Buenos Aires Part 2

Katie and I are now wrapping up what has really been an awesome trip. Sunday evening we had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant with a friend of a friend who recently moved back to his native Buenos Aires from Houston. Monday we walked downtown and, after lunch with a local Rice alum, we walked to the “must see” sights in that area: the Casa Rosada, the Obelisco, etc.

Monday evening we went for Italian again – this time to a little place called Guido’s! It was such a trip inside, very kitschy with all kinds of Italian and Italian-American memorabilia. It was a set menu featuring whatever Guido happened to be making that evening, course after course of mostly vegetarian antipasti and pasta while we were there. Add to that a good house red wine and a low, low price and we were quite satisfied!

Tuesday I went back downtown, this time for a meeting that one of my IMD classmates had set up with the energy manager of his company. Doing business in Buenos Aires I felt like quite the little jet setter. 🙂 Katie and I then met back up and had lunch at Buenos Aires Verde, a vegetarian/vegan/organic kind of place which was quite good.

Tuesday evening we had dinner at Leopoldo, a modern Argentinian-Asian fusion restaurant that was rumored to be very popular on Tuesdays – and indeed it was! This time we were meeting another IMD alum who had helped my ICP group via conference call four years ago, so it was a pleasure to meet in her finally in person. The food was delicious; I went for the beef and paired it with a big ole Malbec – great combo! My beef came with a ¨perfect egg,¨ soft boiled at 63 degrees C for one hour. And it did indeed have an awesome texture. I think I´ll leave that to the pros, though, and keep frying mine up in just a couple of minutes!

Wednesday was supposed to be rainy, so Katie and I spent it in the two big art museums: the MALBA and the Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo. The former is more of a classic art museum while the latter is a converted mansion featuring much of its original owners´ private collection.

After a late lunch, siesta, and run, we had dinner with Felipe, Laura, and their toddler, Celeste, for one last hurrah together. They were excellent hosts while we were here and it was fantastic to finish up our trip with a lazy, simple dinner with them.

We checked out of the hotel this morning but had all day to kill before heading to the airport for our overnight flight. We walked around a bit, relaxed in the park watching all the dogs chase balls, sticks, pigeons, and each other. More walking, another lazy lunch, and finally it is nearly time to go.

Final impressions of Argentina are very positive. Some things leave much to be desired. There is always trash in the streets, for example. There is no recycling to speak of. You can´t walk anywhere without inhaling second hand smoke. But the people are very nice. They seem to value fitness and the outdoors (Even late at night there would be groups of boot campers and others doing exercises in the parks.) – and dogs! The wine is good and very inexpensive. The beef is of such high quality that, even when they massively overcook it (to my tastes), it is still tender and delicious. Add to that the perfect weather we had all week and we are sold!

After a week here, I speak much more Spanish than I used to, I´m very relaxed, and I´ve had a great time with old friends, new friends, and – most importantly – Katie. This has been a great trip and we will certainly look for excuses to come back again. ¡Adios, Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires: Part 1

For our one-year anniversary, Katie and I decided to go somewhere we’ve never been before: Buenos Aires, Argentina! Thanks to recommendations from many friends who have visited or lived there, we have more on our BA bucket list than we could possibly handle in a week, but we’ll certainly make a noble effort.

After an overnight flight direct from Houston (There was another Rice alum in our row on the plane – small world!) we arrived Friday morning to glorious weather. Although it’s autumn here, it felt much more like late summer. We checked into our hotel, which is right off of one of the main throughways: Avenida del Libertador, a wide street (10 lanes one way!) lined with parks for miles and miles. We’re in the Palermo neighborhood, which is very walkable and full of shops, cafes, bars, and restaurants on every block.

Our first order of business was to break our fast, so we struck out walking. I was stunned by how much green space there is even in the heart of this large urban area. Every few blocks there is another park or monument with lots of grass around it. Combine this with the extreme walkability and A. everyone is out walking all the time and B. it seems that everyone has a dog! This is great . . . except that people don’t seem to pick up after their dogs here. Early in the morning, the shop keepers hose down the sidewalks but, as the day wears on, you have to be careful of stepping on land mines.

We found a little cafe with no English on their menu, so we figured it was safely not a tourist trap. Katie ordered a pizza while I took the salad bar. Because of Argentina’s high Italian immigrant population, it seems that we will never find ourselves more than a block away from pizza or pasta. This is great for Katie, but not so much for me, as I’m rarely eating grains or starchy carbs these days. My salad bar, by contrast, consisted of at least 75% meat options (which Katie, a vegetarian, can’t eat)! Yes, we’re definitely in Argentina! Between the two of us we can eat just about everything, but rarely the same thing. On a related note, I’m relaxing my grain avoidance rules while here to eat empanadas, which we have had with almost every meal – including breakfast!

We spent much of the afternoon just wandering around and then I went for a run in one of the nearby parks. There are miles and miles of trails; I could probably run a different route each day and still have not covered them all by the end of this vacation.

For dinner we met up with two of my IMD classmates, Felipe and Hernan, and their wives, at Sucre, a modern Argentinian restaurant. The food was fantastic and of course we accompanied it with Mendoza Malbec. From the reviews it seems that this restaurant is considered pricey but, due to the exchange rate with the US dollar, it is actually quite affordable – even by Houston standards, which is already pretty cheap.

Saturday we put together a breakfast from the bakery down the corner and then struck out to La Recoleta, where we visited the craft market and the cemetery. I was blown away by the cemetery; it’s like an entire city of mausoleums with different streets and paths and avenues between them. Some of them are more dark and somber; some are more colorful and vivacious, but they’re all really impressive with really detailed craftsmanship. Some haven’t been terribly well maintained, though, and you can even see the coffins inside. We were there on a sunny day, but I have to believe that it would be incredibly creepy to be walking around all those tombs at night!

Saturday evening we did a wine tasting at Anuva, an exporter of boutique Argentinian wines. It was fun not only to taste wines we had never heard of there but also to meet other couples who were interested in wine. Because Argentinians eat dinner very late, we then had some time to kill and had a drink at 868, an old school speakeasy-style cocktail joint. Our drinks were delicious and expertly crafted by a very nice, talkative bartender.

Finally we had dinner at Casa Felix, a small private dining establishment that grows all of its own herbs and seasonings on site and sources everything else locally. Here again it was fun to meet other couples (including another Rice alum!) who value the locavore lifestyle enough to seek it out while traveling. Dinner was delicious: Bolivian peanut soup, salad with homemade burrata and spicy plum marmalade, cocoa-chili crusted Patagonian sand perch, and three different papaya desserts. It was a very, very satisfying way to end the day!

Sunday has been a wonderful ride as well. We spent the day out on Felipe’s boat (with Laura, Hernan, and Natalia) getting a tour of the many rivers around Buenos Aires. Eventually we stopped for an outdoor lunch (mostly meat but they managed to find some ravioli for Katie!) and just relaxed along the beach for some time. We followed this up with alfajores, a traditional Argentinian cookie that can be thought of as an oreo but 800x better, and headed back to the city – a fun IMD mini-reunion boat trip!

After nearly three days here, I’m beginning to get the feel for the place. Buenos Aires is widely called the “Paris of the South” due to its very European layout and culture but it seems much more like Rome than Paris to me. It is big and beautiful with all kinds of stuff to do at all hours, but it is just a little bit dirtier (e.g. the dog poop!) and the fiery latin tempers cursing at each other in traffic definitely remind me more of Rome. One of the big monuments here (which we haven’t yet visited) is an obelisk, which I much more strongly associate with Rome than with Paris too. We will be here several more days so we will see if my opinion changes!

For the moment, though, we’re off to an Italian restaurant with a friend of one of my startup company’s investors – hooray for the global network!

A Life of Significance

In my last post I mused about my pattern of chronic overcommitment and speculated that a contributing factor might have been my father’s early death contributing to a sense of urgency to get something done before it’s too late. This is probably a bit simplistic as it neglects the motivation to do something significant in the first place. For that it’s probably more instructive to look at my other source of DNA: my mother.

Last weekend Katie and I ventured up to the Washington, DC, area to cheer Mom on as she took delivery of the Discovery space shuttle for the National Air & Space Museum‘s Udvar-Hazy Center. As a curator of human spaceflight, this is essentially the crowning accomplishment of her career. She has authored/edited books, produced exhibits, given talks at conferences, been interviewed by major media, etc., but the acquisition of Discovery is in an entirely different league. Discovery is the champion of the shuttle fleet, having flown more than any other spacecraft, including many notable missions. This $2.4B (in ’80s dollars, mind you!) artifact is really, really significant.

Looking back, Mom has been a constant source of inspiration for me toward a life of significance. Coming from very modest beginnings in a small town, she has constantly striven to stretch her wings and test herself against greater and greater challenges – through Arkansas, Texas, California, Minnesota, New York, Alabama, and, finally, Washington, DC. She received the Smithsonian’s job offer to work at one of the world’s most popular museums while we were still living in Huntsville, Alabama. To my 10-year-old self, DC seemed like a big, scary place. Mom didn’t shy away from the opportunity, though; she was eager to test herself on a larger stage, one that would would impact millions of people each year.

During my childhood, Mom was always encouraging me to spread my own wings. Whether through family trips to foreign countries, or taking me to plays/concerts/cultural events, or reading with me, or visits to historical sites (and LOTS of museums, obviously), she always nudged me to expand my horizons. What impresses me most, though, are the things she helped me pursue that were way outside her comfort zone: Art Monk Football Camp, for example, or the annual Great Debate about the size and rate of expansion of the universe.

Throughout, she also tried to instill in me her values of doing the right thing, the honest thing, rather than just the thing of greatest benefit. Lord knows I didn’t always succeed in this area, but she was always there to, ahem, help me see where I had strayed – and correct course!

Add all that up and I think it’s easy to see how I would find myself dedicating my professional life to addressing the world’s energy challenges. As Nobel Laureate Dick Smalley often said (paraphrasing), if you take the top ten challenges to humanity over the next 50 years and solve energy (the top challenge, according to Smalley), you solve at least eight of the others (water, food, environment, poverty, etc.) incidentally.

I’m working hard on this most significant of industries not just because I believe my efforts will have a big impact, but also because I believe it is right. So many bright, capable, energetic people work in industries or for organizations where they really aren’t addressing the world’s challenges. Many of them don’t love that fact but they don’t know anything else. Some of them don’t really care. Most don’t really think about it.

Thank you, Mom, for inspiring me to live a life of significance. A life of meaning. I’m so proud of what you have accomplished and I’m working my tail off to live up to your example!

33rd Birthday Musings

Birthdays are always good times for reflection and this year I’m feeling particularly introspective. Perhaps it is because 33 is a number of great significance to one of my good friends or perhaps it is because my last multiple of 11 year was so impactful (graduating from college, meeting Katie) that this birthday feels . . . auspicious!

At the same time, 2012 so far has felt . . . stretched. In all candor, I am struggling to keep up with everything I’m working on. First and foremost is my cleantech startup, Smart Office Energy Solutions. I love the work we are doing, the success we are having (awards, customers, etc.) so far, and our future opportunities. Moreover, I continue to be humbled by the faith our investors have placed in us. With all this, though, I am feeling mounting pressure to make this a huge success. In baseball terminology my entrepreneurial career so far has yielded a few singles and no strikeouts (So maybe I’m not swinging hard enough!) but no home runs yet. Given the upside of this venture, it is clear to me that this has the greatest potential of any of my previous attempts to be a grand slam, so I am pouring my time, energy, and emotion into making that happen – not only for me, but for our “extended team” including employees and investors.

This year I have been thrilled to start teaching entrepreneurship at Rice as well. This was in answer to a call by Rice’s top leadership to help inspire and empower Rice students to pursue paths of greater impact. The teaching experience has been incredibly rewarding thus far and I am honored to have been entrusted with it. It is a lot of work, though! Perhaps future semesters will be easier but teaching something the first time requires a great deal of time and thought – if you care about the outcome for students, which I do passionately.

I also care a great deal about trying to foster entrepreneurship at Rice specifically and, more generally, within Houston. This has led to me engaging ever more frequently with several sets of stakeholders in discussion of a new initiative to bring together Rice’s commercial and tech powers that be for a new initiative to catalyze entrepreneurship in an entirely new way.

Concurrently, I continue to volunteer at Rice in other ways: as a Lovett College associate, an active member of the Grad-Degree Alumni Committee, and as co-chair (with Katie) of our Centennial Homecoming this year. I’m trying to create more of an alumni community in Houston too for my other alma mater, IMD. The rest of my volunteer efforts go to GIVEWATTS, which has more opportunity for major impact and more traction than ever before.

Through all of this I’m trying be the good husband that Katie deserves (and a good “father” to Max!), while also keeping up my health, fitness, and rest. Of course these are the most important priorities.

As best I can tell, there are ~20% as many hours in the day as there need to be to accomplish everything I’m working toward. I am furiously pursuing all of them and continually trying new ways of working smarter-not-harder to increase efficiency. There is nothing new about this; anyone who knew me in college will recognize the same patterns! At the same time, I am deathly afraid of failing at any of these efforts, especially as it seems that so many people are depending on me.

It doesn’t take too much psychoanalysis to find clues about why I live in  a perpetual state of overcommitment. I suspect that having a father who died when I was pretty young imbued me with at sense of mortality. Somewhere in the back of my mind is a sense that it could all end tomorrow which, coupled with a strong motivation to have a major impact in the world, leads to a fervor – a desperation, almost – to achieve at least some of these goals before it’s too late.

Don’t misunderstand me, though; this is not a hidden plea for sympathy. I love my life. I am excited by and energized by all these frenetic threads and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My blood pressure is really low!

Ever since I first heard the term “deferred life plan” I immediately related to the desire to live in the now and never lose sight of my dreams. If I were hit by a bus tomorrow, I may not have accomplished nearly what I had set out to do during my short time in this world, but I would at least be satisfied that I have lived every minute of my 33 years. I have loved passionately and relentlessly pursued goals consistent with the values that I hold dear. These, I believe, are fundamental to the human experience.

At a moment like this, reflecting on my past and anticipating my future, I can’t help but be overcome by how blessed I am. I stand on the shoulders of giants; I would be nothing without the friends and loved ones who have been and are with me. I apologize to you all for your emails and voicemails that go far too long before I respond; I’m definitely falling down on the job. Know, though, that I live in a constant state of gratitude for and wonder at your presence in my life. Thank you for making my 33 years such a joyous journey . .  . here’s to many, many more!

A Birthday Feast for the Ages

Last night capped off 36 hours of wonderful birthday celebration! Thursday evening my favorite wingman took me and a couple of other friends out to Experience Hendrix, a Jimi Hendrix tribute tour featuring several blues legend performers. It was a great show, covering the entire Hendrix canon. Some notable performers were Dweezil Zappa (son of Frank Zappa), Robby Krieger (of The Doors), Jonny Lang, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Awesome!

Then last night Katie put together an exquisite dinner with a few friends. We began the evening with 1998 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne Brut La Grande Dame, which went really well with light caviar. This was not your elegant, airy champagne; it was very fruit-forward and dense – delicious!

We served the main courses all at once: zucchini salad, sardines in puff pastry, eggplant pesto on fresh sourdough, and thai beef (although we used grass-fed, hormone- and antibiotic-free buffalo instead). Each of the recipes was taken from Cooking With Flo, a cookbook authored by a friend of ours to document the exquisite recipes of Florence, the hotelier we met during our visit to Cognac back in 2008. Scrumptious!

The wines we served weren’t those you would classically pair with any of those dishes but hey, it was my birthday and we were going to drink what we wanted! The theme of the night was 2001 Brunello di Montalcino, an excellent vintage not just for wine but also the year I met Katie. In fact, exactly 11 years ago yesterday Katie gave me a hug for the first time – and the rest, as they say, is history!

Before we dove into the Brunelli, though, one of our guests brought another wine to celebrate another vintage – 1979, the year I was born! The 1979 M. Chapoutier Côtes du Rhône Belleruche was exquisite, vivacious, and had plenty of life left (as I hope I do!). Our first two Brunelli were 2001 Castello Banfi Poggio alle Mura and 2001 La Poderina. Again, these weren’t necessarily natural pairings with our food but they were great on their own and the La Poderina especially went well with the buffalo.

As we moved onto pecorino and gouda cheeses, we brought out the other two Brunelli: 2001 Castelgiocondo and 2001 Casanova di Neri Tenuta Nuova. As you may recall, I’ve had negative experience with Castelgiocondo in the past, but this was my first time actually drinking their wine. It was good, but not good enough to cancel out my grudge from that visit. The Casanova was Wine Spectator’s 2006 wine of the year. I’m not sure it’s that good, but it was definitely my favorite of the night and will keep getting better over time.

Completely stuffed, we moved on to dessert: homemade blueberry cobbler and chocolate cake (Good thing I was carb loading for Sunday’s 10k race!)! For this course we had a Sauternes-like late harvest wine from California. Imagine my surprise then when I took my first sip and it was . . . spicy! It turned out that this was not the dessert wine we thought it was. It was experimental jalapeno wine our friends had made and bottled in a dessert wine bottle! While it certainly wasn’t for everyone, I happen to love spicy wine, so it was a perfect end to a fabulous evening.

Five hours of wine dinner . . . great company . . . and a spicy surprise . . . what better way to begin my next trip around the sun?

Bayou City Classic 10k 2012 Race Report

Despite horrible running conditions, I PRed in yesterday’s Bayou City Classic 10k. I hadn’t raced a 10k for nearly a year, but theoretically my fitness has improved since last March and I’ve been mixing in some 10k training runs since January.

My goal with this race was to beat my 44:41 PR (set in last year’s Capitol 10k) or, at the very least, beat my 45:43 course record, set in last year’s Bayou City Classic. There was no cold or injury this year and I had had a good week of running taper, carb loading, and general recovery/preparation so I was hoping for a very solid performance.

I set my race plan based on a 44:42 time, hoping to beat it by at least two seconds:

  1. Fast start, covering the first half km in 2:01 (4:03 / km pace).
  2. Settle into race pace, running nine kms of 4:31 each (pretty flat course)
  3. Pick it up for 400m uphill in 1:42 (4:17 / km pace)
  4. Turn the corner and sprint the final 100m in 18s (3:09 / km pace)

A potential wrinkle developed as the race approached and it became increasingly evident that we would be running in the cold (10 degrees C, ~50 F), wet (100% chance of rain), and wind. I wasn’t sure exactly how this would affect my run. I didn’t think my Vibram Five Fingers Bikilas would sponge up too much water and I don’t wear enough clothing when running to become too water logged. I guessed that the biggest challenge for runners in these conditions would be mental. All in all, I figured the inclement weather probably hampered me less than other runners, so I wasn’t too worried about it.

Saturday morning arrived and, sure enough, it was pretty miserable out. The race starting line was only a few blocks from my office in downtown Houston, so at least I was able to stretch and prepare a bit in my dry office. At T-15 minutes, I left the building to warm up for 10 minutes and join the front of the runners at the starting line.

Despite the poor weather there were still many people present, with attitudes ranging from “let’s get this over with” to “bring it on!” You can guess which group I fell into. 🙂 The officials seemed to be in the “let’s get this over with” camp; at exactly 08:00 they very quickly said, “Runners get set,” and blew the air horn. My shirt, shorts, and Vibrams were already soaked as I crossed the starting line half a second later – we were off!

The first half-km breezed by in 1:57 (average heart rate of 162 BPM) with plenty of room for runners to spread out and find their paces. As I passed my office, I tried to slow down a bit. My next km finished in 4:12 (174 BPM) and the one after in 4:16 (172 BPM). 25% finished and I was 38 seconds ahead of my target and feeling good. My next kms were 4:22 (171 BPM) and 4:27 (170 BPM), finally arriving around the base pace I was planning on.

I crossed the halfway marker at 21:21, not a bad 5k time in and of its own right, and prepared to turn around to head back along Memorial toward downtown. My next kms were 4:28 (173 BPM), 4:29 (172 BPM), and 4:32 (172 BPM). 75% finished and I was 55 seconds ahead of my target. My pace was clearly slipping, though, and I really felt like the wind was against us now. I had to squint a lot to keep gusts of rain out of my eyes and sometimes had to waste energy avoiding huge puddles. My toes were feeling a little numb too – more motivation to finish quickly!

The next two kms really slipped from my target race pace: 4:37 (174 BPM) and 4:43 (175 BPM), with the latter going mostly uphill. I had lost ground and was now only 39 seconds ahead of my target – good enough for a significant PR but not good enough to attain my 2012 goal of running a 10k under 44 minutes. With only half a km left, though, it was time to push!

Even though the next 400m were mostly uphill, I really cranked them out, finishing in 1:27 (3:37 / km pace @ 178 BPM). As I neared the final turn, I could hear someone speeding up and trying to pass me. I turned on the juice, though, and crushed the final sprint in 13 seconds, (2:10 / km pace @ 183 BPM), and never saw the challenger (looks like I beat him by only one second according to the race results).

Final time: 43:43, a new 10k PR (by nearly a minute) and course record (by two minutes) for me in pretty poor conditions! I finished #101 of 1,176 runners (91st percentile), #89 of 617 men (86th percentile), and #8 of 76 men ages 30-34 (89th percentile) – all big improvements from last year.

While I am pleased with the result, there are clearly areas for improvement. For example, my second 5k was a full minute slower than my first 5k. Each km I ran was slower than the previous, so I seem to have fallen prey a bit to a “fly and die” race pattern. Wind may have contributed, but it can’t account for the entire slowdown.

The post-race party was excellent – lots of great food and Saint Arnold there to provide good beer to replenish all those lost electrolytes. As I cooled down it became clear to me how cold my extremities had become in the race as I reached out to pet a chocolate lab and realized that my fingers were frozen into a sort of claw! A long hot bath as soon as I got home helped thaw me out.

The Capitol 10k in Austin is only two weeks away. It’s a pretty fast course, so I’ll have a chance not only to improve on my time, but also to run a more consistent race. In the meantime the sun is finally peaking out in Houston, so I’m hoping for a couple of weeks of good training weather!

HCHD Med 5k 2012 Race Report

This morning I PRed in the 10th annual Harris County Hospital District Med 5k with a time of 20:31. After December’s underperformance in Arizona, I was eager to get back into 5k shape. As with the December race, I was shooting to beat my previous PR of 20:45 with a 4:13/km base pace.

My race plan looked very similar to December’s:
  • 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 is pretty flat.)
  • 400m: 1:36 (picking it up to 4:00/km pace)
  • 100m: 17s (final sprint at 2:57/km pace)
This would yield a 20:39 PR time.
It was gorgeous running weather this morning: clear and sunny – a little chilly (4 degrees C / 38F), but I knew that would be an asset as soon as we started running. There was a lot of wind but, since much of the course is out-and-back, it would help/hinder runners the same. Katie and I arrived with plenty of time this year to go to the bathroom and warm up with no stress. At 8:30 we were off!
I came out strong in the first 500m, finishing in 1:49 with an average heart rate of 158. I was 4 seconds ahead of my race plan. The next km went very smoothly and I finished in 4:08 with an average heart rate (HR) of 172. I was 9 seconds ahead of my race plan. After a major left turn, the next km slowed a bit to 4:16, but still with an average HR of 172. At the halfway point I was 6 seconds ahead of my race plan, but I had slowed and it seemed clear that I wasn’t going to pull 4:13s moving forward. So much for a PR!
The next km was really bad, 4:22 and an average heart rate of 174. I was now 3 seconds behind my race plan – only 2 seconds ahead of my PR. At this point the race course U-turned … and so did my performance! The next km breezed by in 4:09 at an average HR of 177 – I was back in business, 1 second ahead of race plan.
What accounted for this change in performance? I have a few hypotheses:
  1. I just dug in deep and found extra juice – but I don’t think this is what happened.
  2. There was a slight elevation increase over the previous two kms and a slight decrease over this km – not enough to account for this difference, though!
  3. The previous 2 kms were going one direction and this km was going the opposite direction – so perhaps this was the effect of the wind?
Regardless, I was feeling good and had slowly passed several runners and caught up to several more. I turned it up a notch for the next 400m, completing them in 1:30 at an average HR of 182 and passing all the runners in my cluster. At this point I was 7 seconds ahead of race plan but didn’t have nearly enough blood going to my brain to realize that! I kicked it hard to complete the final 100m in 17s at an average HR of 198,  my HR peaking at 207, both of which are all-time highs for me.
My final chip time was 20:30.7, a PR by 14 seconds and 8 seconds ahead of my race plan. This was the #28 finish overall (98th percentile), #26 among men (95th percentile), and #3 within my M 30-34 age group (96th percentile).
My actual base pace averaged out to closer to 4:14; the strong start and finish were the legs that gained me seconds over my race plan. If I can lower that base pace to ~4:06, I’ll have a legitimate shot at breaking 20 minutes, which is my goal for this year! My next two races are 10ks, though, so my training focus will turn to that distance over the coming weeks.
I’m pleased with the performance – 24 seconds faster than my time on the same course last year! Katie did really well too, beating her goal time by more than a minute. To celebrate we crushed pancakes and omelets at Buffalo Grill and watched Star Wars Episode I in 3D!

A Swiss Day in Houston

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!

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. 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!