it becomes. Villages like Lutry are interspersed with old forests full of tall trees--very much how I would imagine the "dark forest" although not nearly as sinister. There are also spiders everywhere! Each morning when I wake up there are new cobwebs along the paths outside. Although I have no great love for spiders, I do appreciate the work they do on keeping the "mosquito" (not real mosquitoes because they don't bite!) population small. The most surreal aspect of the Swiss environs, though, is the false twilight. Because we are surrounded by mountains, the sun "sets" out of sight at 8 or 9. However, it still provides plenty of ambient light until it actually slips below the horizon around 10. This leaves 1-2 hours with the sky a soft, mystical blue. The street lights are already on, but it isn't quite dark yet. It's fantastic.

Despite this I have been doing more than frolicking in fairy tale land. Every day (after taking Acacia on a morning walk through the nearby vineyards) I have had meetings in town with IMD faculty, staff, friends, and other connections. It feels great to be back in touch with this crowd!

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights have all featured meet-ups with classmates. Tuesday's was to cheer on the Dutch (on behalf of the Dutch wife of a French classmate) at the huge outdoor viewing party in Ouchy. While I'm still not in love with soccer--World Cup or no--it is fun to be around lots of people who are!

Wednesday evening I had to pass on social activities in order to give my first investor pitch on this side of the Atlantic. There is a budding Angel network here that has just started a small sustainable investment subgroup. The gathering was tiny and informal but it was very nice to be around others in the cleantech space. Because I was a last-minute addition to the program I just gave a five-minute "quick pitch" but it stimulated a great deal of Q&A. This group may not be a great fit for us right now but I'm very excited to have made the contacts.

The rest of the week and weekend is still up in the air but I will report in soon!

Back En Suisse

2010-07-05T05:19:00.002-05:00

To beat the Houston summer heat I'm officing from Switzlerand for much of July and August. One of my favorite IMD professors is out of town for the summer and was looking for someone to watch his place, take care of his dog, water his plants, etc. Katie and I were looking for an opportunity to escape the Houston summer. Voila, a match made in heaven!

Narrowly escaping Hurricane Alex, my delayed flight made it out of Houston and arrived in Frankfurt too late for me to make my connection. That was no problem, though; Frankfurt's Star Alliance lounge was nice and World Cup soccer was on. As most of my readers will know, I'm no big fan of soccer but I do enjoy the cultural experience of watching momentous games in places where people take it very seriously. The game that was on during my layover in Frankfurt was Germany-Argentina so the entire airport was abuzz with excitement. In the lounge, they were offering both German and Argentinian cuisine--very festive. Germany scored early and often so most of the travelers around me were quite pleased.

Eventually I made it into Switzerland and was surprised by a few things. First, it didn't feel nostalgic at all. I suppose I haven't been gone long enough for that. It really just felt like I was coming back to a second home. Second, nothing has changed about Geneva Airport. In the nine months that I've been gone, so much has changed in my life and my business, but even the watch advertisements along the moving walkway in Geneva are the exact same as those from before I left.

Finally, this was my first time being picked up at the airport in a car. Previously I had always just taken the fast train back to Lausanne. This time, though, I am living in Lutry, about 5km outside of Lausanne. The distance isn't that great, but the dependence on an extra travel leg of bus or train adds significant time to travels and makes a car much more useful.

I spent most of the weekend catching up with my professor and familiarizing myself with the house. It is very, very nice and is going to be a wonderful place to spend the next several weeks. It features a pool, a great view of the lake, and--most importantly--it comes with a three-and-a-half-year-old Bernese Mountain Dog named Acacia! She's a big girl with lots of energy and she seems to like me. :-)

Sunday night we had an impromptu 4th of July dinner at my Singaporean classmate's house, joined by a French classmate, his wife, and an American/Swedish/Mexican classmate. It was so great to see people for the first time in months and we very naturally fell back into old patterns of career discussions and IMD gossip.

People are complaining about how unseasonably hot the weather is here right now but I will take the moderate, dry heat over Houston's oppressive heat/humidity any day! This isn't a vacation; I'm just taking advantage of the fact that right now it doesn't really matter where in the world I work. Still, it feels great to be back, especially at this time of year!

The Big Lebowski

2010-06-29T07:10:00.006-05:00

I can't believe that June is almost over already; it has really flown by! It began with (although technically this was the end of May) dogsitting our friend's awesome chocolate lab. We took her on long walks around the neighborhood and frequent visits to Houston's many dog parks. Some couples are described as "baby crazy." Katie and I are definitely "dog crazy" and we intend to rescue one of our own this Fall.

The next weekend was a beach volleyball tournament in Galveston. My favorite men's 2s partner and I reunited for the first time in three years and had a great time. We lost two games by a little and won two games by a lot but that wasn't enough to advance to the playoffs. We played well, though, and one of our wins handed the top team in our bracket their only loss so we felt good about the day. Leaving early afforded us the opportunity to listen to Rice baseball win on the way back from Galveston, take a nap, and then Katie and I enjoyed dinner and a movie in the evening.

Rice baseball unfortunately did not advance out of the regional tournament hosted by UT. It was a really weird year for Rice; we lost many more games than usual and just didn't seem to have the dominant pitching for which we are known. The upside is that our offense was pretty awesome this season. Led by player of the year Anthony Rendon, we won several games by mercy rule. Offense comes and goes, though, so you can't rely on it alone in the post season. Oh well, at least football season is now right around the corner!

The following weekend Katie and I went to St. Louis for the first time for the wedding of a middle/high school classmate of mine. He had been another captain on the football team so many of our old teammates were there for the occasion. It was great fun to catch up with all the old guys; we tried not to spend too much time reliving the glory days and Katie was a great sport about it.

Last week I was up in Chicago (also for the first time) on business, which presented a great chance to catch up with some Rice folks I hadn't seen in some time. I made it back on Saturday, just in time to prep for The Dude Imbibes, a Big Lebowski trivia night. Katie's sister, Kelly, was in town with her boyfriend, Mike, who had never seen The Big Lebowski before. So, in order to prepare our team, we watched the movie with some white russians. Watching it again reminded me why it is still my favorite movie; every time I watch it I notice some new, subtle nuance.

The pub quiz was held at Little Woodrow's in the Rice Village. Although there were only nine teams (many fewer than we had had for the Seinfeld pub quiz a few months ago), the competition was spirited and we had a great time. Geeks Who Drink, the organizers, put on a really good event.

We aced most of the rounds of questions, although we fared poorly in the audio round, in which we had to identify obscure artists of music heard throughout the movie. Fortunately, everyone else fared poorly on that round too so we spent most of the event in second place. Some rounds featured bonus questions for which free beers were awarded to the individual who presented the first correct answer. We won all but one of those and the team next to us insisted that my speedy writing be tested for doping. :-)

We outperformed the top team in the final round to secure a tie for first place. This meant we had to settle it with sudden death overtime. The DJ played "The Final Countdown" to get us in the spirit and then we won by correctly answering the next question while the other team did not--amateurs! The DJ played "You're The Best" and the Quiz Master gave us our winnings. It was a good night! We paid $20 to enter, $20 for beer, and $40 for food. We won $70 plus four free beers so I think it worked out pretty well. To celebrate, we went home and watched Tombstone, which also features Sam Elliott.

Sunday we arose early and traveled out to JD Organic Farms to pick blueberries. If you're a blueberry lover (I add them to my cereal whenever possible.), it's a great deal. You pay $2.50/lb for whatever you pick. They're organic, local, cheap, not wastefully packaged, and easily frozen for future use. Between the four of us we picked 17 lbs in about an hour--AND the proprietors had a six-week-old golden lab puppy who was worth the price of admission all by herself.

After blueberry pie, scones, and pancakes, we froze the rest and participated in a vegan cooking class at Indika. As always, the results were delicious and it was so cool to cook in the kitchen of a major restaurant with the chef and sous chefs flitting about to help and advise.

It was a great weekend and a great month! Now I need to buckle down before heading off to Switzerland!

Why I Give Watts

2010-06-25T18:49:00.003-05:00

As some of you may know, I recently joined the Board of Directors of GIVEWATTS, a global nonprofit providing clean, free light to schools and clinics in the developing world. Following is a guest blog post I wrote on the GIVEWATTS website, the full post of which can be found here.

This is a truly worthy cause and I hope that you will join me in giving watts where they are needed.

Why I Give Watts

Energy represents the greatest challenge of our generation. Whether you are concerned with the dwindling supply of conventional energy sources, the environmental effects of those sources, or the social effects of global energy inequities, the story is the same: our status quo issimply unsustainable. During my first trip to Kenya I also recognized just how much the future of energy will be shaped by the developing world, whose demand for energy is growing at an extraordinary rate. If developing countries make the same mistakes that we (the most developed countries) have made, dark and terrible times are ahead.

GIVEWATTS is addressing this problem. 2.5 BILLION people–nearly half the world’s population–don’t have reliable access to electricity so rely on wood, kerosene, or other forms of CO2-producing “conventional biomass” for light and heat. Much of Africa falls into this category. Many African villages either operate with no light at night–meaning they cannot be educated or productive at night, furthering the wealth gap between them and the more developed world–or they burn fuels such as kerosene for their heat and light. The fumes from the kerosene not only damage the environment; they also cause respiratory illness in those nearby, reducing life expectancy and increasing healthcare costs. Furthermore, because fuel is expensive, it keeps the population in poverty.

Conventional efforts to address this issue have been largely ineffective. Creating the infrastructure for a modern electric power grid requires significant resources–and time–and too often corruption stands in the way of any real benefit. The GIVEWATTS solution empowers the people directly. By providing solar powered lamps and flashlights (solar powered heating and power generation coming in the future) to African schools and clinics, we help them break the cycle of poverty, illness, and environmental damage. The lamps charge all day then provide clean, free light as late as they are needed into the night.

The economics of this approach are extremely compelling. GIVEWATTS charges $25 (€20) to donate 1 watt of power to an African village. The watts produce light in renewable energy solutions, are used every day and has a life expectancy of 10 years (if solar; it also might require new batteries after 2-3 years) so the $25 donation provides 3,652 days of clean, free light to students, teachers, clinical staff, and patients, depending on which project is chosen. By contrast, it costs $0.21 per day, $775 per 10 years, for light from a dirty kerosene lamp (assuming current prices of about $1 per liter of kerosene and a consumption of 1,5 liters per week). Much of the African population lives on less than $1 per day per person, so paying 20% of that for dirty energy is a big deal.

This is what I love about the GIVEWATTS solution: by donating only $25 from the US, you reduce $775 of cost in Africa! This is INTELLIGENT wealth transfer from one part of the world to the other–a far cry from the ineffective, inefficient, corrupt transfer that we have been trying for decades. What’s more, each watt that is donated reduces CO2 emissions, alleviates a major healthcare epidemic (significantly reducing healthcare costs), and closes the development gap.

Another reason I support GIVEWATTS is their commitment to transparency. When you donate a watt of power, it is tangible and you understand the precise effect it will have. At givewatts.org we publish ongoing updates about the specific installations we have done so you can see your watts in action.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I support GIVEWATTS because of its people. I have known Jesper Hornberg, the founder, for years. I know him to be a man of highest quality and integrity. I have looked in his eyes and seen the true will to do good in the world and I know he has the talent to realize such a vision. It was one of the greatest honors of my life when he invited me to join the GIVEWATTS Board of Directors with a specific focus on developing US operations and I accepted it without hesitation.

So there you have it: a problem that must be solved, the best solution I have ever seen to that problem, and a great team to see it through. I hope you will join me in supporting GIVEWATTS. Together we will change the world–one light at a time!