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When I was a kid, there was this man who gave the world magic. He amazed us with his innovative products and ideas. He engaged us with his stories. He made us rethink how we did business and play. He made us re-imagine how one person could impact and change the world for the better. His name was Walt Disney.

Through my adulthood, there was this man who gave the world magic. He amazed us with his innovative products and ideas. He engaged us with his stories. He made us rethink how we did business and play. He made us re-imagine how one person could impact and change the world for the better. His name was Steve Jobs.

Both magicians are gone now. But I can’t help but wonder… who will be the next wizard to take the stage? To remind us magic isn’t just what you do, but how you do it. To show us once again that one person on a mission can change the whole world. That magic is more than simply illusion. That it comes from believing. That magic is real.

(Note: I posted this on Facebook, but I just had to put it here so I’ll always be able to find it.)

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I restricted my daily caloric intake and started exercising. I started with Zumba (yes, Zumba) and after a few weeks started adding in running. In a short time, I was able to run a mile or more uninterupted. So when, at the end of May, I heard about something called the Warrior Dash, it got my attention. The Warrior Dash is a 5K race with a twist, it includes crazy obstacles.

I don’t particularly enjoy running. I know some people do. I do enjoy the feeling I get after I run, but running itself is still not what I’d term fun or enjoyable. The only part of a 5K that sounded interesting to me was to answer the question of if I could actually complete one. And the question just wasn’t that pressing for me. Warrior Dash, though, was somthing different. This race includes wall climbing, running over junk cars, cargo net scaling, crawling through a mud pit and even jumping over fire. This was nuts enough that I just had to try it.

Today, I completed my first 5K… Warrior Dash Tennessee. I didn’t run the whole thing. In fact, I probably didn’t run more than a half mile of it. I realized after the first ostacle that I wasn’t going to make it if I didn’t watch my energy burn and keep my pace slower. The obstacles were really taxing for someone like me. So I walked most of it, but it was a brisk walk that wasn’t too much slower than most of the runners. I finished in 1:04:06, about 15 minutes slower than the average time. Not too bad for a first outing, especially from a guy who was probably 15 years older and 75+ pounds heavier than the average runner. I was especially pleased that I tackled every obstacle. I saw quite a few people who didn’t/couldn’t handle some of them. Some of the “wall” obstacles, where we had to scale a wall in some form or another, were particularly hard for a number of competitors. I pretty much took them all without pausing or slowing much.

Overall, I was incredibly pleased with my performance. I set out with a goal of just finishing and not being last. I blew that goal out of the water. I am a warrior.

Intranet Redesign 2010

Since then, I’ve tried out a number of different blogs and websites, mostly dealing with history, startups and marketing. Some I liked better than others, but none really seemed to quite fill the goals I had in mind. So, I’ve pushed the power button and I’m rebooting. I’m going to combine my disperate interests, along with a few older various blog posts, into this one site. I’ll still keep my Civil War Murfreesboro blog separate, but pretty much everything else will go here.

We’ll see how this works. Or if I’ll require yet another reboot as I travel down this road of exploration.

Photo Credit: Reboot Screen photo courtesy of abraham.williams.

Cannon at Stones River National Battlefield – Photo

Austin Approaches

We’re very excited. After nine months of waiting, boy number 2 is coming today. We’re inducing (thankfully) because we live 45 minutes from the hospital. We had to show up at the hospital at 5:30am (there’s a 5:30 in the morning too?!), which means we had to leave the house at 4:30.

I had planned to have everything done and ready so we could get 7 hours of sleep last night and just have to get up, get dressed and leave this morning. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men…. We had visitors in from out of town (2 sets!) and spent the whole day visiting with them. So we got home late and still ahd things to finish before bed. Finally fell into bed around 11:15. What I didn’t know was that during my short 4 hours of sleep, trouble was brewing for my wife. She’d been asleep about an hour when her dinner revolted. We had eaten out for convenience and now the spinach dip wasn’t agreeing with Vicki. She spent the rest of the night being sick. Ugh!

Added bonus, as we fought exhaustion and got ready to leave, we realized it was cold and rainy outside. Woo hoo! After slip-sliding in to the hospital, we’re finally ready to go. The rest of it is pretty much out of my hands.Oh, well, it’s all an adventure.

I know one thing, we can’t wait to get to meet Austin!

Image by Nathan T. Baker via Flickr

The second Nashville Startup Weekend (NSW) will take place from October 9-11. I was fortunate to have taken part in the first NSW. Our team developed an iPhone game named Assassins. It was the only startup that actually ended up launching. However, the experience was fantastic for nearly everyone who participated in the event.

One of the coolest things about NSW is that you get the full experience of the startup. Some groups imploded, due to legal issues with their product or personality conflicts. Some found they simply needed way more startup capital than they could raise. And some simply required more of a commitment from the founders than they were willing to give. Every company had to deal with figuring out a revenue model, product development and marketing plans. All of this is stuff that every startup company deals with. And it was a great learning experience.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend this year’s event (my wife and I are expecting our second litle startup), but many of the same great people involved in last year’s event are involved in this year’s. Anyone interested in startups should attend.

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I started the day by calling my mom in Chattanooga, to find out she is sick as a dog. (Where did that saying come from anyway?) She sounds like she has a wicked cold. Hopefully they can give her something to make her feel better and get well soon.

That was followed by a day of true monotony. I’m trying to complete a site move at work; moving an internal website from Sharepoint WSS 2 to our WSS 3 intranet site. Because of the way the site was originally designed, it can’t be migrated automatically. The only way to do this is manually rebuild it all on the new site. Necessary, but mind-numbingly boring. On the up side, it does give me a chance to listen to the TONS of podcasts I’ve got downloaded to iTunes but haven’t gotten to hear yet.

Then I came home to find out my five-year-old son has sore throat and headache. No fever. Keeping my fingers crossed. He just started kindergarten last week, so this was a little expected. But we were hoping we might be spared. When he started preschool last year, we spend nearly six months passing illnesses back and forth around the family. He came home with a new bug every other week and at least one person in our family was sick for six months straight. Yikes! Seems like we just got over that and here we go again.

There’s this image out in the world of the lone entrepreneur anonymously toiling by himself, carving the next great company out of the wilderness with his bare hands. I admit I’ve held that image myself. I think it comes from the stories we hear as kids of Americans being rugged individualists.

But the image isn’t really true. People who accomplish great things, including business startups, do it with help. Lewis had Clark. Hewlett had Packard. Robert E Lee had Stonewall Jackson. Larry Page has Sergey Brin (and Eric Schmidt).

You don’t have to have partners, but you need someone to talk with. Someone you can bounce ideas off of. Someone to brainstorm with. Someone to be an advisor. Someone to call you out when you do dumb stuff. I think author Keith Ferrazi has a new book out about this, Whose Got Your Back.

I spent years trying to go it alone, without much help, advice, support or feedback. It sucks. Don’t do it that way. As I’ve considered this situation I’ve come to realize that I’ve got to get out in the startup world. Mix it up with the upstarts out there. (I really want to name a startup “The Upstarts”!) Find people I can collaborate with, exchange advice with and, sometimes, just shoot the bull with. So I’ve created and scheduled an event named Startups Over Coffee. it’s similar to groups like Geek Breakfast and Startup Drinks, and we’re going to meet at 9am on Saturday, July 11 at Fido coffee shop on 21st Avenue in Nashville. If you’re into startups and in the area, come on by. We’ll be meeting and mixing with other startup enthusiasts. Come share some ideas and grab a great cuppa joe. Who knows what might come out of it.

We’ve already got some smart people signed up for the event and I’m excited to see what happens.

In local startup news, knowledge sharing network Moontoast has secured a $780,000 round of financing, accoring to Milt Capps of Venture Nashville Connections. Moontoast launched at the South by Southwest Interactive event in March. They are currently undergoing a private beta, according to their website, which is allowing them to gauge user feedback and tweak their system, which allows users to find and consult experts on any kind of problems or challenges they may be facing. According to their site, they expect to relaunch publicly in August 2009.

Moontoast recently announced the appointment of Stephan Collins (formerly of DoubleClick and Juris) as acting CEO and Marcus Whitney (former parter at Emma and founder of Remarkable Wit) as Chief Technology Officer.

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