I love it when my wife Amy blogs.  She’s an amazing writer and has a much wider range of intellectual interests than me.  I often refer to her as my personal CD-ROM; whenever I need information on something, I ask her.  I find her to be much more accurate and comprehensive than Wikipedia.

She put up a new Wordle this morning.  This is her tag cloud from delicious.

I love the juxtaposition of some of these topics, including Palin / feminism, ClimateChange / entrepreneurship / education, and ethics / science / corruption.

My mom must be cleaning out her attic.  She just sent me a pile of "old stuff" including a bunch of photos, my bar mitzvah speech, and some more stamps from my never ending stamp collection.

Me at age 8.75.  Note the excellent glasses (probably the same size as the ones I wear today) and my lack of tie. 

Age 12. I was an SVAA basketball star.  Man – that basketball is bigger than my head.  I was wearing contact lens (which I’ve since abandoned) by this point in time in my effort to look more sexy.  Pretty hard for a 12 year old.

Amy insists I’m the Good Knight so we’ll call this a good night for the Dark Knight.

Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

I love it when my dad writes about personal history on his blog.  He’s a great storyteller and is extremely articulate about living and growing up in a generation that seems very very far away from today, as well as very far away from the generation I grew up with.

His post titled Herald Tribune Fresh Air Fund Summer Camp 1950 made me smile an enormous smile.  I can totally see my scrawny 12 year old dad surrounded by these huge guys from the Red Hook District in Brooklyn, being scared shitless but keeping it all inside, and winning them all over on the ball field.

Love ya dad.

What a fun picture of me and Kevin Parent (now at Oblong) that someone found and gave me yesterday.  I was a sophomore at MIT and probably 19 (although maybe 18).  Oh to be 170 pounds again.

Can you name the statue?  Bonus points if you can name the location on the MIT campus.

In February, I took my dad away for our annual father – son weekend.  This last weekend, he and my brother Daniel did their annual weekend together in Chicago.  My dad has written a beautiful post titled Chicago, Chicago, It’s a Wonderful Town. 

A friend of mine lost his father earlier this week.  I feel so lucky that I’ve always had a great relationship with my dad and that I figured out early enough that one of the special things in life was to spend a little time with just him every year.

As a special bonus, you should read his post if you are looking for fun things to do and eat when in Chicago. 

Love ya dad!

Today is my dad‘s 70th birthday.  Without him, I wouldn’t be around.  That’s an unexpectedly deep thought that just sent me down a weird mortality rat hole.

Except for a brief period of time during 7th grade, my dad has always been one of my best friends.  I have hundreds thousands of memories pre-college of things we did together that shaped my future.  We’ve had plenty of arguments, but they were usually healthy, constructive ones which taught me how to think critically and helped me understand that it was ok to have a different point of view.

I have a key memory during my freshman year at MIT that sticks in my mind.  My parents came to visit me during the MIT equivalent of parents weekend (maybe it’s actually called parents weekend – I can’t remember.)  I was depressed and homesick – all of my high school friends were at UT Austin and having a blast and I was at MIT getting brutalized.  During a walk in Concord on a crisp fall day, my dad turned to me and said "look – just give it a year.  If you don’t want to stay, call it after a year.  But at least give it a year so you have enough time to really figure it out."  I stuck it out for a year, discovered I loved the place in some sick, twisted way, and never looked back.

My dad was a partner in my first business with me and Dave Jilk – who also happens to have a birthday today.  Dad was the adult supervision / business mentor and Feld Technologies wouldn’t have been as successful as it was without his help.  He helped me early in getting grounded in "doing the right thing all the time – even if it is hard" in a business context.

I finally had my childhood rebellion in my mid-20′s after I got divorced, dropped out the MIT Ph.D. program I was in, and sold Feld Technologies.  He appropriately realized what was going on, so he backed off for a few years and when I got through my stuff our relationship was stronger than ever.

The last 10 years together have been awesome.  I’ve continued to learn an amazing amount of stuff from him and his experiences, and he regularly tells me how much he learns from me.  Our time together is precious – especially our annual weekends and the Feld Men’s trip where chocolate ice cream is consumed in huge quantities.

Happy birthday dad.  You are dad #1.

I’m usually an excruciatingly happy person.  I’m a little cranky this morning because I have a cold and didn’t get a good night sleep the last two nights, but I’ll get over it.  Oh – and even though I’m cranky, I’m still happy.

Ted Leonsis just gave the morning keynote at the New New Internet Conference.  I first met Ted in 1990 at the first Birthing of Giants event that I participated in.  Ironically, five minutes ago, I bumped into Verne Harnish – the creator of Birthing of Giants and the founder of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization (that co-sponsors Birthing of Giants.)  Since I’m now way off the rails on the actual content of this post, I thought I’d mention that Verne was the only guy I knew in Boulder when Amy and I moved there in 1995 – and Verne split for the east coast a few months later leaving us completely alone in our new mountain hideaway.

Back to the post.  In Ted’s keynote, he stated that he’s been a 25 year student in the pursuit of happiness.   He asserted that deep scientific research (not cited) has uncovered five key things that generate happiness in humans.

• Relationships
• Community
• Self expression
• Giving back
• Pursue a higher calling

Interesting to ponder.  He also mentioned that AOL’s peak market cap was around $200b and Google is now closing in on $160b.  Also interesting to ponder.

I get loads of questions throughout every day.  I try to be responsive to all of them – it’s just the way I am.  I have a saying which is “you can’t send me too much email” – for whatever reason I’ve figured out how to process it all quickly each day (zero inbox strategy.)

One of my capabilities is to know when I’m clueless.  Most VCs (and many entrepreneurs) have a hard time admitting they are clueless about something.  It’s a natural reaction of a smart, hard driving person who is constantly analyzing data and making decisions to have an opinion about everything, especially when asked politely by someone for advice.

I got an email from a friend with a set of specific questions in it this morning.  I read it, sat for a minute, and then read it again.  I thought for another few seconds and then sent the following note to him.

Ok – now you’ve entered into the “Brad is completely clueless zone.”  I don’t even have any opinion here – whatever I would say would be wrong.

Know when you are clueless.  It will save you – and your friends – a lot of time.

I’m about to head out to play an early game of tennis with my brother Daniel.  He sent me the following picture from our recent trip to the US Open for inspiration.

It’s pitch black outside but I’m sure the sun will be up around 7am when we hit the court.  Note the snazzy belt I’m wearing – that was my September life dinner gift from Amy (she upped the ante in October – a lot.)