After I got home from some factories in Suzhou, China today I got a message from 23andMe that my genome mapping was complete! While I did not have time to really check the important stuff in detail (but I did check, I will not go bald, get cancer or have a heart attack statistically any more than the average guy), I did play around with my ancestors. There is an ancestor map, here is my Mom's map:

And here is my dad's map (he has the exact same map as US President John Adams):

Turns out that I have Western European heritage as well as some Indian Subcontinent heritage. Totally awesome.

More to come.

That was my time for a mile in the race this weekend down 5th Avenue. In some respects a mile that fast was harder than the marathon. Headed out to Redmond, Washington to visit the boys at Microsoft at the MVP Summit. Should have some good stories to tell in the old blog while I am out there.

My friend in Pakistan thinks 10 million people read my blog. Somehow I don’t think so, but I did get a lot of email asking if I were dead. I also discovered that my parents keep track of me via my blog and called the day of the London bombings asking if I was in London. So I hopefully will keep the blog up to date. So where have I been?

 

July was a busy month.

 

First there was the Tour de France. Enough said.

 

The gang then traveled over to Ohio to visit the whole crew over the July 4^th Holiday. Jack brought us all out Lance Armstrong “LiveStrong” wristbands. I know that you hate Lance Billy but that is just because your coach, Greg Lemond, is jealous. We are wearing them for Michelle, our close friend who is being very brave and faces cancer (and surgery on August 11^th).

 

After the Ohio gang threw us out, we traveled down to Savannah, Georgia for a while to visit Jimmy on leave from his duties in Iraq. Jimmy is a LT and leads a mission every day, takes small arms fire and faces car bombs. We got the inside scoop on what is really happening over there. He looks well and headed back and will be home in January from his tour of duty.

 

Next flew in Lara and we made it official, she is a member of the inner circle of the anti-suckieness club by performing the ritual on 4 continents in the calendar year.  Inner members are now at: Malek, Goksin, Clemens, Stephen, Kathleen, Kimberly and Lara. (I think Alex and Adam qualify?) We took her around to the MOMA and the Circle Line. Any of my friends from Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, etc who come visit me in New York, I will take you to the MOMA and the Circle Line (and maybe to the top of the Empire State Building).

 

After a disappointing Mets game and some beach weekends, I am finally back into the swing of things. Work has been crazy but I am now back from the black hole.

 

Off to China in 2 weeks, lots of photos of course will be posted.

24 states have laws barring interstate shipments of wine. This is done to protect state industry. It is foolish. This means if I travel to Napa and visit a vinyard that is small they can't ship me wine unless they are “doing business in New York State”. Might as well move back to the Soviet Union.

Anyway, today the Supreme Court agreed with me and overturned a NY and Michigan law.

This is a photo from the USS Abraham Lincoln over the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

I hate the RIAA more than Osama bin Laden, The New York Yankees and Communists combined. Why? There is so much to hate. (If you are counting I only hate OPEC, DeBeers and every telco out there more.)

 

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) represents the most criminal elements of our society, the Recording Industry executives.  They sit in-between the artists and you and me-the consumer. When you pay $12 for a new CD how much of that money goes to the artist? Nothing. If you don’t believe me, read Courtney Love’s number crunching here (I’ll wait).

 

Yesterday the RIAA lost a major legal battle. File swapping companies Grokster, StreamCast, and Sharman Network were being sued by the RIAA to be closed down. This begs the question if I send you a mail bomb via FexEd can you sue FedEx? (No) Thankfully the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals followed Canada’s lead and ruled in favor of the on-line swappers saying that since there is no central server, there is no liability.

 

So once again to the RIAA, why do you constantly try to litigate away technology. MP3 and downloaded music is here to stay. Find a way to monetize it instead of litigating it. Until you do so I am going to keep downloading for free. (I don’t pay for iTunes because I refuse to buy an iPod and Apple’s music won’t work on my current MP3 player.)

I have gotten lots of email about how to obtain inner peace while still working in a cube. People think that because I am self employed that I have an advantage over them about this. Well my pal Julie Lerman emailed me the other day and hinted that she is taking on too many commitments. So that is where I will start.

 

Many people are too busy. The older you get the busier you get. Some people can’t even relax on vacation. My advice is that you should just relax a little. Leave work at work, just as you should leave play at play. Find something that you like to do every day. (For me it is riding my bike, running, swimming, lifting, etc). It make take you a while to find out what that is, be it reading romance novels, talking on the phone to distant friends, or even surfing porn on the internet, I don’t care. The first step to actually do it. If you can’t find two hours a day to do it, then you have your priorities all wrong, you are working too much, or something else. And these are not I will get up at 5am two hours, and preferable they are non-consecutive hours. (I gave this advice to Andy Catlin over a year ago and he still lives by it, and he is way smarter than me.) Start with 30 minuets if you are super busy. Then move to an hour, etc. If you protest to me and say “Steve I am super duper busy at the office, you don’t understand.” I have two things to say. Yes I do understand, I am super duper busy and I worked on Wall Street on the Y2K project, you know 100 hours a week. Second is that nobody on their deathbed said “I wish I spent more time doing the things that did not make me happy and were a low priority in my life.”

 

So after you get there the next step is easy. It is simple, live your dreams. (Well at least the best you could.)I have wanted to go to Mt. Everest since I was 7 years old. I finally did and when I got there a little voice in my head said “What were you waiting for?” Life is too short, live your dreams. No excuses, make it happen. If your dreams are super bold like mine (Climb Mount Everest), do something (like at least go the damn mountain) at least in the neighborhood. I also want to ride in the Tour de France. We all know that is not going to happen, but I do bike races locally against other amateurs at my level and one summer soon I am going to take the time off and follow the tour as a crazy spectator.

 

Ok, see you all on the other side…

At 10:15 A.M. on Thursday, August 23rd, 1973 the "Sveriges Kreditbank" of Stockholm, Sweden was rocked by sub-machine gun fire.(1) "The party has just begun", announced a 32 year old prison escapee named Jan-Erik Olsson. "The party", indeed, continued for some 131 hours, or five and a half days, as Olsson held four of the bank's employees hostage in an 11 by 47 foot vault until late in the evening of August 28th.

While the "Sveriges Kreditbank" robbery itself may not have been of world shattering importance, later interviews with the four hostages yielded surprising results -- results that have been confirmed in numerous other "hostage situations" in the years that followed. Even though the captives themselves were not able to explain it, they displayed a strange association with their captors, identifying with them while fearing those who sought to end their captivity. In some cases they later testified on behalf of or raised money for the legal defense of their captors. The Swedish location of the "Sveriges Kreditbank" gave its name to this mental aberration as "The Stockholm Syndrome".

Long-term psychological study of this and similar hostage situations has defined a fairly clear and characteristic set of symptoms for the Stockholm Syndrome:

The captives begin to identify with their captors. At least at first this is a defensive mechanism, based on the (often unconscious) idea that the captor will not hurt the captive if he is cooperative and even positively supportive. The captive seeks to win the favor of the captor in an almost childlike way.

The captive often realizes that action taken by his would-be rescuers is very likely to hurt him instead of obtaining his release. Attempts at rescue may turn a presently tolerable situation into a lethal one. If the bullets of the authorities don't get him, quite possibly those of the provoked captor will.

Long term captivity builds even stronger attachment to the captor as he becomes known as a human being with his own problems and aspirations. Particularly in political or ideological situations, longer captivity also allows the captive to become familiar with the captor's point of view and the history of his grievances against authority. He may come to believe that the captor's position is just.

The captive seeks to distance himself emotionally from the situation by denial that it is actually taking place. He fancies that "it is all a dream", or looses himself in excessive periods of sleep, or in delusions of being magically rescued. He may try to forget the situation by engaging in useless but time consuming "busy work". Depending on his degree of identification with the captor he may deny that the captor is at fault, holding that the would-be rescuers and their insistence on punishing the captor are really to blame for his situation.

I thought it was “Dynasty” but Prince sang it like that last night while sporting a I Love New York Tee-Shirt. A great concert by Prince last night at the World's Most Famous Arena. (Madison Square Garden to you non-New Yorkers.)

A mixture of funk, acoustic guitar, blues and classic Prince tunes, the concert was well worth the trip. Kathleen's favorite song was the acoustic guitar version of “little red corvette.“

 

 

 

The weekend started the Tour de France and so far it is going as expected, Lance Armstrong is pretty much in the lead. Going for 6!

Yesterday’s 27^th Annual 5 Borough Tour started out with a little bit of rain, but it turned out to be a very awesome day. We rode our bikes over 42 miles with the streets closed to cars from Battery Park, pass ground zero, up 6^th Avenue into Central Park and then Harlem into the Bronx, back down the FDR in Manhattan to the 59^th Street Bridge, through Queens and Brooklyn and finally the winds died down as we climbed the 2.5 mile span of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge (the longest suspension bridge in the US) into Staten Island.

 

I have done this ride every year except two since 1986. If you like to bike ride and live in New York City.

First of all, I wish Google all the success in the world in its IPO, I hope it makes tons of money for the company, shareholders and its founders, they deserve it. I love when the free market rewards entrepreneurs. Google is the best damn place on the Internet, period. I have it as my home page and use the Google Toolbar extensively.

 

That said, I will not buy the IPO shares. Google is valued at 20 to 25 billion dollars. I don’t know how that happened because until yesterday, Google’s revenues were a total mystery to the entire planet except to their CFO and the Venture Capitalists Kleiner Perkins who invested in Google a while back (and also invested in my company four years ago).

 

I read the public S1 filing document today. Google’s revenue was just under a billion dollars last year. We can do the math, 25x revenues is super overvalued. So let’s look at earnings. Last year Google had $343 million of operating costs (you think a server farm of a gazillion servers is cheap?) so its valuation is at 73x earnings. That is crazy talk.

 

Sure Google can grow. This year they are projected to grow by more than 50%, but of course operating costs will actually double. They are projected to have revenues of $1.6 billion and operating costs with $620 million that will put earnings at about a billion. That sounds like a huge jump in one year, but hey they do have a kick-ass product. Even so, 25x earnings is still an overvalued stock, no matter how you look at it.

 

You know what this sounds like to me? The late 90s internet bubble. So let the buyer beware.

The most beautiful woman on the planet is single again, Halle Berry filed for divorce.

So part of the deal of Nicole living with me while she was going to culinary school was that she had to hand over her gourmet pizza recipe. Since she heads back to Munich real soon, I had her walk me through her Pizza recipe last week. Yes techies can cook!

 

We started in the morning with the dough. Here is what we used:

 

1 1/2 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 c. warm water (max. 100 deg. F)

1/2 tsp. dry active yeast or 1 tsp. fresh yeast

a pinch or two of sugar

1 tsp. flour.

 

We used 2 parts all purpose flour and 1 part slept flour, but maybe would do 3 to 1 next time. Before I left for work it the morning we made the dough and I had lots of fun making it! Adding the yeast was the most fun. As I was working all day, the dough was rising.

 

When I got home we went to work on the rest. First up was the sauce. Here is the recipe for the sauce:

 

About 350 grams of whole, peeled tomatoes

2-3 cloves of garlic, finely minced (Nicole minced it!)

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

a few leaves of fresh basil

 

So I put the tomatoes into the blender and added everything in to a pot and let it simmer.

 

Next we started caramelizing onions and cooking a red pepper.

 

Ok lastly we brought it all together! The oven was set to 500 degrees. I took the dough and rolled out to fit onto a 12 inch pizza pan. Rolling was cool. By now I started to drink wine and Kathleen (the guinea pig) arrived and was starting to distract me and Nicole was on the phone, so I was really flying without a net! Once I put the dough on the pan, I put on the sauce and toppings. Kathleen wanted Mushrooms on her side of the pizza. We also added corn and zucchini. I was also accused of being a onion hog.

 

So I put it in and after about 8 minutes I put on the basil and fresh mozzarella. I left the pizza in for about 4 more minutes and out came my masterpiece!

 

Kathleen was one happy customer.

The New York Jets appear to be returning from exile with a new stadium in the west side of Manhattan (thank goodness I live on the East side).

Spain pulling out of Iraq will not stop terrorism.

 

Let us not appease the terrorists like Chamberlain did Hitler in Munich. We are in this together, terrorism knows no boarders. Being a New Yorker who watched 9/11 unfold with my own eyes and being in Europe on 3/11, I have to say terrorism is a global problem that must be attended to by us all, just like World War II.

 

Vacation Time!

Off ot Maui, see you in a week.....

Hit me Baby One More Time

 

Come on I can’t resist but comment on this one. Britney and Jason got an annulment today. So the marriage lasted 55 hours, let me just say that the world would be a much better place with Britney married off. Now every dumb guy out there thinks that they have a shot with her. Come on, why would you want to. She is the symbol of everything wrong with the world today. I won’t deny that Britney is an attractive young lady, but she is a poor role model and her skimpy dress makes us grown men thing bad and evil thoughts. :)

 

You win Britney, you got your publicity stunt and forced the world to notice you even in the twilight of your career.

For Linda

 

Your Blog is Boring Lately Dude. So that is what Jack told me on Friday night and Linda also told me on New Years Eve. Sorry, I had a lot of techie Yukon stuff to post recently so I can get some feedback for the book chapter that I am writing this month.

 

So you want some non-techie stuff? How about this rant. Starting this week, to help fight terrorism, the United States is requiring visitors from most countries to be fingerprinted and photographed as part of their Visa requirements. This has a lot of people up in arms. Critics say this will cause unnecessary travel delays and may never prove to be effective. So what if you are delayed in the airport, I don’t care, ever wait in line at Immigration & Customs in Paris? Enough said.  Never be effective? Let’s see, many of the 9/11 hijackers were here on overstayed visas. Would have caused them to be more careful, and maybe given us more clues to catch them. Every little helps the intelligence community.

 

There are no “rights” that are being given up, visiting a foreign country is a privilege, not a right. Other countries will retaliate, Brazil being the first. Who cares, I have been to Brazil before and getting a visa was a painful process anyway, so now they are just shooting themselves further in the foot.

 

Damn, if I were in charge, I would require a DNA sample too.

Ho, Ho, Ho

Happy Holidays!

A Dutch Houseboat

 

So yesterday I was on a true houseboat in the Netherlands. Apparently my pal Remi grew up on a houseboat and we went to his childhood home to drop off something to his parents after he picked me up at the airport. It was very cool and you could really feel the house rock. What a treat.

A killer Infield

 

Japanese star Kazuo Matsui decided to join the New York Mets, accepting the Amazins’ three-year offer today. Kazuo has been called a "faster, stronger version of Inchiro.” Now the Mets will have two killer shortstops. My guess is the Jose Reyes will go to second. With Matsui and Reyes, the Mets now have two switch-hitters at the top of their lineup who have speed, power, high OBPs, high BAs and great defensive skills. Playoff bound? Not yet. A major improvement, sure.

 

Now the true question: Is New York City ready for two Matsui’s??

Molloy Boys Take Bubble Baths…

 

I was changing this at Kenny Anderson last night while I was in the front row of the Sonics loss against Indiana. He must not have heard this chant in over 15 years. You see Kenny is a fellow Queens boy who attended the (all boys) Arch Bishop Molloy which was a arch rival to my High School St. Francis Prep and we use to taunt him with this chant in his 4 years as the #1 High School player in the country. Kenny is the best passer in the NBA and along with Reggie Miller just housed the Seattle Super Sonics. I had my fun at Kenny’s expense, but he got the last laugh.  

An Open Letter to My Old Friend and Client (RIAA Must Die Part II)

 

A group of investors led by my former client and friend Edgar Bronfman Jr. scored a victory in its bid for Time Warner Inc's Warner Music on Monday, signing a $2.6 billion deal to buy its recorded music and music publishing business. Edgar and I collaborated on a database for “Israel Experience” oh so many years ago. (And he still owes me a scuba diving trip in the Red Sea.)

 

Dear Edgar-

 

How are things going? Long time no speak. I really miss our days down on West 4^th street arguing about the database I was building for you. Sorry I sat in your chair that day too. We have had our differences over database schema in the past, but you were still a great guy to work for (yes I want something). I am writing to you today on something more important than ever before. The RIAA is the devil and you are now the owner of the 4^th largest record company in the world.

 

Please lead by example old friend. Extend your business model for file sharing and selling MP3s over the Internet. Figure out a way to monetize the electronic side of your business. Apple’s iTunes is a good start, talk to your pal Steve Jobs. Don’t litigate, innovate. You can’t fight technology, it is here to stay. So embrace it and make lots of money. Be the first to market, sell Madonna’s next album only on the Internet or something like that. I know you want to make a splash, so this can be it.

 

Being the first to market you will reap the financial rewards. Right now I openly admit to illegally downloading music to my heart’s content. That is because I hate the RIAA and it is my form of civil disobedience. Create an electronic distribution system of music and charge me for it and I will gladly pay. But be fair to both the artist and the consumer, or the artist will one day not need you. Remember that as part of your business plan, for you to make money, the artist needs higher compensation and the consumer lower cost of the product. Win-win for everyone, including you.

 

I know that Canadians enjoyed Thanksgiving last month, but do enjoy the holiday season.

 

Your Pal-

Stephen

A-Rod at Shea?

It is that time of year where the super duper trade rumors start. The latest has A-Rod in Flushing.

I think I can fly.

 

As I ate lunch yesterday on top of Slide Mountain (the tallest in the Catskills) there was a very special feeling as the snow started to fall on Walter and me. I have summitted this mountain twice before, but something was different today. The scenery, the calm, and the smell of the balsam fur and pine trees were intoxicating. The struggle up the last rock face was satisfying, especially when I got my boot wedged into a foothold and could not get it out-had to take my foot out of the boot while hanging on the rock wall with my other hand. On the summit, a calm soothing feeling came over us along with the sense of accomplishment of summiting our 3^rd peak of the day (Wittenberg and Cornell mountains were also summited on the 7 mile approach in to Slide Mountain).

 

After lunch, Mary, Dorothy aka the Condom Queen (I can write that since she says that she doesn’t read my blog), Donna and Norm went ahead of Walter and I on the 7 mile descent (14 mile total day). I love the trail down Slide in the winter, with about 5 inches of snow on the ground and snow and frost in the green balsam and pine trees, the visual stimulus was amazing. Alone in the majestic quiet of the wilderness, we talked about this is why we climb these mountains and that it is too bad people not here would not understand how special it is to be there today. That is why I write this today, hopefully you all understand somewhat.

 

The stats: 14 miles, 7 hours, 3 peaks, 4 Cliff bars, 3 liters of water and about 7,000’ of elevation gain/loss.

 

What a way to recharge the batteries, both mentally and physically.

 

 

Movin' On Up

Like George and Wese. Today is moving day.

Not sure how much Linda will miss me, but Andrew must be happy to get his room back.

Do you like what I’ve done with the place?

 

Saw Matrix Revolutions last night and it was good and bad. If you saw the first two you need to see it. Lots of eye candy in the fight scenes, but the movie ran out of gas in the end.

Its gotta be the shoes (aka a Night of Sin exposed)

 

The madness known as the Halloween Night Party started around 4pm on Halloween at East Side Nails on Lexington Avenue when the manicurist questioned my decision to paint my nails alternating blue and purple. I spent about 10 minutes picking out the correct colors to match my costume. I should have known, this set the tone for the entire evening.

 

Linda (a sailor), John (a Scottish man in a kilt) and I (masquerade masked man) picked up Kara (hot chick in red fishnet) in the cab and headed down to the Annual Halloween Festival and Costume Ball in the East Village. Andrew, with his new shows, playing the role of a gay British guy met us there and we got going. The night started off well when we found out that beers only cost $2, so we drank a lot (Please don’t tell Scott Hanselman). After Kara, Andrew and I got our Tarot cards read (it was soooooo scary how accurate it was), we got a little freaked out and had to drink and dance more. Andrew and I took over the stage on one of the dance floors and grooved until it was time to go. I was told that I was very drunk, but I don’t believe them.

 

As we walked to a bar called the Opium Den, we passed on the Bowery between 2^nd and 3^rd a bunch of homegirls grooving outside of their car. Andrew and I started dancing with them in the street. They got into it and started to smack our butts and one girl really got down with Andrew.

 

After dancing to some retro 80s tunes at the Opium Den, we decided to head home around 3:30, surprisingly we got the 5 train without any problems. After the 4am McDonalds Big Mac call (where that mean lady who cut us on line called Andrew and I gay), we ran into a bunch of dominatrix chicks across the street from home who whipped us pretty good.

 

After some beer and watching Governor Arnold in True Lies we finally got to bed around 5am. It was slow going at 2pm when we got up when John and Stephen went to the store and cooked breakfast. As I type this we are sitting down to eat breakfast at 2:45 pm. What a cool night..

The Curse Must End

 

I am not a New York Yankees fan, but I don’t root against them. But to be honest, when the NLCS and ALCS started, I was rooting for the Cubs and Red Sox to make it to the World Series. I wanted the curse to end.

 

Last night when the Red Sox took a 4 run lead I was cheering. I thought the Red Sox were going to the World Series so I shouted at the bar last night “The curse ends tonight.” As a Mets fan, I should have know better. The most spectacular comeback in all of sports history is the 1986 World Series. Bill Buckner aside, the curse was alive for the Red Sox on October 25^th, 1986. That historic night in Flushing, Queens proved the Babe Ruth curse when the Red Sox were 1 out away from their first world championship since 1918. Last night the Red Sox were 6 outs away from the World Series and blew it. (I was there as a Mets fan in 1999, just 3 outs away, so I know how it feels.) So New York City is a bad place for Boston, first in Shea Stadium in 1986 and last night in Yankee Stadium.

 

Last night’s awesome come from behind victory for the Yankees was great for the team, their fans and my home, New York City. Unfortunately it was bad for the sport. The curse must end. Just not this year.