Another awesome APOD photo.

I wonder how evil and scary the blue horse looks when backlit like this.

I continue to love the Astronomy Picture of the Day. 

As a result of looking at it first thing in the morning, I insure that I’ll learn at least one thing each day.

Some mornings I come across a blog post from a friend that breaks my mind – in a good way.  Today’s post from Todd Vernon titled My 100 year hobby was one such post.  Look at the picture below.

The picture on the left is Central City, Colorado from around 100 years ago.  The picture on the right is it from last weekend.  Todd describes how he put the shot together and makes a few observations about Central City, Blackhawk, and the Colorado Central Railroad.  He even manages to weave a reference to the Internet into his post, along with some comments on trees (note the absence of them on the left on the hill in the background.)

I run a lot in the mountains around Boulder and I live in a canyon that has been around for a very long time.  I’ve seen plenty of old pictures – it’s fascinating to me to juxtapose them with current pictures.  It’s just the other side of the augmented reality coin.

Oh – did anyone notice the M&A and IPO markets seem to be back?  It suddenly feels a lot like 2006 / 2007 in the tech world.  At least for this week.

I was pondering what a tiny part of the universe we are on my ride this morning into Boulder from Keystone.  The first hour of my drive was extraordinary as the sun came up over the Rocky Mountains and I cruised down I-70 at a high rate of speed in the bat mobile.

I had another reminder of this as I cruised through my Daily folder.  The Astronomy Picture of the Day has been delighting me every day since I started looking at it a few weeks ago.  Today’s is a movie of Japan’s Kaguya spacecraft’s last moments.

Kaguya crashed into the Moon last week as planned.  Amazing.  We are small.

The web (and the universe) is an amazing place.  My sister-in-law Laura turned me on NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” website.  I bookmarked it and put it in my Daily folder so I get a cool new picture from NASA every day. While the web site has that late 1990’s look and feel, the pictures are stunning.

This is the June 12th eruption of the Sarychev Peak Volcano as photographed from the International Space Station (400 km above Earth).  Lest we forget, we are a very small species on a very small planet in a very large universe.  Try not to take yourself too seriously today – if you start, just ponder this photo.

My partner Jason Mendelson (an ex-lawyer) has a dynamite post up titled Quick Ways To Get Fired as a Lawyer.  While some of my best friends are lawyers (or ex-lawyers), I’ve encountered most of the stupid lawyer tricks that Jason enumerates in his post. 

The big ones (immediate termination) are:

1. Screw around with redlines.
2. Endorse the chief competitor.
3. You provide little leadership and wait for someone else to come up with the answer.
4. You provide advice to the CEO adverse to the company’s interest. 

The medium ones (you’ll lose us over time) are:

1. Be lax in your advice and get it wrong. 
2. Being inefficient, getting lost in the woods, billing for small stuff that doesn’t matter.
3. Bait and switch.  You bring in the client, but you never show for board meetings, phone calls, etc. and send junior folks in your stead.
4. Not knowing who your client is.
5. Letting summer associates run wild on the account. 

But my favorite is “Being annoying.”  Jason enumerates these in more detail – if you are an entrepreneur or a lawyer the post is worth a close read.  If you are a comedian, it’s probably worth it also as you’ll get more ammunition for your standup routine.

Summer Glau just totally kicks ass.  So does xkcd – it’s my every other day dose of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

You’ll have to go to xkcd for the rest of them.  Race 2, Race 3, Race 4, and the grand finale – Race 5.  How could anyone possibly thing that it was a good idea to cancel this show.  Weren’t they afraid Summer might kill them?

Awesome video.  It’s worth two minutes and thirty six seconds of your life.

When I grow up, I want to work in the channel!

I’m serving up Spud’s tomorrow at Spud Bros between Noon and 2pm.  50% of all revenue goes to charity (The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County) so bring your appetite.  Location: the Corner of 10th and Pearl behind Pasta Jay’s in Boulder, Colorado.

I’m having a blast working with Mark Pincus on Zynga, his latest creation.  Mark embodies so many things to love about an entrepreneur, including relentless energy and an endless drive to move his business forward.

So, it was with glee that I found out that Ali, Mark’s new wife (still less than a year) was working on her own startup.  I figured it was good newlywed payback for Mark as he’d now have to split the “complain to spouse about pressures of creating a company” 50/50 with Ali.

Ali’s new business – One Kings Lane – launched last week.  One Kings Lane is an invitation-required, online shopping destination, featuring designer home goods at exclusive prices (up to 70% off retail). It offers members privileged access to home furnishings of the highest quality at incredible value.

Daily Candy digs it.  What more could you want out of life?