Twas the night before Christmas, as written by a lawyer

I got this from an industry colleague (Nathan Brookwoood) and thought others might enjoy it!

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
in Legalese (Author unknown)

Whereas, on or about the night prior to Christmas, there did occur at a certain improved piece of real property (hereinafter "the house") a general lack of stirring by all creatures therein, including, but not limited to, a mouse.

A variety of foot apparel, e.g., stocking, socks, etc., had been affixed by and around the chimney in said House in the hope and/or belief that St. Nick a/k/a/ St. Nicholas a/k/a/ Santa Claus (hereinafter "Claus") would arrive at some time thereafter. The minor residents, i.e. the children, of the aforementioned House were located in their individual beds and were engaged in nocturnal hallucinations, i.e. dreams, wherein visions of confectionery treats, including, but not limited to, candies, nuts and/or sugar plums, did dance, cavort and otherwise appear in said dreams.

Whereupon the party of the first part (sometimes hereinafter referred to as ("I"), being the joint-owner in fee simple of the House with the party of the second part (hereinafter "Mamma"), and said Mamma had retired for a sustained period of sleep. (At such time, the parties were clad in various forms of headgear, e.g., kerchief and cap.

Suddenly, and without prior notice or warning, there did occur upon the unimproved real property adjacent and appurtenant to said House, i.e., the lawn, a certain disruption of unknown nature, cause and/or circumstance. The party of the first part did immediately rush to a window in the House to investigate the cause of such disturbance.

At that time, the party of the first part did observe, with some degree of wonder and/or disbelief, a miniature sleigh (hereinafter "the Vehicle") being pulled and/or drawn very rapidly through the air by approximately eight (8) reindeer. The driver of the Vehicle appeared to be, and in fact was, the previously referenced Claus.

Said Claus was providing specific direction, instruction and guidance to the approximately eight (8) reindeer and specifically identified the animal co-conspirators by name: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen (hereinafter "the Deer"). (Upon information and belief, it is further asserted that an additional co- conspirator named "Rudolph" may have been involved.)

The party of the first part witnessed Claus, the Vehicle and the Deer intentionally and willfully trespass upon the roofs of several residences located adjacent to and in the vicinity of the House, and noted that the Vehicle was heavily laden with packages, toys and other items of unknown origin or nature. Suddenly, without prior invitation or permission, either express or implied, the Vehicle arrived at the House, and Claus entered said House via the chimney.

Said Claus was clad in a red fur suit, which was partially covered with residue from the chimney, and he carried a large sack containing a portion of the aforementioned packages, toys, and other unknown items. He was smoking what appeared to be tobacco in a small pipe in blatant violation of local ordinances and health regulations.

Claus did not speak, but immediately began to fill the stocking of the minor children, which hung adjacent to the chimney, with toys and other small gifts. (Said items constituting transfers to minors of present property under 26 U.S.C. 2503(c)).

Upon completion of such task, Claus touched the side of his nose and flew, rose and/or ascended up the chimney of the House to the roof here the Vehicle and Deer waited and/or served as "lookouts." Claus immediately departed for an unknown destination.

However, prior to the departure of the Vehicle, Deer and Claus from said House, the party of the first part did hear Claus state and/or exclaim: "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!" Or words to that effect.x

Beyond thankful; I am in awe.

Ok, so this year has been a wild ride indeed. And it has been a year to be thankful for, like none other in my 55 years of life on this planet. Since now is that time of year where we all give thanks, and I am sitting by the pool with a glass of wine on a breezy 78 degree evening before Thanksgiving, revelling in the beauty of a fine Texas autumn, here i go....

It started by spending a whole month in Breckenridge, Co., which perhaps, looking back now, formed the catalyst for learning a new and enlightened perspective on life. Sometimes I go back and peek at my blog (http://amonthinthesummit.blogspot.com)and put myself back in that mindset, feeling free and very very happy to be alive. Remembering the deep contentment I felt every day, just being in the mountains and loving the atmosphere, in every sense of the word.  I am thankful for every minute of this experience, and being able to enjoy the experience with our family and friends.

Then it was back to the "real world", but with a new sense of self; not taking myself or my job too seriously, just doing the very best I could every day. And our loving daughter Kristin graduated Cum Laude from Colorado State University, where she continues to prepare herself for a career in Veterinarian Medicine.  To celebrate,  we travelled through Tuscany,  enjoying the amazing food, countryside, art, and history.

Throughout the year,  Lynne continued to develop her yoga practice, becoming stronger every day, physically and spiritually. And our relationship grew daily along with her practice, and I followed as best I could. Yoga has opened our eyes to an entirely new frontier of physical and spiritual growth.  I am thankful for my loving family,  and our teachers in life.

Back At work at IBM, it was time to deliver a huge and challenging product launch, and by all objective and subjective measures it was a great success. I travelled the world telling our story. I met some very interesting people, and visited cool places like Wimbledon (the women's semi-finals), the Porsche Museum, Chamonix,  and the testing labs of a famous Formula One design team in Switzerland.  I am thankful for all the great people I worked with and 10 good years at IBM.

In August,  we joined friends for a wonderful yoga retreat on the coast of Maine,  a great mix of food, yoga, and the beautiful coastline and fishing villages.

But back in Texas, my mom's health was failing, where my dear sister Jaqui was taking loving care of our Nanna. The end came quickly, while Lynne and I were with our friends in Maine. Of all the things for which I give thanks this season, I am most thankful for my mom, for all she taught me, and for who she helped me become. I am a product of her dreams, not just her DNA. And I give thanks for Jaqui, whose love for our Nanna approached biblical Job-like proportions.  Today,  on this day of thanks,  we will scatter her ashes on Lake Conroe,  and stand in awe the memories of her strength and love.

Now, that would be enough for any decent blog, but my year of change and growth still had some Twists and turns in store. I got a call from a dear friend and ex-boss, Per Larsen. Per introduced me to SmoothStone, a startup in austin developing low energy ARM based server chips. Now I make a lot less money, but have an immensely satisfying and fun job creating a new company from scratch. The sky is the limit. And the journey is the reward. And it is just beginning.

So, Happy Thanksgiving to All my friends and family. I love you all, and only hope that you rejoice in Thanks Giving for all the blessings life has bestowed on you this year!

I am beyond being merely thankful for all be blessings I enjoyed this year. I am in awe of the power of love, and the strength of the bonds and connections we create and nurture in this life.

Namaste.

You know you are in a start-up when ...

Well, the first week on the new job just flew by! Got all the admin done, like insurance and IT systems, etc. Amazing how much stuff we have in our lives change when we change employers.

But it isn't just that stuff that is different. It's the important stuff that is different, when you go from Big Blue to Little Green.

You know you are in a start-up when:

1. Every day is casual Friday.(Friday, in fact, should be Hawaiian shirt day.)
2. Your wife says "have fun!" when you leave for work in the (dark) morning.
3. You don't attend a single meeting all week via conference call with over 20 people who are all doing email during the meeting.
3. You get to decide stuff all by yourself. (kinda like an adult)
4. You meet 90% of the company employees the 1st week.
5. You never look at your watch to see how much longer you have to work today.
6. You avoid making lists of things to do. You have to do everything!
7. You wake up at 3 AM because you have a good idea, and can't go back to sleep.
8. You have this silly grin on your face all day long. (this will wear off after the honeymoon phase, I am told.)
9. You drink 5 times as much coffee as ever before.
10. You don't have time to pee. (goes real bad with #9 !!!!!)

So, you get the picture. Panic. Joy. Thrill. But most of all, constant learning! New experiences. And the excitement is just amazing! Everyone knows they are riding a tiger.

Hang on!!!

Stay tuned.


Karl

Seat belt buckled? Check. Tray Table Up? Check. Brain in Gear? Ummm

Going from BIG BLUE to Little Green.

Have I lost my mind?   If you see it running around,  please tackle it and return it to me, unharmed, for a reward!

Here I am,  tooling along at 55 in the left lane down the Big Blue Highway,  doing pretty well financially, daughter hoping to go to Vet School (Read: at least FOUR MORE YEARS) , a big honkin' mortgage,  a great job (ok, I have to commute to NY, but no job is perfect) and WHAM!  I get broadsided by an opportunity I just can't turn down!   No, I am not talking about some temptation in a bar, I am talking about leaving IBM for a new job at a newly funded company here in Austin.  No Product (yet!).  No Revenue (ditto!).  BIG dreams to change the world.

Why would I leave the comforts of Big Blue?

Well, it can't be a midlife crisis.  Been there.  Done that.  Left HP at 40.  Moved the family to the great white tundra in Minnesota.

It' isn't IBM.   Great company.  Great people.  Great job.

That leaves just ME.   I have always wanted to do something a) Exciting, b) Local, c) Monumental.  And I think I have found the ticket.    The job is the VP of Marketing at Smooth-Stone,   an Austin-based startup with $48M in venture backing that is designing a System-on-a-chip for hyperscale server needs.  Our design is built on the kind of processor that is in your iPad or iPhone, the ARM architecture.   It could be used by any business with a LOT of data,  and who wants to spend less money on IT and Energy.    Most servers burn like a 100 watt light bulb,  hot to the touch even when idling.  Servers built on Smooth-Stone technology will consume less that 10% the energy, and cost a lot less,  saving ENERGY, MONEY, and SPACE.    Cool?  You bet!

I start Monday.   If you want to laugh (or cry) along as I go from BIG BLUE to Little Green, come back and visit my blog.   If you want to learn more about Smooth-Stone,  check out our website at http://www.smooth-stone.com and see some of the press the company earned when they announced their 1st round of Venture Capital in August.

Nothing "ventured", nothing gained!  Stay Tuned!

February 13-14. Chamonix, France. A Mountain Paradise.

Sometimes I get to mix a little pleasure with my business travels,  and this trip rated as one of the best yet.  I had planned some client and sales meetings spanning two weeks in Europe (Paris, Zurich, Vienna, and Montpellier), and so I had an intervening weekend to play.    I was thinking I would just poke around the fabulous museums in Vienna,  but I checked in with a friend, who lives in Geneva, to see if she wanted to meet up for some skiing.

http://www.bluebookski.com/bluebook9/France_Chamonix_Map.htm

Mette and her husband Sean Beyer had met and lived in the ski valley of Chamonix, below Mt. Blanc,   so they know the area as only locals can.  Mette suggested I might like to ski Vallee' Blanche.  Famous as the longest ski run in the world (20 Km long, 2700 meters of vertical), it boasts the most amazing scenery I have ever seen, running down a glacier coming out of the Mt. Blanc Massif.
http://www.chamonix.com/page.php?page=26&r=off-piste_and_the_vallee_blanche&ling=en

So, on Saturday Sean took care of the kids and Mette and I took off early Saturday morning to meet our guide Rick, a friend of Mette and Sean's from their ski bum days in the valley.  As we rode up the cable car, Mette sheepishly asked, "you're not afraid of heights, are you?".  Kinda late for that, I thought.  I turned around and looked up to the summit, and realized why she was asking:

From the top of the summit of the Aiguille du Midi, skiers don ice crampons (if they are smart) and work their way down to the top of the glacier,  and the run of a lifetime.  "No, I'm not afraid of heights!"  What else could I say???

Rick had everything we would:  Avalanche transmitters, ice crampons, rope,  backpacks, harnesses, and most importantly over a decade of experience as a mountaineer and guide around the Mt. Blanc area.  (It takes some 5 years of training to qualify as a guide!)   Yes, you really should take a guide to be safe skiing down Vallee Blanche; there are literally hundreds of crevasses along the way, and you need to cross them or avoid them on the right path, crossing over a stable snow bridge spanning the ice-blue chasm.   I am not a good skier in thick snow, so Rick took us down the easy way:

As it turned out,  enough people had already skied down Vallee Blanche since the last snowfall, so honestly, it was a relatively easy ski down.  The snow was crusty and windpacked;   I ate a lot of snow in spite of the "easy" moniker.  But the scenery was simply amazing! But first,  you gotta get past this sign:  All ye who enter here, .... (from here, you all rope up,  attaching our harnesses to a life line so, just in case someone falls, we all go together when we go.....

I asked Mette why she and Sean left the Valley,  and certainly steady employment was part of it.   But they also realized that eventually, the dangers of the area will catch up to you.  Mette could recount many friends who died climbing  or skiing, or flying down these treacherous mountains. 

This scene is looking back up across an area where the glacier tumbles down a steep area, each of these blocks are the size of a house or large apartment building.   SEE BELOW 6 pictures for a long view of this area from Grand Montets!

The next day,  we went skiing in an area called Grand Montets, part of Chamonix and known for its long steep slopes.     http://www.chamonet.com/ski-areas/les-grands-montets-ski-area.htm

Imagine an area that is probably 5X the vertical and 20X the entire area of the back bowls of Vail, and you just begin to get the idea of the immensity and variety of this amazing ski area.

Ok, from here you can see the difference between "On Piste" and "Off Piste" skiing.  The groomed superhighway is "On Piste".  Everything else is fair game,  just watch our for rocks and surprises!  And yes, it is HUGE;   this is only a small corner of the alpine ski area.

Actually,  these crazies ski just about everything you see here. EVERYTHING!   (click on these images and you can see the distant tracks of the brave on the far wall.) They "skin" up the mountains using touring skis and boots with natural skins attached to the bottom of the ski to give them traction on the way up. Then they take off the skins, and ski down.  Or, they cross the cornices and ridges and ski down the next valley, perhaps into a different country,  since this area straddles Italy, France, and Switzerland.  Ah, to be that young, daring, and crazy again!  Or, maybe not!

From where I am standing, it is 5000 feet straight down behind me.  

Sean taking a short breather.  Actually,  I usually only saw his backside, rapidly disappearing down the slope in front of me at speeds I can't imagine. 

From these 2 views above, you can see the glacial area we skied the day before down Vallee Blanche!

Which Way to Go!??  DOWN!!

These 2 shots are taken from yet another ski area (there are 5 in the Chamonix Valley), called Brement Flegere,    looking across the valley to the Mt. Blanc Massif. 

This shot is really disorienting!  You should have seen the real thing! Taken from the top of a ski area across from Mt. Blanc,  the area below is a massive playground for ski touring! No lifts, but endless meadows of powder!  (Click on the image!)

I can't begin to tell you how gracious my hosts were this weekend.  Mette and Sean really love these mountains, and enjoyed sharing their "home" with me.  Thank you both for a truly unforgettable experience! 

Till next time!  Ciao!

Starting a new blog

Hi there.  I will start posting new (travel) blogs here,  starting with this week's trip to Europe.

If you are looking for A Month in the Summit,  I have archived it to it's own blogspot, where I will be adding lots more pictures if I ever find the time, and will then print it out as a book to help remind us of our amazing month in the mountains of Colorado.

http://amonthinthesummit.blogspot.com/

Come back soon and enjoy the view!  I sure did!