Chris Sacca's 'What is left?'

I will take your Livestrong story directly to Lance Armstrong.

2009-07-15T12:50:02-07:00

Lance (@lancearmstrong) inspires me and likely all of you. His dedication to fighting cancer is unwavering and intense. Much like the way he rides his bike. Seeing his passion, his resilience, and his conviction, there is something each of us can learn from him and apply to our own lives.

It has been a thrill to see him absolutely rocking the Tour this year. He and Team Astana are are in the driver's seat of one of the most exciting races in history. So, as Lance gears up for what will be the most important final stages of the race, I know he will be looking to many of you for your inspiration and strength.

I am lucky enough to have the chance to head to France for the last few stages of this year's Tour. I feel very grateful for the chance to be there with so many amazing people from Livestrong (@livestrong) including the foundation's leader, Doug Ulman (@livestrongceo). In that light, I thought I would share part of this good fortune with all of you.

Are you fighting cancer right now? Is someone close to you? Are you a survivor? Has Lance inspired you in some way? Well, write down your story! Put it in a letter and email or scan it and email it to me, and I will personally deliver it to Lance before the most important and grueling stage of the race -- Mount Ventoux. I have no doubt your thoughts, feelings, and good wishes will help push him along that ride.

So, here are the details:

Simply mail whatever you want me to share with him to: livestrong@lowercasellc.com In the meantime, show your support for all that Livestrong does by the following:

1) Follow @livestrong, @lancearmstrong, and @livestrongceo on Twitter for more info and daily inspiration

2) Sign the World Cancer Declaration over at Livestrong: Livestrong Cancer Declaration

3) Put a Livestrong bracelet on your Twitter picture: Livestrong Bracelet for Twitter

4) Tell some friends about all of this and get the word out. This is a winnable fight.

Thanks, everyone, and good luck to Lance, Astana, and all of you!

Chris

Headed to Ethiopia and I Need Your Help!

2009-04-08T18:29:34-07:00

Just hours ago, my best friend Dick Hillenbrand (@rdhoosier) and I landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and met up with Scott Harrison (@scottharrison) founder of Charity:Water (@charitywater) to dig clean water wells for the rural poor. It is a truly humbling project and we need you to help us.

Across the whole of Africa, 80% of all disease is due to a lack of clean, safe drinking water and basic sanitation. Even more shocking, 42,000 people will die this week because of unsafe water. Almost, 90% of these deaths will be children under 5 years old.

It is a staggering and hardly conceivable number. Almost 40,000 kids per week losing their lives due to lack of clean water!

Charity:Water takes donations from concerned folks like us, who realize how lucky we all truly are to have consistent access to pristine water, and channels them dollar for dollar into the construction of permanent water wells for villages in need.

Just $4,000 can build a well for a village of up to 500 people and serve them with clean water for 20 years.

That is where I want to team up with you. I have already donated wells this year, but I want to do another two. And this time, I want to work with my Twitter friends and see if we can't bring 1000 Ethiopian villagers clean water access for 20 years.

My proposal:

If my Twitter pals raise $4,000 for one well, I will match it dollar for dollar to build a second well. That's right. I will match every dollar you put up until we have two wells together. Plus, since Charity:Water's overhead is funded by a handful of private donors, every single dollar you contribute to the project will go directly toward building a specific well for which you will get GPS coordinates and pictures of its setting.

This week, Dick and I will be traveling the countryside visiting villages and looking for the folks who most desperately need clean water. From among these communities, we will be choosing sites in which Charity:Water and their local partners can build wells, and, in particular, the sites for the two wells you and I will build together.

With your help, we can be sure that two more villages, 1000 more people in total, will have clean water access for the next 20 years.

Next step:

Donate directly to Charity:Water through their site: http://bit.ly/JzAUk

When you give, please send me an email (csacca AT gmail DOT com) and let me know so I can thank you!

In the meantime, keep following my Twitter (www.twitter.com/sacca) and, to the extent possible, I will be providing updates from the field in Ethiopia. If times are tough, and you don't have any change to spare (totally understandable, I was laid off in 2001 and know what it is like), do us a favor and send this post along to someone who might be able to help.

For now, huge thanks for your contributions and your efforts. I can't wait to introduce you firsthand to the people you are saving!

Chris

What would YOU say to the White House tomorrow morning?

2009-03-05T14:05:36-08:00

I am a big fan of President Obama and the team he has assembled. However, they inherited a country in staggering economic peril. In that light, I applaud the urgency and decisiveness with which they are acting to help us all during such uncertain times.

That said, I have expressed concern that his teams of economic advisors do not include young people. There are certainly brilliant minds on those panels, including my old boss Eric Schmidt. However, I believe deeply that youth would bring a distinct and valuable perspective to any such discussions. In particular, I think there is a generation of entrepreneurs who have been effecting enormous change yet who aren't otherwise involved in politics and whose insights might be lost.

Well, it sounds like someone was listening.

Tomorrow morning, I am joining a group of twenty young business leaders from across the country for a meeting at the White House to discuss the challenges we all face and proposed solutions to the economic crisis.

This is where you come in: If you were in that meeting, what you would you say? What would you ask? What observations are unique to your station in life? What do you think White House officials might not see or understand unless they had your perspective? What suggestions do you have for the President's team? What should we discuss that might not already be on the agenda?

Please leave your ideas in the comments to this post. Or, send them to me as a @reply message on Twitter (you can find me there at http://twitter.com/sacca).

I hope to hear from you and promise to share everything you write that is sincere, respectful, and well thought out.

Thanks!

Some Thoughts On What The Obama Election Meant To Me.

2009-02-03T17:09:16-08:00

Over the last few months, I have felt a strong urge, and almost responsibility, to share with my friends why the Obama campaign and presidency meant and mean so much to me. However, each time I've attempted to spill my thoughts onto a page, I've been intimidated and paralyzed by the breadth of possible approaches and the profundity of each of our experiences and motivations. The scope and gravity deterred me, and this blog has remained stale.

Scattered across various hard drives, journals, and throughout my Gmail account are snippets of reaction and inspiration from each stage in which I participated. While a tech adviser to the campaign, I detailed arms-length paragraphs of intellectual assurance and optimism. Service as a campaign surrogate triggered notes of trepidation that soon evolved to privilege and gratitude. Of course, the inauguration itself was a singularly impactful event to witness. I could, and did, draft pages of real-time reflections at each of these stages. Yet, I think the notes from my time on the road leading up to election day serve as the best illustration of my thoughts...

When my truck and I left San Francisco, my original aim was to spend some a couple of weeks driving around the Rockies interleaving time on my mountain and road bikes with campaigning for Obama in places it mattered such as Nevada and Colorado. My parents had bestowed upon my brother and me a youth hallmarked by consecutive summers in the mountains of the American West. I had sorely missed them and needed a booster inoculation of the awe and humbling context they uniquely inject. In parallel, I saw a mounting number of friends Twittering about their contributions from the trenches and their labor left me feeling like a free-rider.

Fueled by a freshly compiled road trip playlist (a lost art, I would argue), I drove straight through the night to Winnemucca, NV. The next morning, awakening at the Red Lion Casino, I did some impromptu and unofficial canvassing. The folks who spoke to the unmistakable San Franciscan likely self-selected and I enjoyed our polite banter. I will cop immediately to profiling those whom I approached as well.

After a few hours of glad-handing in greasy spoons on Winnemucca's main/only strip, I grabbed my bike and peeled off to some wonderfully isolated and meandering single track on the infamous Bloody Shins Trail. Oh, to be out of the city and unmitigatedly alone on my bike breaking trail and wrestling sage. When I got back to the parking lot, I was spent, but bursting with endorphins and assured I had made the right choice in making this trip.

I dropped back into town to grub and consider my trip's next stop. Food in my belly, and with an eye on making it to Elko that evening, I paused to fill up my tank, still wearing my favorite bike jersey and a peaceful grin that always follows a few hours on the pedals.

I didn't notice their truck when I pulled in, and couldn't describe the driver or passenger. I have no idea whether they were wearing the clothes you would stereotypically associate or playing the music our own prejudice might lead us to expect. All I can say with certainty is that as that white Ford F150 accelerated past the pump island in retreat, I was called a "nigger lover" and an empty beer can hurled at me fell limp to the concrete within a few feet of release, its depleted mass no match for the slight breeze.

As a white man from Middle America, we grow up with a very academic introduction to issues of race. We see the prescribed Oscar-nominated dramas preaching color blindness. We seek out the black kid in our school and feel exonerated when he greets us with a demonstrably soulful handshake. We are convinced that the poignant lyrics from activist hip-hop resonate with us and we grow unwaveringly confident that we understand the struggle. Yet, the privilege of our skin color does not prepare us to ever be the object of hate.

Thus, I was knocked on my heels by that epithet. I felt shaken, angry, scared, paranoid, sad, and dozens of other emotions simultaneously. I fled Winnemucca and headed West. I'd like to say it immediately strengthened my resolve to work that much harder on the campaign. That would indeed be the honorable reaction. However, initially, it just freaked me out and made me want to desert the reality of this era in our nation.

On Interstate 80, I was soon clocked doing 88 in a 75, the radar likely underestimating my true speed. The cop issued me a ticket without any protest on my end. As he released me from his charge and sent me on my way, I gently interrupted him and told him what had just happened in Winnemucca. I wanted another human being to sympathize, I guess. Upon hearing my account, without hesitation, the officer uttered incredulously, "Well, what'd ya expect?"

Reflecting back, I think that was the impetus for a renewed resolve to do my part to get Obama elected. I pulled up the campaign web site on my iPhone, found the next field office, and charted a course for Elko, NV (a decidedly straight course with no turns, actually).

Elko is a strangely conflicted and anachronistic place. It is essentially a mining town combined with a handful of truck stops, cheap flophouses, and a few casinos. The citizenry is working class, yet notably evidencing poverty at every turn. Those who aren't employed in serving the transients in need of gas, chow, and lodging, are primarily ranch hands and miners. This was the high desert and I awoke my first morning there to find tumbleweed cartoonishly wedged under my truck.

I walked in to the local Obama office, a clearly improvised outpost just off of Main Street. Greeted by a pair of impressively optimistic volunteers, I was soon introduced to Brendan Ballou, a bone thin 21 year-old college student on leave from school to run the Elko HQ. This kid was brilliant. He moved deliberately and thoughtfully, and operated with an almost obsessive inclusiveness.

Elko's population is fervently Republican and has a unique ability to be harsh and hateful. Their beliefs are often untenable, but trying to convince them otherwise is frequently futile and has apparently threatening consequences. Nevertheless, at each turn, Brendan stayed remarkably cool. It made more sense when I learned that his first posting of this contest was in a little northwestern town known as Wasilla, AK. Talk about battle-hardened.

Brendan and his trusted organizer Kenny Wyland (coincidentally, a Google engineer) would send us out on canvassing missions issuing each of us lists of names and addresses from voter registration rolls as well as Obama platform enunciating leave-behinds. My routes often took me into the most sparse 'suburbs' of Elko with a mile separating dwellings.

I must admit, walking up on the porches on many of the poorest permanent dwellings that exist in this country scared the hell out of me. As a child, I had gone door to door selling candy bars to raise money for sports teams and even then I knew to skip the curmudgeonly old man in my neighborhood's corner house who used to yell at us if we merely approached his property. Being told I was a terrorist, a nigger, and a traitor just burned that fear deeper into my marrow. Though I struggled to never show the authors of such disdain any returned disgust or reproach, they wore me down. On my second day out going trailer to trailer, I returned to find dogshit had been hurriedly rubbed onto the passenger side of my truck.

In just a short time, Elko was taking its toll on me. At night, in my hotel, I would find myself so angry. The uncomfortably loud Fox News they played in the breakfast room never helped. Only intermittently would I visibly hint at the outrage provoked by the theater of security and patriotism that was destroying my country, a place in which my pride has only ever been strengthened by my time abroad.

I decided to leave. I needed a break. I was eating like crap and acutely depressed. I punched my wall on one night. I didn't recognize myself. I had worked incredibly nasty jobs growing up, and am quite comfortable in what we white collar folks consider to be the stresses of our coddled employment. However, nothing had prepared me for the daily personal assault from the mouths of these virtiolic people.

I had never been to Moab, UT before, though it had been a goal of mine since I fashioned my own mountain bike out of my dad's ten speed by attaching a BMX wheel on the front. Google Maps told me I could get there in a long drive and arrive the next morning. Thus, I took some time off of the campaign. Though 'escaped' is probably a better and more honest word.

Along the way, I stopped in Bryce Canyon, a favorite place to which my parents first took me at 6 or 7. Within hours, I started to feel normal again. The beauty and persistence of nature was washing the negativity from my skin. I ran along the canyon floor and then up around the rim, clearing my head and restoring some focus. But, I was still afraid.

I didn't know if i had the strength to go back to Elko. I had invited a pile of friends to rendezvous in Vegas and thought that might be a delightful place to celebrate an Obama victory. But, I hated the weight of self-doubt knowing that Elko had tested me and I failed.

Once again I stalled, rationalizing the realization of a vintage fantasy by heading to the renowned undulating mountain bike trails of Moab. I arrived as a stormy curtain fell dramatically on the park. With the sky unapologetically pouring, all riders on the course frantically made for the parking lot. I tried to head out, but the 'Moab slickrock' was living up to its name and my wheels could find no purchase. Lightning came and I fortunately found a small cave in the rock hoping to wait out the veritable hose. My patience paid off and as the dry rock soaked up that water, I, in turn, flowed up and down over those surreal surfaces for hours, entirely alone for the duration of my adventure.

I choke up now reflecting on that beauty. The unreproducible light of magic hour dancing in a ballroom where millions of years of weather had perfected its own steps. Just to ensure I was permanently tattooed with the memory of this unique and solitary event, a rainbow emerged, and all of ROYGBIV winked at me, acknowledging the vast catharsis we had to ourselves.

I don't believe in god, but I do believe in church, and I couldn't help but bow at this altar. Humbled. Vulnerable. Grateful. The ride back in was in a dark of rare purity, my wheels undulating in surprise waves of rock that escaped my headlamps. Tossed and bucked, I clung to my steed and laughed at my merciful fortune.

Back in the parking lot that night, I had no doubt: I needed to go back and do my work. I thought about the brave people who came into that office every day undaunted. I remembered the determined faces of volunteers who lived in that community and who didn't have my comparative luxury of leaving. People who never had the education and countless chances and repeated forgiveness I've been offered. Citizens whose misfortune was unrecoverable. Yet, they showed up each day ready to knock on more doors, in the cold, in the dark, and past foreboding dog fences. I drove back to Elko through the night.

In my career, I get heaped with empty praise I don't deserve. Papers get carried away in a flurry of colorful and prophetic adjectives bathing me in baseless optimism. Venerable universities and corporations ask me to come spout scraps of blather raked from the confined yard of my experience so far. But, here I was, back in Elko, a worker among workers. Each astonishing American walking through that door another reminder of how much I undoubtedly had to learn and of how unjustly lopsided my life has been.

Inspired, the remaining few days until the election went by more quickly and purpose overrode the pettiness of the local citizenry's attacks. I began to appreciate their fear, their yearning for control, their desperation for some input into their own outcomes. To the degree possible subject to the hypocrisy and myopia of my comfort, I sympathized.

On election eve, the carnival came to Elko. At 10:30 pm, Sarah Palin strode into the Elko High School gymnasium, there to deliver her proprietary blend of xenophobia, division, and exclusion. Though she feigned confidence and assured the room of her impending triumph, we could nevertheless feel the failure of her message. She underestimated America and her naïveté made me smile.

The Obama team arose exceedingly early on election day, our hands warmed by a box of donut holes and the exhaust heat from the printer spooling names and addresses of those whom we needed to ensure found their ways to the polls. Voting hours ticked by without major incident, the unfriendly lot having now learned to not answer their doors when the obvious interloper came knocking.

With 30 minutes left to vote, I approached the porch of what my tattered list told me was a 91 year old female Democrat. Was she able to get herself to the ballot box that day? I rapped on the door and she answered leaving the flimsy aluminum and wire screen between us. "Hi, I'm Chris from the Obama campaign and I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to vote."

She didn't utter a word. Instead, she inched toward the handle, pushing it loose and motioning for me to perform the rest of the opening. As I stepped onto her weathered rug preparing to make my pitch, she reached her frail arms around me and hugged. Silently.

I lost it. I didn't just let a tear or two slip. I audibly let out 8 years of embarrassment and helplessness. She quickly hoped to comfort me by leading me inside where her family was gathered watching the returns and smiling with the anticipation of an Obama victory. She offered me soup.

Wiping my cheeks, I got back in the car with the local retiree who was driving me from one far flung address to another in our last minute harvest of votes for the good guys and we returned back to the warmth of our field office nook, tucked a block from the formerly main drag that Nevadan sprawl had left behind.

Our orders were to remain at the post until an outcome was deemed certain. Nervously, we hesitated to celebrate any forthcoming success, many of us bearing scars from 2000 and 2004. When the call from campaign headquarters finally came, we erupted, but not in the self-congratulatory jubilation that comes with vanquishing a competitor. Rather, the room was consumed by embrace and tears. Disbelief. Shock. Relief. Wonder.

We spent the next hour hearing tales of the two years many of these selfless and saintly individuals had spent grinding out each vote for our candidate. For the first time in years, it wasn't my turn to give the speech, to thank everyone for their contributions. Instead, I shut up, listened, and admired.

The official Elko Democrats celebration was held in a room off the casino floor at yet another Red Lion. A large projection screen was tuned to the networks reviewing state by state results and the cavernous room emphatically contextualized the mere 15 attendees of that party. I think you'll understand my insistence on reclaiming the term McCain resigned to expedient cliché, and express that these other folks in the room were indeed the true mavericks.

The next morning, driving home across stretches of snow-dusted desert with exactly no bars of phone or data service, I struggled to digest what had just taken place. I couldn't play music and I wasn't singing. My sense of self was overwhelmed as I reflected upon our privilege. We are the luckiest people in history.

My hero and posthumous mentor, Buckminster Fuller wrote:

"We are blessed with technology that would be indescribable to our forefathers. We have the wherewithal, the know-it-all, to feed everybody, clothe everybody, and give every human on Earth a chance. We know now what we could never have known before-that we now have the option for all humanity to make it successfully on this planet in this lifetime. Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment."

Revolution still flows through our blood and is baked into our firing nerves. Yet, we had become a nation of rationalizing, complacent, discouraged victims. Along comes a black man with a most politically inopportune name and he stirs within us the pride, courage, and defiance that we had conceded to the reaches of our past esteem.

It will undoubtedly be a relay race until that final moment, and Barack Obama stirred each of us to seize back the baton. With this opportunity, each of us inherits a responsibility. To act. To listen. To empathize and care.

President Obama is not a panacea. However, he is the catalyst for our seemingly final attempt at redemption. Our collective prosperity will not be awarded by some roll of dice or drawn numbers. It must be earned. Sweat, humility, and diligence will produce our grace and will convince the fates to return to us our shared destiny.

In that spirit, I hope that this year, and each that follows, I can simply be helpful. Each of us owes nothing less to each other. Thank you to our President, and each of the indescribably estimable souls who toiled to get him elected, for reminding me of that.

My Arguably Unforgivable Carbon Footprint for 2008.

2008-12-27T12:34:48-08:00

A year ago this week, I left my job at Google to strike out on my own. I am looking forward to writing more here about how the past twelve months have unfolded. For now, I feel overwhelmingly lucky to have had the chance to connect with my family, so many friends, old and new, and build a new business (the yet-to-be-announced Lowercase Capital) that is leaving me feeling fulfilled, helpful, and so optimistic about the future despite this harrowing economy.

In that light, while I had expected my schedule this year to be a bit slower and reserved compared to the frenzied pace of Google, those who know me are well aware that I can't help but seek out adventures, whether personal or professional. Thus, I thought it would be fun to label a map showing each city in which I spent at least one night this past year.

My total number of miles flown was down sharply from the average of the last four years, and I spent many more miles in my car as I canvassed Nevada for Obama and made a pilgrimage to Moab and Bryce Canyon. There are definitely a few more destinations on this list that were purely for fun compared to years past, but most were still for visiting portfolio companies, giving speeches, or trying to convince decision-makers.

My chance to speak and teach at Oxford is always an annual highlight, as is the chance to kitesurf on the North Shore. I count my lucky stars every year I get invited back to Necker Island. My friend Jerry hosted a few of us for an unforgettable week in Tuscany for his birthday. Wow. Snowkiting in Utah was a new thrill for me and Marrakech was simply exhilarating. During the warmer months, Ironman training kept me closer to home, glued to my bike seat and pounding the pavement. Nevertheless, I am grateful I was still able to get to Aspen for the Henry Crown Fellowship at the Aspen Institute and Washington, D.C. was palpably abuzz with the transition in full swing.

All told, many of these trips were only possible thanks to the generosity, hospitality, and companionship of great friends. For those who I didn't get to see in 2008, let's get on the books for 2009!

(In the meantime, though I know it's by no means a cure, I did buy a staggerlingly large amount of carbon offsets in the hopes of mitigating my impact this year. If you want to better understand why we are all nonetheless screwed, I highly recommend reading this presentation from www.wattzon.org)

Welcome to my blog...

2008-08-31T15:46:49-07:00

I am Chris Sacca, a venture investor, company advisor, and adventure junkie based in San Francisco. (A longer bio is here.) I use this space to periodically hash out some thoughts and recognize people and events that inspire me. If this site isn't enough Sacca for you, I also regularly update Twitter and FriendFeed. That said, I would love to hear from each of you. If you want to pitch me a company, go to this page for hints as to how that works best. Go here for more on speaking engagements. Always just feel free to email me here for business and only email me here if we are already friends. Thanks for coming by!

Finished.

2008-08-25T00:19:48-07:00

Despite a fever on the morning of the race, and disregarding the meniscus issue I developed on my Tour de Los Angeles, I am happy to report that I was somehow able to power through and finish my first official Ironman distance triathlon on August 2nd. (I did an impromptu Ironman myself on June 28th, but there is nothing like the expectation and excitement of the real thing.)

The 2.4 mile swim was a relative breeze considering that when I started this training in November I couldn't make it 10 lengths of the pool without sucking wind. In fact, the 74 degree water served to keep my temperature down and I felt fresh and confident coming in to the first transition.

On the 112 mile bike, my goal was to keep a steady pace early and not go out too fast. I managed the effort solely by my heart rate and just stayed down on my aero bars. The first 60 miles went very smoothly and my pace was surprisingly quick for a guy who was blowing his nose and taking throat lozenges the whole time. However, by mile 75, the 98 degree Sonoma heat had kicked in and I found myself on the side of the road tossing cookies. I puked again at 85, and one more time for good measure at 95. Sheer competitive stupidity allowed me to get back on my rig and maintain a swift pace. However, needless to say, by the time I got to the run transition, I was a mess.

I stood there in the searing hot parking lot of Windsor High School, with Minnie and my parents shouting encouragement from the sidelines. I felt completely detached from my body, a mere close-up observer to an athlete's agony. I came back into the present and put my head down on the bike rack for a minute, pausing to remind myself of why I was doing this and how hard I had trained. Just a marathon to go. Heh.

I resolved to just get out onto the course. There would be more than enough time to think all this through if I could get a few miles away from there. A couple of loving hugs later, my legs were scuffing the gravel of a winding wine country lane. I never did feel any better than absolutely awful on that run. But the three loop course was littered with people who were undoubtedly in much worse shape, so I considered myself lucky and just kept moving forward.

At 13:07:25, I crossed the finish line, much to the delight of the crowd who had been loving my Obama jersey all day. (Note: while wearing Obama schwag is guaranteed to draw fervent support from spectators, expect to be required to dispense at least a thousand fist bumps.) It's hard to describe the temporarily restorative impact of that finishing tape slapping your belly. I was elated, relieved, proud, and downright chipper. My eyes welled up with tears as my mom, dad, Minnie and her mom all embraced me in the chute. I was done.

Within a half hour, the idiocy of the day's undertaking finally caught up with me and I found myself in a heap on the lawn of the high school, shaking. Every cell hurt. By midnight, my body finally decided it would accept some food and liquid and, by 2:30am, my smile had returned. I was an Ironman, even if all I could ingest was ginger ale and some crackers.

I want to thank everyone who made this possible for me. My mom and dad were such troopers for coming out from Buffalo to cheer me on with my mom defying her doctor's orders to avoid that heat and with my dad nursing his own knee injury aggravated by accompanying me on some training runs back in my hometown. The entire Ingersoll clan was so supportive ever since this crazy plan was hatched, organizing rides in SF and LA with Marion, Ruth, and Grandma Sarah even making it up to my race. The coaches from Ironteam were an invaluable resource without whom I could not have begun to complete this distance, and I'm deeply flattered that my Ironteam buddies Josh and Robin Boxer came up from the city to support me. Kevin Coady was my sage and guru, humoring my endless nutrition and gear queries and Dr. Taylor Rabbetz gave me the treatment and confidence to overcome what I thought was a hopeless knee. Moreover, the Twitter and FriendFeed communities were there along the way sending me good wishes in real-time.

Above all, I need to thank my training partner and amazing friend, Minnie Ingersoll. From initially recruiting me into this ultra-endurance realm of questionable judgment, to keeping me motivated at almost every discouraging turn, I owe so much of my result to her. Preparing for a race of this length requires weekend after weekend of countless hours in the saddle and pounding sand. Min kept lazy me honest and didn't let me slack on the work I needed to put in. She has her own Ironman coming up in Louisville, KY this weekend, and I am sure she too will see all the hard work pay off.

That said, will I do another one? Hmm. For now, doubtful. I am afraid I will just find myself racing against my time from the last race. Nevertheless, you all know that I am an endorphin addict and I am sure I will find a new challenge soon. Stay tuned...

Links for 2007-08-06 [del.icio.us]

2007-08-07T00:00:00-07:00

AT&T CEO Walks a Foot in Your Shoes - 'I want to be treated like a customer...' - dslreports.com
Are we really supposed to believe that they don't advertise $10 broadband because users don't want it? Come on.

Links for 2007-07-04 [del.icio.us]

2007-07-05T00:00:00-07:00

Adverblog: Crowd gaming revamps cinema advertising?
Look at the focus on these faces and how sincerely they have outstretched their arms. Amazing. (Thanks, Nanking!)
Funny or Die - Serious Actors
The latest from Pete and Brian! Funny or Die did an exclusive deal with them, so it will be on this site only for a while before it hits dem YouTubes.
Attorney Michael Brandow, Brady, Connolly & Masuda, P.C., Chicago, Illinois
Who wouldn't consult this guy? If you are a fan of Buckaroo Banzai, it is worth noting that he looks exactly like Dr. Emilio Lizardo/Lord John Whorfin.
Flickr: Photos from startpropaganda
Going to miss this exhibition in SF, but the this collection of protest and propaganda posters is fascinating.

Links for 2007-07-02 [del.icio.us]

2007-07-03T00:00:00-07:00

Message in a Bottle - Bottled Water - Luxury Water - Mineral Water
Another great piece on the real costs of bottled water.

Links for 2007-06-30 [del.icio.us]

2007-07-01T00:00:00-07:00

Free the Jana 6
It blows my mind that this still happens in 2006.

Links for 2007-06-21 [del.icio.us]

2007-06-22T00:00:00-07:00

System of a Kid - CollegeHumor video
This tyke has mindblowing Guitar Hero instincts

Links for 2007-06-01 [del.icio.us]

2007-06-02T00:00:00-07:00

Official Google Blog: Adding more flare
Love it. I think I started lobbying for this deal two years ago. Congrats to Dick and to investors like Brad Feld. Very psyched for everyone.
DebtKid.com
Those of you who know my story know that in the Spring of 2000, I found myself in a much deeper hole than this kid. It took five years of non-stop sweat but in February of 2005 I made it back to zero.
Charlie : Candy Mountain
I am officially the last person on earth to watch this hilarious video.

Links for 2007-05-30 [del.icio.us]

2007-05-31T00:00:00-07:00

Guia buscadores blog » Robots.txt 2.0
This is hilarious in light of the privacy concerns some folks have expressed with respect to our new street view service.