E-pals and Microsoft Do a Deal

E-pals which is founded by my good friend Miles Gilburne, did a big strategic deal with Microsoft. Great news indeed. Check it out here.

E-pals is another example of a double bottom line business.

Miles and I are great friends. We both worked together at AOL. Miles and his wife Nina started this business and lead it today. Many close friends such as Steve Case and his wife Jean also invested in the business. I have also made a small investment in the business along with my wife.

And Miles is also an investor in Snagfilms. And Snagfilms and E-pals do business together.

And Miles and Steve and I have invested and are involved in Clearspring Technologies, too. Steve Case is also an investor in Snagfilms, along with his wife, Jean.

And all three of us are involved in and investors in Venture Philanthropy Partners.Synergy. Keretsui. Deep friendships. Deep belief in double bottom line businesses. Go Miles Go! Read more about E-pals here.

Kudos to Mike Green

Mike is yet again a finalist for the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best D man. He was also a finalist last season and he was a first team All Star last year as well.

Mike doesn’t care about individual honors right now. He only cares about our team, his team mates, and tonight’s game.

I am happy for Mike and I think he deserves this nomination. I also believe he should win the award.

Click here for the news release.

Someone’s Viet Nam

A friend of mine recently sent me an AOL T shirt from 1994 and it read,” Online Services will be Microsoft’s Viet Nam”…Ted Leonsis.

I gasped.

I chuckled at my own bravado.

Did I really say that?

Did someone really make T shirts and hand them out to all employees on the AOL campus?

Yes and yes.

Check out this article.

A $3 billion loss for the year. Can this be?

It is the middle of 2010. How many more tanks must be sent into battle? How many more lives must be lost?

Peace with honor?

Yikes.

In the News

Volcanoes are earth’s hot engine. Life changing and airplane hating.

Watch “Nature’s Inferno” on Snagfilms.com this weekend. Learn about the sun and the core. The two fires that power our eco system and life itself.

Very timely in the news.

Respect the Work

We always need to respect the process and respect the opponent. We can’t have expectations. We need to do the work.

Did anyone expect the Flyers to win in 5 games against the Devils? They played the series one game at a time, shorthanded with many injuries and they won. They did the work.

Did anyone expect Ottawa to win a thriller last night in Pittsburgh in 3 OT’s to force a game 6 back in Ottawa? The Senators have pride and played tough. They did what was necessary.

Every series is demanding in the NHL playoffs.

Montreal is a great team and a historic franchise.

We respect them. We respect their fans. We respect the process and expect them to come out and play like champions tonight.

We must be prepared. They will be well prepared. We can’t make predictions. We have to do the work.

I hate getting a team out of its routine by NOT arriving til 5:00 am yesterday morning. We canceled practice and gave the team a day of rest to recoup and get some healing sleep.

We shall see tonight if that change was a positive or a negative for us.

I hope to see you all in Red tonight. I hope to see you all in loud and proud mode.

I hope to see you all before the drop of the puck cheering positively for both national anthems tonight…

GO Caps! Let us all show respect. Show pride and do the work. Miles to go before we sleep…miles to go.

In Montreal

We sit in a suite that is high up for playoff games in the rafters. You can almost touch all of the retired player’s banners and the Stanley Cup Championship banners too. And wow there are a lot of them. Very impressive. Very historic.

One of the folks sitting next to us in a neighboring suite would constantly call to me. And when he got my attention after we scored a goal, he would make eye contact and then point up to the banners as if to say, “Look what we have. What do you have?” Point taken.

I did note to him that I was surprised to see so many fans leaving with 5 minutes to go and they only being down two goals. I thought that was not showing support to the team. So he said, “Yes but we are an impatient lot. We enjoy our hockey and we wish you the best. Very classy and a fun kind of trash talk.

See this article on Montreal and its history and its perceived birthrights.