calmwater

over the past year and a half i’ve been privileged to meet with many startups and in a few cases have decided to find ways to work with them. sometimes the fit is obvious, sometimes you’re not so sure - you just feel some latent opportunity and have to work together to uncover all of the mutual benefits. and when the right people are involved, with the right chemistry, it happens.

today it was announced that aol acquired sphere - which i personally could not be more happy about. the sphere team is a dream to work with - smart, energetic, nimble and creative. we could have worked with other companies [and this is what i want to point out to all you startups out there] but we wanted to work with tony, martin and team. same with goowy - we wanted to work with alex, gary and the goowy guys. today more than ever, when you can find multiple startups to fit your needs, it’s the relationship that matters. tony and alex get that more than most of their competitors. they call, they write, they bring the enthusiasm and creative flexibility that just makes you want to work with them.

congrats tony & team - i’m still your biggest fan

after living in the nation’s capitol for over a decade, i finally went for a garden tour at the white house today. while it was chilly and grey outside, the crowds were still strong and the flowers bright and cheery. they do the tours twice a year, spring and fall. if you go to their website, note that they also offer rss feeds and podcasts in the upper right corner, including major speeches & remarks, spanish language versions, a barney cam and white house itunes .

“the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room” Pascal

last spring i wrote a post on my old blog complaining that i had no real trips or vacations planned. ironically, i traveled non-stop last year - although it was mostly for work and i didn’t take a true vacation until just a few weeks ago. now that i’m home and have nothing planned for the rest of this year, i’m feeling the same frustration- an urge to travel and explore but no plans on the calendar. i’m sure i’ll be back up to maine a couple times, i’ll be on a panel in chicago in may, and of course, there’s always a reason to travel to mtn view. but without a big adventure planned, i just get cranky. as a consolation to myself, i’m reposting what i wrote last year. it’s also a reminder that i’m extraordinarily fortunate to have been able to travel as much as i have and enjoy time off each year. while you read this, i’ll be reading frances mayes ‘a year in the world’ and planning my next great escape. suggestions on where to go? leave them in the comments please!

from 02/22/07

…i got to thinking about the last chapter of ‘the art of travel‘ called ‘on habit’. de botton focuses on this frenchman, xavier de maistre (all of 27 yrs old) who undertook a massive journey - around his bedroom - and appropriately titled the account “journey around my bedroom”. and here’s what i love even more… a few years later, he was so bold as to take another adventure, titled “nocturnal expedition around my bedroom”. he pioneered room travel, which he believed might be more practical for those neither as brave nor wealthy as real world explorers - and for those afraid of storms, robbers and high cliffs.

de botton’s insight: the mind-set we travel with is infinitely more important than any particular destination we might travel to - and if we could apply a traveling mind-set to our own locales, we might find our local neighborhoods just as exciting as the jungles of south america or the bright lights of tokyo. it’s about taking note of the details, rediscovering the little things we take for granted and appreciating what’s around us.

so i did a mini-journey around my cottage. i’m certainly not going to write a book about it, but it helped me appreciate the downtime. here are a few pics of things i took note of:

the towering trees behind the house… with the heavy snow flurries in the late afternoon it made for a dramatic scene. a bit creepy, eh?

the contrast of the vibrant-pink geranium in the warm kitchen against the cold, white snow flurries seen through the window.

the pretty lavender that bloomed early, against the icy, snow-covered yard.

the stone wall peaking out of the snowy, sloped front yard - and the relentless ivy crawling down it.

no, thank YOU turbotax.

well…. unless i get audited.

after 10+ hrs in the air and several hrs in between at airports, i’m home - and in just a little denial about the end of my trip. to help combat the post-vacay blues, i thought i’d post a couple shots from my last day in kauai, which will help keep the memories from fading as fast as my tan lines. now i’ve just gotta unpack and clean the sand out of everything…

this morning i was supposed to take a boat around the na pali coast… it’s the one real vacation planning thingy i said i would do but of course i didn’t plan anything and the seas were entirely too high… so no boat trip today. it being my last day and all, i decided to take all that good money and spend it the wisest way possible - at a spa.

i’ve never done the ayurvedic thing before, but i might be hooked. who knew hot oil was such a good thing and that it could be used in such mass quantities? i promise to keep this post pg rated, so all i’ll say is that if you go to the hanalei day spa, or any ayurvedic spa, you have to do these two things… you will feel amazing.

shirodhara - a blissful 1 hr treatment where you enter a deep state of relaxation through the process of a warm oil bath gently flowing (dhara) on to your forehead (shiro). removes stress from the mind, balances the emotions… you will feel as if you have just completed a long, deep and blissful meditation.

abyanga warm oil massage- a traditional rhythmical massage from ancient india, warm herbal oils are poured and massaged into the body. extremely nourishing, nurturing and one of the most thorough massages you will ever experience performed in the traditional way with two practitioners.

i floated out of there and onto the beach in time to watch the sun go down…

ok, this may seem odd…but i decided not to rent a car for my 2 weeks on kauai. i decided to mostly lay on the beach, walk, hike and use my creative energy to intend that a car would find me if i needed one. it worked - just when i was starting to feel some strong wanderlust, (which also happened to be the international day of awesomeness) this really nice guy offered his extra truck to me for the rest of my trip (mahalo alan!). so, yesterday i decided to do the all-american thing by packing up the truck and trekking across the island stopping at every interesting thing i could find. i watched the sunrise over hanalei , visited a gorgeous hindu temple, checked out small towns, waterfalls and new beaches, saw a monk seal sleeping on a beach, ran around huge dunes and saw the sunset at polihale. exhausted, i picked up some late-night dinner, drove to a secluded beach and laid under the moon and stars just to reflect.

see more pics here

i have a girlfriend who moved to kauai a year ago or so and last night we got to have a girls night out before her trip back to the mainland today. before dinner we found a pretty little spot to sit on the top of her truck and watch the sunset…which was nice, but when i looked to the other side of us, i saw a japanese graveyard that was filled with a more unique and dramatic beauty which was much more interesting to me.

i’m exhausted. today i went on a hiking adventure that the ultimate kauai guidebook calls the ’secret tunnel to the north shore’. let’s just say they’ve classified it as an adventure vs a hike with good reason. it’s hard to describe, but there are lots of rivers and streams to cross, a gorgeous bamboo forest, picky brambles and thick brush, boulders, logs and branches to scramble over or under, mud, mud and more mud, mostly uphill for the first few hours, rain (because you’re basically in the wettest place on earth), then you get to the tunnels, which you go through for a mile each in the darkness through ankle/shin-deep cold water, then backtrack and do it all over again to get to the car. left at 8am and got back at 8pm. i have some battle-scars…may need some spa love and beach time in the next few days. gorgeous views, little surprises around each turn and a major sense of accomplishment made it all worth it.

my local friends invited me to participate in a small and intimate community event on thursday, making poi at the waipa farm/foundation in hanalei. making poi is a special event with a long and rich history so i was excited to participate and have my first taste of poi over the homemade lunch they serve once the work is done. if you’re in the area and would like to check it out, learn more about the waipa foundation here.