L.A.B. Unleashed

We made it!  Boston to SF in 7 days, we even made it to my sister’s wedding in Nashville on time!  It was quite the ride.  Kansas was just as long and flat as everyone said it would be.  8 hours of nothing but fields and the highway dragging on as far as the eye could see.  You can view a few of our photos on my Facebook page.

Growing up we spent summers in Florida visiting my Grandparents – Poppie and Nana to me.  We would always drive, Boston to Orlando – 3 days in the Dodge Caravan, where my sister and I would each get our own row.  It was pretty plush, but back then I can’t even remember what we had to distract ourselves with.  No electronic games, no movie screens, no headphones to play music.  I remember sleeping a lot and getting really fidgety and ultimately slap stick silly with my sister in the back seat.  We must have drove my parents crazy, although it was their choice to drive.

Our road trip was more than manageable with all of the pieces of technology we had in the car to keep us busy – 3 laptops, a 3g card, 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, a video camera, and the ultimate power adapter to keep everything charged.  It felt like the freakin bat mobile.  At any moment we could download a new song, or audio book (ahemmm … I am now obsessed with the Twilight Saga).  We could get anything we needed at our whim.  I could stay connected to email and voice mail, even throughout the spotty areas on Kansas and Wyoming.  How the times have changed!

People also mentioned that they had fun following along on our trip every time I checked in on Gowalla and Foursquare.  Taking a look at my feed, you can clearly see our progress each day, and some of the fun site we saw.  I was diligent about checking in on both platforms, with the goal of assessing the number of users across the country that are using each product.  In the end, I definitely saw much more activity on Gowalla across the board.  Foursquare seems to have more of a following in the press, but I’m not so sure they are winning the majority of consumers.  Gowalla’s product is far superior in my opinion.  It was created by some pretty kick ass designers who provide a high quality visual and user experience.  We shall see who comes out on top in the end, but as far as our cross country trip is concerned, I am giving the win to Gowalla, solely based on the number of users checked in at each location I checked.

Exactly 2 years ago today, the idea for RunMyErrand was born. You may have heard the story before, but it all started with a dog. A big yellow one. His name is Kobe, and 2 years later he is our CIO – "Chief Inspiration Officer".

It was a cold February evening in 2008, when we were out of dog food for Kobe, and came up with the plan for RunMyErrand. We were meeting my dear college friends at Masa in the South End – Brie, my roommate from Sweet Briar who I hadn’t seen in years, and Jen another SBC alum. I remember barely being able to contain my excitement over dinner and margaritas that night as I shared our idea with friends. They were the first to hear about RunMyErrand, and it was wonderful to have their support from the start.

I was still at IBM at the time, and I would have never guessed that two years later, this is where we would all be. A company launched, funded, with an amazing team (including advisors), behind us. My house in Charlestown sold – the one we were going to "settle down in" – with plans for a launch in the San Francisco market imminent. Not to mention a special dog food delivery partnership that solves the original problem that inspired RME! Craziness!

Reflecting back, I’m not sure I realized at the time, how fast two year would go, and how much work it would be to get to this point. I myself have learned a ton in this time, expanding my skill set beyond engineering, and finding a passion for entrepreneurship that I realize was always a part of me. I have never felt more alive.

I am so grateful to advisers, mentors, and new team members that have supported this company, and a very timely update to our team page was just pushed live yesterday featuring then entire RunMyErrand Crew, including our CIO – Kobe. A celebratory margarita will be made in the Busque house tonight – here’s to the next 2 years …

Over the weekend Kobe had a lovely little run-in with monsieur skunk.  It was the first time in his (almost) 9 years of life that he’s gotten sprayed, and you have to imagine that we were quite surprised living in the city that this could happen here.  That being said, we do live in this funky little burrow that is rampant with wild life such as raccoons, hawks, birds, and squirrels.  Anyway, as soon as he walked in from his pre-bedtime outing, the odor was overwhelming.  We immediately threw him into the tub and scoured the house for tomato juice to pour over him.  Instead of tomato juice, all I could find was New England’s Best Bloody Mary Mix, homemade marinara sauce, and Ragu Traditional Old World Style spaghetti sauce.  Not really the ideal trinity of deodorizing products.  We dumped what we could onto his coat, but that skunk odor is just terrible to alleviate.  Not to mention suffocating when you are trapped in a small bathroom, with a wet dog, and hot, steamy, skunky water.

Someone recommended a product called "Skunk-Off", but I wasn’t sure where to get it, as I didn’t have any luck finding it at Petco or Target.  Thank goodness RUNmyERRAND Runner Nicholas M. was up for the task!  Fingers crossed that this will do the trick!

I mentioned in the original Charlestown Patriot Bridge article, that the idea for RUNmyERRAND came when we were out of dog food one night and were our way out to dinner at Masa in the South End.  We had already called a cab, so there was no way to run out quickly before the cab came, and there was also no way we could let the big meat head go starving, even for one night.  We bounced around ideas to get dog food … calling a neighbor and borrowing a cup, asking the cab to stop on the way home, but none of these seemed ideal.  That is when Remy was born …

"If we offered the right price … there has to be someone out there that would purchase the dog food, and leave it at our door, so Kobe can eat when we get home later".

Solving this very problem, RUNmyERRAND welcomes Polka Dog Bakery in the South End as one of our newest "Biz Senders"!  Now you can get your dog and cat food, treats, and other delicious polkadogbakery goodies delivered right to your door. Call the retail store to arrange delivery: 617.338.5155.  This is perfect for someone who buys their dog food from Polka Dog, but can’t always get over there before they run out.  With a quick phone call, you can have dog food waiting for your little meat head, and avoid this major conundrum!  We did a test run last week, and sent Kobe an early Christmas present from the Polka Dog Store:

For the third summer in a row, we spent last weekend at Lake Winnipesaukee, with friends.  Its become sort of a mini tradition for us.  We always have a great time, but no one has a better time than Kobe …

It is a nightmare to keep him OUT of the water.  Its just not possible.  He such such a water dog … a better swimmer than I am for sure!  He would wake us up at 7:00am each morning, with a quiet whine, as if to say … can we get up and go swimming already?!!

It is almost sad when we have to take him home at the end of the weekend.  His walks with the dog walker, boat days on the harbor, and play groups at the park, are obviously not enough.  We are completely depriving him of what he was meant to be …. a lake dog.

Maybe someday … Kobe.  Until then, you’re just going to have hang in there and enjoy the city dog life!

The more they stay the same!  It was a slow start today with the new project.  I’ll still be working from home for the majority of my time, so I still rolled out of bed to the same home office across the hall.  It didn’t feel very different right away, so I decided to get really crazy, and change things up a bit.  First, I moved my monitor from one side of the desk over to the other.  Next, I erased my white board, and cleaned out my bookshelf.  These actions did actually help to differentiate things a bit.  One obvious difference, is no more T42 Thinkpad glaring at me, and no more interactions with PCs in general!!  Hooray for that!  I am running an exclusive MAC shop, with my Mini and Mac Book vying for my attention.  So far I’m a slave to the Mini, while I get SVN and Amazon EC2 set up for use with Rails.  Once that is done, I’ll be able to work mobile on the Mac Book.

Kobe is still king of the kingdom … nothing has changed there … although he is *not happy* his name is Kobe, with the NBA finals season in full swing!

A college mathematics professor, Tim Pennings, observed that his dog, Elvis, can instinctively perform difficult calculus based calculations …

When Pennings throws a stick from land into Lake Michigan, Elvis doesn’t make a beeline. The 7-year-old Welsh Corgi runs in angles, instinctively calculating how far to travel on land before hitting the water.

They are the same angles Pennings would plot if figuring out the optimal route mathematically.

"The dog has an instinct for calculus," Pennings said. "The ultimate in esoteric mathematics hits everyday life."

If a Welsh Corgi can do it, just imagine was a giant yellow lab could do?!  Actually, now that I give it some thought, I’m pretty sure Kobe’s calculations would end up with: "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line", which is also calculus, but maybe not as advanced as Elivs’.

Link: http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-35/117570407552390.xml&coll=6