Miscellany for 14 February 2007

We had a delicious Valentine's Day dinner at Five Front in DUMBO under the Brooklyn Bridge. I won't rest until I've dragged all eleven readers of this site there. I think I'm up to about five out of eleven.

Only misfire at dinner was an Australian sparkling Shiraz. Maybe it was too cold or too sweet but it didn't do the trick for me.

I walked the dogs in the sleet this morning and the sludge left over this afternoon. They enjoyed the snow (finally!) but the downside of snow is that the kiddies get to take over the dog run for sledding. When I was a kid we sledded on the slope of a nearby farm. I'm not sure that were I a parent I'd want my kid sledding 1) in a dog run and 2) breathing in the healthy fumes of the BQE.

Earlier today I had lunch with a couple of guys who are pursuing a startup. This grew out of a combination flame and offer on the NextNY mailing list a couple of weeks back where I offered my services as an advisor to anyone who'd ask. This was the second meeting I've had with founders (or potential founders) and both were a lot of fun. I utterly failed as a consultant (who wants to hire a one-person consultancy when you can hire IBM for ten times the price?) so I don't feel like I'm losing anything by giving away advice for free. There's a lot of good stuff going on in NYC in the tech world. It may be a bit under the covers but I'm seeing and hearing a lot of innovative ideas and doing what I can to help them along.

We are spending the weekend in Amagansett, followed by a quick return then dropoff at Newark for a business trip to Phoenix for Lisa. I'll stay home, tend to the dogs, and host a friend coming in from Austin for the week.

I am getting a lot of comment spam on this site. None of it is getting published as far as I know since I block close to 1000 words ("viagra", "phentermine", "cialis" seem to be the top terms this week). Given the rarity of a comment on this site I may just turn comments off entirely.

Snow dogs