Day 98
Dad's posts are so much more intellectual than mine.
Like he said I was out climbing a mountain last week. I brought the whole band! Even Marrque!
Updates on the mountain trek later on....Im moving into a new house this week.
Like he said I was out climbing a mountain last week. I brought the whole band! Even Marrque!
Updates on the mountain trek later on....Im moving into a new house this week.
Day 96
This is Friday, if our counting is correct. Ben has been incommunicado since Monday. So I'll write one more post.
I could not sleep, so I read an essay by Martin Heidegger called "Hegel and the Greeks" which would be impossible to summarize and is near impossible to read. But I would urge you to try it anyway, like cliff diving, but with less adrenaline - here's the link.
I probably should keep this sort of thing confined to my philosophy blog (which I have hardly touched since starting Time Trails!) but you have to understand this is therapy for me. So I ended up moving the rest of my post to my other blog.
Day 95
So this will teach Ben not to insist that I write a blog entry. I'll be savagely honest. The mystique of entrepreneaurship is really, deep down, self-torture. Doing the hardest work you've ever done, for nothing. Living with your broken work, and its unworthy comparison with the great idea you started with. Fighting off the blues, trying to keep going when the tank is on empty. No wonder you sometimes wish that every day didn't really count - that some days might as well be discounted and sold at bargain rates.
But then that mysterious power of positive thinking creeps back in. It tells you that you have not failed yet, that the power of the idea actually will outlast the excruciating pain of making it happen. So the project rolls forward. What you planned for to happen actually happens, after a fashion. Time Trails actually is a real business now, and really is attracting investors and participants. The software actually exists now, and does its job, however clumsily. The people who have stood behind us, who have shown an interest and reached out to us, really have helped create it. Togther, we can do it (now there's a catchy slogan...). The idea of Time Trails seems to be surviving the incompetence of its sponsors, and I believe it has a future. The day, with all its stress and breakdown, is, and will be, ultimately, counted.
Day 94
In the beginning, my brother Paul talked a lot about the power of positive thinking. I'm wondering who talks about its danger. Positive thinking is a tremendous thing until it leads to its natural corrollary of positive exhaustion. The root positive thought is "I can do it" which convinces us that despite all indicators to the contrary, the doing of an idea is possible. That leads to the thought "I must do it" because somehow all that positivity leads to bravado - a sad turn of events if there ever was one. This quickly devolves, upon execution, into various muddled groanings of "Why did I decide to do it? what possessed me?" before it bottoms out in "I can't do it" which turns into "Nothing really matters - we're all going to die someday" which nobody really wants to put into a blog, now do they? And all because the power of positive thought got carried away.
Thus did the great idea of a History Browser turn into the terrible idea of actually writing a History Browser. And that's how the days became a burden, not something I wanted to count, much less report on. It's hard, irritating, exhausting work to write that software, virtually alone. The first prototype proved to be wholly inadequate, and had to be completely replaced with a second prototype, which then turned out to be close, but still woefully broken.
And that cycle continues today. I'm deeply humbled by the steepness of the slope. I've written thousands and thousands of lines of code, and thrown away nearly as many. I'm learning new coding techniques with every new implementation problem. My eyes are blurry. My senses are numb. I'm a wreck.
(to be continued...)
Day 93
Karl here. Ben asked me to fill in for him on the blog while he's away climbing Mount Blanco. I'll try, but I must admit that my heart isn't in it. And I should, I suppose, try to explain why.
The point of Every Day Counted was that normally, we don't count the days - we leave it to history and calendars to do that for us. In the beginning of this odyssey, Ben and I wanted to bring that sense of workaday historicity to the fore, to say that somehow, to someone, every day mattered - that the day, itself full of endless possibilities, needs to be counted, not for itself (Time is a dead concept after all) but for its many living, hopeful participants, and their fascinating projects.
I guess that seems more true some days than others. My newest theory is that days count when one is hatching an idea, and days get submerged when one is merely doing it. The doing of the idea is the middle passage between the innocence of inspiration and the embarrasing burden of actualization.
(to be continued...)
Day(s) 70-92
The thing is, we have been very busy.
In the last half month we have made leaps and bounds on the new prototype - in fact we are close to releasing prototype 3. Now, we can edit resources and content straight from the website. That might not sound like a big deal, but it is huge - in fact, its so huge it has never been done before. Ever. By anyone. I wont go into the nitty gritty details...but trust me this is big.
Last week we made the transition into a new office, at OfficeThis on Harry street. It surely is something else, great office space, conference rooms, cafe's, unlimited printing access, new phone lines, 2 new computers, its just awesome.
We finally have some seed start up money in the bank so we can move forward at a much more rapid pace than earlier this month. I have been busy meeting with several potential investors and things are going great.
I've added another key element to the start-up team on my end, he's a good friend of mine named Richie McNabb. Richie definately has a head on his shoulders and has been hard at work getting us in front of new potential investors. We have 2 mammoth meetings coming up in the next few weeks, that, in my opinion, could be the spring board for us to go to the next level!
Richie looking...normal
The Navigator Employment system is moving along, that should be active and in place by the end of August with a handful of selected individuals (already have several in mind).
I successfully submitted our business proposal to the Great Plains Capital Conference coming to town in September. That was a task in itself getting the necessary documents in order but it was well worth the effort. Hopefully we are fully funded before that conference, but feels good to have back up engines already started...
Last week we had the first official Time Trails dinner party. People who have been closely associated with the start up of the company all met at the Fox and Hound for a night of Pizza and Wings. Attending were:
Me, Anna, Lily, Karl, Debby, Uncle Craig, Aunt Jan, Richie McNabb, Rich Mcnabb, Fayrene McNabb (the whole family has been very very supportive), and of course Tony say-it-isnt-so Guhr. Unfortuantely, the man in charge of setting everything up for the party, (He got us 100 dollars of free food!) Eric Ott, was called into work only hours before the party started. So that was truly unfortunate...we all wished he could have been there.
Also, there is some headway coming in from the south, my Uncle Paul (Karl's Brother) is working on some extremely important technical details of the project. It seems as though the momentum just keeps building and building. Its almost too exciting to write about!
In fact, that might be why I haven't been writing about it!! Its too good!
But really, I will make a conserted effort to keep up the daily blogging so people dont think we failed or disappeared or were abducted...
On a personal front, in a nutshell =
Music is going great. Having shows every week. Awesome.
We are moving to a new house this month, a large communal mansion with several other people. (Basically the whole band) Im excited about that.
I shot my best golf score ever the other day.
Tiger Woods won his 69th PGA tour event. No surprise.
I'm headed for Colordado in the morning to see family and take the boys on an adventure in the mountain.
My artwork was on display this month at one of favorite places ever, the Bayleaf Cafe.
Lily is kind of walking but not really.
Anna is visiting friends in Denver.
And finally, I want to go golfing with my brother Clay. Whenever.
Thats it for the half month update! feel free to invite others to the blog and leave comments because this will be steam roller pretty soon.
PS - a shout out to our other Time Trail associates in Garden City, KS - you know who you are.
PPS - Dad is working diligently at his desk. He grunts and acknowledges everyone. His excitement is obvious to me, because I know him so well.
Day 69
Anna's father Randy came into town on his way home from Uganda. He did dental work there for a mission organization. Randy has read all our plans and documents and I think could be a key player for us in the next few months, so its exciting to have him on board.
Anna and I had a picnic down at the river and went swimming. It was nice to relax for a bit. We drove through my old neighborhoods where I lived when I was young. Good memories...mostly.
Have a new meeting with yet another potential investor coming this week....although Im excited for it, Im a bit apprehensive.
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