long time gone

Crap has definitely been different since the last time i posted. I really had given up on writing. Mainly because I was convinced that i could write nothing but sad sad thoughts.

Well i was right i am incapable of blogging anything here that isn't my little sad BS, and honestly i am over it.

So here it is; more of the same.

So what has happened since i last posted anything here:

Im a year older
ive destroyed a Mercedes
i ditched my house
i bought a new house
some how i am still in business with the same people
amazingly i am still married (which is a topic of constant question...i can't figure it out, because it has got to be one of the most pathetic places to be.)
I'm still stuck
I'm still lost

I have my head examined weekly, and best i can tell my problem has something to do with giving the wrong report in 8th grade, and my parents never telling me that people are shitty.

Well now that I know those two things i have no course of action but to be a happier healthier person. mental illness be damned.

Just knowing that makes me feel more whole, more complete,and more aware of my feelings.

Great, so i have felt like at any point in a given day that the end of my world could be brought about by just about anything, and I have felt that way since 8th grade. Great, knowing that makes me "feel" so much better. Knowing that not knowing the difference between a Mayan, and an Incan civilization has caused me to feel uneasy about the rest of my life has really helped restore my self confidence.

I don't think i am doing myself any favors by continuing to create iTunes mixes that have the song under the milky way in them. can that really promote a happy sense of self worth balance.

Who can i blame? i think i have tried about everyone:

Clients are fuckers
Parents suck because they were too nice to me
Wife is a complete hooch
My live in sister in law is a scab
The police are out to get me
The republicans have done this to us
Blue Shield ruined my life
where have all my friends gone
it's Steve Job's fault (iFault)

No, i think the bottom line is that I am just not happy. I only have me to blame. I haven't been happy, maybe ever, and the best i can seem to conjure up is 10 minute spans where things are okay. I catch my breath and the blackberry flashes a lightning bolt of dread through my life yet again.

Who can i hate next for fucking me over.

Nope, still just me. That grey feeling is sweeping over me.

Get on Muni
Get off muni

Go above ground
Go below ground

Fear your neighbors

Forget the world around you and don't ever think about anything other than what is immediately in front of you.

Don't plan
Don't engage
Don't attach to anything
Forget that you were ever here

Protect

Wake up in five years to a different but shockingly similar world.

When did 415 move to Battery Street?

How did U2 manage to put out another 5 crappy albums

Oh my, you drained your retirement account.

Who is this slightly older, but more sharply angry person in the bed next to you? (maybe she suffers from the same sickness that you do)

How did you get here? why are you here? How do you go back? How can you escape?

OH MY GOD! The only thing that has become more usable is you.

Push through to the next thing? Why? What will it really get you? A sharper pain in the pit of your stomach? It has never brought you happiness, you couldn't find happiness if it was the size of the Soviet Union and you were standing in the Ukrane.

will you ever stop crying in a starbucks, has it replaced church?

Why do you feel more at home at a chain fast food coffee place than your own home?


How can this be fixed....

It can't, you can't, something snapped a long time ago, and you are broken.

...just fucking broken.

Okay, no hiding behind someone else's thoughts

So i am back to actually putting down my thoughts as opposed to borrowing from others. I have an appreciation for the crafty lyrics of Elfman, but to help myself get back into my head I am listening to things only in foreign languages to keep me focused on my own words.

I was checking email this morning and saw a note from one of my clients, one of their key advisors died on Monday night of a sudden and quite unexpected heart attack. I was floored, because I just met this man on Thursday of last week. I instantly became worried about his family who I've never met. What will they do now that dad or John isn't going to come bounding through the door tonight after work in the city or teaching at Berkeley? I gave this a fair amount of thought and started realizing that while I barely knew this man he left some kind of impression on me, and that I was missing the potential to collaborate with someone well respected and revered in many ways. John, i didn't "know" you, but by all accounts of what I am seeing around me, you will be sorely missed.

"...and just like that, he's gone."

Has my blog just gone sad? I guess it always has been. It certainly wasn't intentional. I feel like i am going to have to burn sage and start over. I may actually do that.

Yet more philosophy from Danny Elfman

Not really sure why it is that i am finding solice in 20 year old Oingo Boingo songs, but anyway.

I've always believed that lyrics can summarize my state, mood, or general being...

Here you go:

When I was young, my mind would always wander away
I couldn't talk, never had nothin to say
But now I'm grown, nothing much seems to have changed
I think I'm going insane yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Is this a fairy tale, are you the seven dwarves
Did Snow White really die while fighting in the war?
They were the only friends I ever trusted
Now they're scattered, and livin' in the city
Unlisted numbers, Huh

Cinderella undercover
I say, better alive than dead

The war is coming, but there's nothing much that we can do
Stuck in a pay-phone, but the operator won't let me through
I close my eyes, but the memories burn in my brain
I think I'm going insane yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I heard a rumor, they said it's gone nuclear
I stockpile cigarettes, and double bold the door
A sanctuary for all my friends
We'll stay in bed until the world ends
So please don't wake me, I gotta get some sleep

Cinderella Undercover
I say, better alive than dead
I think I'm going insane, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Is this a fairy tale, this can't be real
There's fighting all around, they're screwing in the fields
They say that values change when hunger or ambition strikes
Survival is essential, at any cost or any price
The cartoon animals on Old McDonald's farm
Are nodding off in hotel rooms with needles in their arms
The seven dwarves, HA!, there's only four alive today
Cinderella's working for the CIA

Cinderella, the fairy tale's over
You should know, you got the scars to prove it
And your skin isn't as soft as it used to
But I don't care, come on you said it baby

Cinderella undercover
I say, better alive than
Cinderella undercover
I say, better alive than dead

recovery

so i am finally done being sick. i have been in my house for a bit. partially recovering from being sick, partially just trying to figure it all out.

i can't say i am any less content...i'm amazed that it is still holding up, even though this has been a hell of a week.

In some ways i feel like today i took a step back. i'm fighting about something that happened to me two years ago and has nothing to do with my current life, but for some reason i can't let it go. i was deeply hurt by a friend of mine and sort of family member which cost me a lot including my business. now this person is partially re-entering my life and it makes me uncomfortable. nothing was clearer than that tonight. really he has little to do with my current life but for some reason all of the old, evil, and crap stuff that went on was surfaced right to the top. It made me mad. it made me angry that my wife would bring this back into our house. as if our situation wasn't tenuous enough, now we have this thrown on top of it. I'm sorry, but the burn i felt over this is not some small thing, or something i can "just let go". This person almost cost me one of my best friendships.

I guess the transition out wasn't all bad. I got the opportunity to work with some great people who are now my close friends and business partners. I got to continue to work with some great friends while at bluee, and i got to meet some great new friends, who i hope will continue to be my friends for years to come.

i also got the opportunity to learn a lot about me. i have grown.

unfortunately i forgot about all of that tonight and just sent myself back two years to that feeling of self destruction. I was just so angry that this was brought into my house.

then i was just angry at me for feeling this way.

I don't know. i just know today will be a different day, and it has nothing but promise to be a better day.

though quite honestly yesterday (since it is now 1:34am) had some serious peeks and a couple of valleys.

babble.

last notes. i'm worried about my friends nootsmaak and Jeffy. I haven't heard much from one, and the other i am just generally worried about. I hope you guys are both okay. I'm thinking about you both.

back to wireframes.

3 strange weeks - or what not to wear when your environement changes by 25 degress in an hour

As of this weekend i have been living with my parents for the last 3 weeks. Strange. I'm thankful that I have parents that are willing to take me in for a bit.

I've also been extremely ill for the last 4 days.

Needless to say i have had a lot of time to think, work, and figure.

First, what i've been up to...

Well i have spent an unbeliveable amount of time in coffee places. Starbucks, Tully's, independent places, and coffee places inside of other places. Banks and Grocery stores seem to be the latest things that go with coffee. No complaints.

One of the things that I realize is that I love coffee. I like food. I like wine. I like Vodka. I really love coffee. I care about how it tastes, I'm picky about the blend, the taste going down, the finish, all that crap. I have paraphernalia for the proper brewing of coffee. I'm a total user. I admit it. I have been away from my various magic devices and those are some of the thing I miss most.

I also realize that i am sensitive to the weather. I want to deny it, but i can't. The brief times i have been in San Francisco (at my house), it has been cold and cloudy, and the fact that it is July and August i'm missing the sun. I don't really want to live in the burbs in the south bay, but i would like to be somewhere that would allow for walking outside in shorts every now and then. i couldn't figure out what to wear for the last 3 weeks. I think i am finally getting it.

I know i mentioned that people stare a bit here. It is still weird. I guess i am beginning to recognize that if i don't want to be looked at weird i might not want to wear the "i stole music" shirt. The kids seem to love it, the parents are wondering what this "parent" looking guy doing with the pithy shirt on. I've been saving the "you learn something new and depressing every day" shirt for a special occasion.

Another nice thing about the burbs, and a tip:

When the Nordstrom Rack in your big city is picked over. Leave town. To Boot New York shoes were plentiful in my size, and cheap. I was kind of amzed. I channeled my friend Damon and bought some cool stuff.

So the last thing I have been doing is watching a lot of movies and listening to a lot of music. Neither has been a waste of time. I realized, again, that i am once again filling in the popular culture voids in my last 7 years. I'm getting it, though this time around, i don't think i missed much.

Okay, onward.

Over the last few weeks i started dealing with some things deeply engrained in me. First of all things are not so great at home, but we're dealing with it.

I'm proud of the fact that we were able to separate and not be at one another's throats. There was no yelling and screaming, no threats, just both of us admitting that there was a serious problem. She definitely had been thinking about it a lot more than i had and she definitely had a plan for where she wanted things to go.

So there was a catalyst for me to start thinking about me, my own issues, and our issues as a unit. I also was giving a lot of time and space to do that type of thinking. I guess i kind of needed that.

I realized that i have a bunch of paterns that i have lived my life by. A lot of them are squarely rooted in fear.

Starting at the top, i realize that i am dependent on someone else along with me to dictate my overall happy or content position in life. Things good with the relationship things good with life in general. I also realized, I was worried about being alone. who would i do things with? Who would take care of certain things? Who would laugh at my jokes, and who would be the person on my life insurance?

Work. I worry about work. What am i doing, what is it's relevance, what is it's value, how am i perceived at work and through the work that I do? Will there be enough work for me to do? Will i be able to do and afford the things that i want to?

Friends. I worry about what my friends think, how they view me, and the time that they spend with me. Like my wife, i've become dependent on my friends to help define me. Happy with my situations with my friends, happy generally with life.

Stuff. New stuff provides a short high. I like stuff. I admit it. I like being able to buy stuff, and again to some degree i define my success by the stuff i have.

There is an equation here. People + Work + Stuff = generally happy or unhappy

Another interesting thing about the equation is that the left hand factors are interrelated. Friends are shitty and wife is understanding things can be okay. Work is crap, add more stuff and then going to work isn't so hard. You get the picture.

So i began to realize that wife might not be part of the equation. Fear.

I also realized that friends weren't really in the picture much either. Fear.

Work is okay, but there could be more of it. Fear.

No work, and being on your own means no ability to acquire stuff. Fear.

Still no idea if i would be able to share simple things with someone else. Alone. Fear.

Ugh. Was it midlife crisis v.3? I really thought i was over this kind of catastropic failure. As things were beginning to drop I realized that there was no way that they could hit the floor. I have some pretty hefty responsibilities right now with some things that i think are extremely important.

I started to take inventory, and the baseline is going to sound crazy, but it gets more sophisticated. I'm sitting there thinking about life at it's most basic for me.

Do i still like to eat, and am i actually eating? Yes. I crave certain things.

Can i wake up in the morning and focus on a day of things that need to get done? Yes.

Coffee? I still desire coffee, and i still care how it tastes. Yes.

Do i still like to drive fast? Yes. I was grinning like an idiot driving over 100 on 280 one night. (one of my parents said that this might also signal that I am tired of living. Yes, yes, i hear you. I do my speeding as safely as possible i guess. It isn't for everyone, and i certainly try not to be reckless, but I like that feeling of floating on smooth pavement.)

I am feeling things. I am not feeling like crap. I actually desire to go on. Without fear, andwithout knowing what's happening next. Holy crap. I don't know what's going to happen and I am not freaking out. I'm laughing and potentially normal, even though I am dealing with the things that freak me out most.

What's going on here?

This was a momement that I started to realize something. I'm not an unhappy person. Things were FAR from perfect in my life, and I'm still happy. No this was not the result of coffee and driving fast.

I looked around and realized that I was just happy. I wasn't happy for anyone other than me, i was trying to fool anyone, impress anyone, or prove to anyone that I was something I wasn't.

With the happiness came a content feeling that I can describe. I'm not freaked out. I not stressed out. I'm just living my life, and i am not looking for anything more. Just enjoying the days one at a time.

Then it hit. I don't NEED any of those factors to make me happy. Either I am happy or I am not. I desire some of those things in my life, but I don't need them. Another person isn't going to make me happy. They can add to my happiness, or my sadness for that matter, but they are not the source of my happiness.

Sounds a little Zen. I don't know, I'm simply feeling my way through, and with it has come a ton of power.

I still have bad days. Clearly I have bad days. Being sick the last few days has completely sucked. I started to get all bummed out today. I hadn't seen the light of day since Friday afternoon. I haven't really had much in the way of human contact at all. Then i realized that i was sick, i had needed the rest, and I still got a bunch of stuff done. Pretty good for being totally out of it for 48 hours.

Okay i'm babbling. I think what i am trying to say is:

I don't really know what is next. I am comfortable with that.

I'm happy, and that comes from within. It's only me that is going to make me happy. (don't most people learn this when they are like 5? Maybe some people never learn it.) I think the bigger thing for me is that i am content. I know that happy is going to fade, but content is something that i can ride over the bumps.

Content also means that I am not worrying about what's next.

A few words on the relationship...i don't know where things are going to land with my wife and i. I hope that things work out, but if they don't maybe we will both be happier. If things work it will only be because we have figured out how to be happy together, and happy as single entities. I'm proud of the two of us, because neither of us did anything to sabotage the relationship, and we have been totally humane. We are talking which is a nice change from where we have been the last 1.5 years. I remembered that my wife was once my best friend.

Oh, and one other thing. I am glad to have had this time. It has been a weird 3 weeks, but it has been a good three weeks. I feel like I have been able to grow. I also feel like i have been able to reconnect with my parents. They are great people that i am truly greatful for. I also have to give a shout of to a few of my close friends that have listened and offered smart advice.

Who knows what tomorrow holds. Each day is different. I still count my good and bad days, but I am starting to look at them a little more critically by the event as opposed to the trend of days. I also realize i can pull myself out of a bad day pretty quickly just by looking inside.

Inside holds a lot of stuff. Who knew? It was so close to me, but so amazingly far away for all these years.

a short trip through time

so here i am in the room where i grew up; years 1-18. It is like returning to the fortress of solitude, though someone came in and removed any shred of anything that was mine. Which is totally fine. Anything that i own is 64 miles north west of here in boxes in a garage. Which is all good. I'm trying to get things figured out, and i am here to help my mom deal with knee surgery and some recovery. So it all kind of works out. I have gotten a lot of work done, which isn't exactly a bad thing.

In addition to a bit of solitude and head space to get things figured out, we took a trip to santa cruz on sunday for breakfast, and then over to capitola for some coffee, and thus my trip thru time. There were people everywhere, and i realized that Warf to Warf was being run this week. I am setting a goal to try and train and run the race next year. It is a pretty easy race, and the logistics are pretty easy to put a team of people together to run the race. We'll see if i can stick to it enough to actually get out there and run. I like the idea of it. something to shoot for.

The last time i had been at mr. toots was sometime around 1990. Homework, college, notebooks with paper. Pictures are for Nootsmack...since we shared this space in time...though we never really knew it. Nothing has changed there really, at all. It was summer there, and it was comforting. I have forgotten what summer looks like at a beach where it actually gets warm.

I live at the beach, and we wear sweatshirts and pants all year long.

As i sat in starbucks today, i began to realize the difference between here and there. People out in the burbs slice one of two ways: altered or utterly destroyed. At home everyone basically looks the same. I haven't determined which i like more. I certainly don't think one is better than the other. Here has a certain entertainment factor. it is fun to see the differences in people.

Obviously people watching is a bit of a sport here.

People stare down here. Maybe they recognize i am no longer part of the hive. I have been stared at more in the last 3 days than in the last 3-5 years. it was making me uncomfortable, do i have something hanging from my nose, or did i drop latte on my shirt. Nope. All good. Just people staring. happened in capitola, happened at the gas station...just odd. People were shameless about staring.


at some point i must review the technology that enables my ability to work consistently anywhere.

The world has changed dramtically since my last trip to mr. toots. from 2007 to 1990 and back in under 5 hours.

BART Station of Broken Dreams

Maybe it is just this week. Who knows. I think i am just done with human contact for one week. see how i bounce from one extreme to the next.

I'm starting realize that i am alone a lot more than i am with people, and this is sometimes not by choice. my friends, a lot of them are flakes...if i don't call, im, email, etc...nothing but fucking crickets.

Can things always be at some sort of imbalance like that. maybe i am asking and expecting too much out of people that have their own deal going on. Probably.

I have a problem with equality. I want to be returned the same amount of attention and care that i try to give. That probably is the heart of the unreal expectation. I don't aways want to be the first to pick up the phone to call, or to send an email, or to make an invitation.

At some later date, i can give my other half's perspective on this with me. i assume that she would say that in our relationship she is the one that is always making the first call, email, invite, evite, etc. She's probably right. This maybe the fundamental flaw in that particular relationship. Sometime i think hu(man)s are like dogs...they learn by example, and when the rules of engagement are set they respond. Maybe my friends are the same way. Their expectation is low, so they return low effort.

Again, all over the map. no answers.

I walk alone.

watcher

My sense is that my blog has been found, watched, and forwarded. Which is fine. I guess i will live with the potential judgement.

This blog while public - it isn't exactly accessible unless you specifically know how to get here. I've done nothing to introduce anyone to this space. I'm not trying to make a public statement on me, my life etc. I decided to experiement with writing and have a place to collect my general thoughts. That said, i have nothing to hide. my thoughts are my thoughts.

If you're reading and you know who you are, go ahead and send me an email. Clearly you would know how to reach me. I'll add you to the contributors to add comments. It can be a dialog.

here today goon tomorrow

Have you had the occasion to see someone daily in their "environment" and then be surprised when you see how different they are in another environment? The hair comes down, the clothes are different, even how they carry themselves is new. The resulting feeling that you didn't actually know them, or what you thought you knew about them has now been changed in some subtle way. Maybe, you like and/or respect them more.

I had a couple of back to back situations like that tonight, i'm still processing how i feel about it.

Situation A is one that i am well acquainted with. I have a friend and longtime coworker that I can never get a read on. We have a lot in common (like we are both overdriven only children), we challenge one another but have always generally gotten along. There was a time when we couldn't see eye to eye on the overall direction of the company we worked for. Sucked because we were both part of the corporate management team. Our area of murky has always been around the same topic, how do we combine our talents into something that makes sense as a business...or should we even work together again? It's lots of talk with no immediate action. i personally have tried to get this person to come up with a reasonable scenario where we might try to work togehter...it never happens. i think the most frustrating thing has been the dance that is necessary to even have the conversation. I approach, throw out what I am trying to do, i get a response...which is always less than clear, and we start again. Refine, approach, or get taken to a different approach. Wash spin soak, repeat.

Tonight was different.

Maybe there is general frustration on his part, or maybe we have just grown tired of the dance, but there was a level of shared honesty that was surprising. I guess it made me see this person in a whole new light. It was almost as if we finally acknowledged a mutual respect for one another that said "finally, we are equal. finally, we might be able to figure a way to work together"...and maybe we are friends with mutual respect. i recognize after all these years, someone i had always called my friend might actually my friend. I didn't want to say goodbye but i had to. i was late for another dinner.

Situation B, I got to my next dinner meeting 25 minutes late. Not really my usual (for business), and this is not a person who is really tolerant of late...or at least that is what my experience has told me.

It got worse as i couldn't find where were supposed to meet in the restaurant. The place was jammed with people. It took a phone call and an IM to figure out where i needed to be. I was surprised by the reasonably warm reception, as if the wait was not completely annoying. Am i misjudging everyone i "think" i know?

Maybe.

Some superficial aspects. I think what I enjoy about these events is the ability to see someone in a casual environment dressed the part of casual. I don't typically get to see this, but i have to say it interests me. conversation seems less stilted, conversation flows, more laughter, and the movement; even the walking is just a little different.

Then there is just the general demeanor of the interaction. Nothing fake, no posturing, and generally just the laughs. Even the serious parts of the conversation were a bit more comfortable. I'm not editing. Strange, i feel like i do edit a little here and there.

Lastly, things i have generally found less than desirable i see in a different light. If clothes make the (wo)man, are flip flops some kind of strange salvation from the bonds that we impose upon people that we think we know...and in some senses may not like. i have a hatred of flip flops, but in this strange reversed world i enjoyed the entire scene. Can environment be the cause? Or is it generally that this is the other side of a human that we don't often see?

I don't know.

What i do know is that i like seeing the other side. It may all go away tomorrow, and be reset to the strange relationship that we had at work (it usually does), but for a few minutes over drinks and dinner i got to comfortably laugh with someone that I at one time held at arms length.

Along with this comfort may have brought out some of my honesty, and that honesty may have some costs associated with it. My personal situation is a bit of a mess right now. I discussed some of this openly, and while i was taking in this friendship i may have inadvertently changed the dynamic of the dinner. Hopefully not the friendship.

I have no way of really knowing, but it is was somthing that i thought was a possibility. Kind of sucked to end my evening that way, but it gave me something to think about.

I'm going to hang on to the more positive side of these exchanges.

Okay let's do the math:

1. i might have another decent business opportunity (plus)
2. i might get to work on products with someone i respect (plus)
3. i have to figure out how to integrate my ideas and the other people's ideas into something that works for everyone...and some people may not agree with these mutual ideas (equal)
4. i may have over-shared details about my crap personal life (minus)
5. maybe i look less than stable (minus)
6. i got two hours of the most non complex highly functioning (deep) conversation that i've had in a few months (big plus)
7. i found a larger area of common ground (plus)
8. i saw something beautiful (plus)
9. i got the opportunity to laugh with a couple of people (plus)

I think that is a better average in the plus column.

I want more of that.

in other news: i am yet again fighting with my other half. I feel like an ass because i let her lead me into a place where i fought back. I was hurt and it made me attack instead of just ignoring the whole thing.

This is the reverse of my drinks and dinner situations from tonight. I think i see the issues and the person as clearly as I can. Unfortunately there aren't a ton of things that surprise me about my relationship in a positive way. I long to feel positive about the relationship. I want to go back to sitting across the table and being impressed by the person who i share a huge chunk of my life with.

It is having an impact on me, in all aspects of me life. I don't want to be nagged, i don't want to be critical, i just want to take in life, and enjoy things with the person I'm hanging out with. I want to laugh and have deep conversation i can care about.

It really is that simple. I know that given enough time the probability of being content with your relationship drops to 0, but aren't there things that we could do to at least prolong it. I've been married for 5 years, but we dated for 12 years prior....there are a lot of people who have done this for a lot longer.

Does it really just end up being the same camel hair coat and strappy shoes strewn all over the back seat of the car, or are people really different enough that someone could hang out with someone for 16 years and still derive interest, comfort, laughter, and ideas.

I would like that.

a quick trip to golden colorado

Cheap Beer and Interesting Food
















Ok, so a few things to know about Golden:

1. You can see Denver from there but it feels about a million miles away.

2. There are really excellent river sports there.

3. The food is a bit like one giant pub. I really wanted to avoid anything fried when i got back to SF, unfortunately the first thing i did when i had free time was head to Royal Exchange with the kids and eat....pub food.

4. Golden is like an extremely old, small, college town. Kids running around until 1 am on a sunday, etc. The benefit is that you can serve a table of 5 a round of drinks for $7.50 at most of the night spots. Not a bad way to spend $7.50 on a Sunday night.

5. Lastly, and maybe most interesting, everywhere we went we were given bottled water. Ummm, aren't we always told that Coors tastes so good because of the water in Golden? What happened?

The Coors Brewing Company












Well it was interesting if nothing else. Who knew that the Coors brewing company pushed out 1.8 million gallons of beer a day. That's enough to get the entire bay area drunk for a few hours every day.

The interesting thing about the actual plant is that it looks like something out of Soviet era Russia. It was extremely drab, huge, and cement. It was interesting to see something produced on such an industrial scale. I wonder how long that will continue. Long live Banquet Beer. Oh yeah, that Blue Moon we all like so much...Coors.

I bought a hat.


The Kong Company


The actual purpose of my trip was to meet a new client: the KONG Company. They are truly a great group of people. They have a wonderful product, and dispite not selling out to the man they have had sustained 25-50% growth over the last 7 years. They are currently not returning a call from WalMart. They think it might actually change the business in an unhealthy way. They want to think about it a lot before selling anything there. I think that says a lot. In a lot of ways I aspire to be like them in business. Let's take a few minutes to look at what they have going on there:

They have been in business for 30 years. The basic "KONG" was really nothing more than a bump stop off of the rear end of a Volkswagen from the mid 1960's. The founder owned an auto repair shop in Colorado. People kept breaking into the place, and it was suggested that he get a dog. Simple enough. He added Fritz (an ex-police dog) to the operation and the place was more safe less theft etc. Problem was that Fritz has a problem with chewing things around the place. Some things that were useful to the business, and some things that were bad for the dog (rocks, sticks, etc.).

One day Joe decided to throw Fritz a part from the Volkswagen. It was a bumpstop attached to it's mount. The rubber was natural and it wouldn't harm Fritz, and the interesting thing was it was pretty durable. Fritz was unable to chew through it, and this kept him entertained.

Thus an idea was born.

They had their ups and downs and the company did some business with vets and trainers. Their early success was with people who really knew their animals. An itnteresting situation started to unfold, everyone loved the product, the company made a great product, and the employees loved the work...these people are true animal people...no one was really a business person in the sense of process, marketing, accounting, growth plan etc. At this point the KONG company had a real threat of extinction. Think bank with locks and chains for the door.

The founder Joe, decided to get together with a friend of his John. John was a successful business person who had taken other companies and turned them around. This did provide some level of discomfort for the old timers around the company. As it would with any business that is run like a family. John began making changes, and the changes to the company really worked. As the people around the company began to see that not only was the company stabilizing, but it was also growing, they began to give over some trust to John, Joe, KD and the other leaders that were running the place.

I think the one thing that intrigued me was that they managed to keep their culture in tact while becoming a moderately large company.

The other thing that really impressed me was that there was some amount of controlled chaos. There was no secret formula to their success and they knew it. They didn't claim to have all of the answers, and they didn't act like they were indestructable.

They acted like they were human. I had not seen that in a while in a business setting. There was clearly some tension around having the outsiders from San Francisco there, talking about information architecture, and better product stacking. Our questions made some people really bristle. The interesting thing was they were pretty forth coming about that.

To get them to work with us, we will have to get them to trust us. A concept that i am not only comfortable with, i actually really love. It is a challenge, but it is also an invitation to something bigger. It is the opportunity to form a relationship. We were there for two days and i found by the end that the exchange of ideas was more interesting and developed than the day before. One of the designers from the group that is probably most skeptical about us actually said thanks for taking the time to meet with them, and for the thinking around their problems.

That meant a lot to me. Not in an egotistical way, i feel like a lot of what we do is common sense. These guys were certainly very smart, intuitive, and extremely motivated, they just need a different perspective from people who are just a little bit more removed.

A ray of light in an otherwise gray 3 months in my business world. Skeptics who might actually be able to trust. Hmmm...what an interesting thought.

I look forward to working with this company to solve some interesting problems. I think they are giving us as great of an opportunity as we might be giving them.

Let me close this little trip diary with a word about...


United Airlines

I am so amazingly disappointed with United. Yawn, so what else is new right, or join the club.

They did not assign seats until we got to the gate. Umm, hello if I wanted to fly Southwest I would have flown Southwest. Or if I am flying UnSouthwest, atleast charge me a Southwest size fair. I think i have enough United miles to fly to europe at this point, and I think i might actually be willing to pay another airline to assign me a seat, or let me pick my seat...and maybe feed me.

In my particular case on Tuesday they just refused to give me a seat assignment until 5 minutes before the plane took off. I was the second to last person on the flight. I was not standby, but they sure made me feel that way.

The people at the gate were rude, and the maintenance guy was on the jet way talking to some other boarding passenger about how awful it is working for United, and how he would be working there until the day he died. Great. makes me feel really comfortable that this guy who sounds like he works for the whale is the dude securing the luggage, checking the tire pressure, and making sure the engine stays tacked to the wing. Excellent feeling.

Not to mention, damn, what does that leave me feeling about their company.

The flight was miserable, and there was about a 30 minute span that I was convinced we were going to die. Not their fault, but the entire thing left me stressed out and unhappy with them as a company.

It was an interesting way to spend a couple of days away from home. I felt like i learned a lot.