The most Valuable .5%

With my one year anniversary coming up next week its fun to think back on all of the events that have gotten me to where I am today. Its been a great year, with out a doubt the best year of my life. Some say marriage is tough and hard... maybe they were talking about year two? This week Dane and I had an opportunity to meet with one of the biggest Venture Capital firms in Houston that deals in our space of IT. Of all of the business meetings that we've had this one was our best. Our confidence and security of our idea were key to how great the meeting went. We have a really great direction with our company that is so exciting even the Venture Capitalist said "I believe you will have a venture backable company" and "I really like what you two are up to, and think you are headed in some interesting directions." This was great validation of what we already knew was a great idea. We still have mountains of work to get done before we can really be fundable, but we are closer than ever to the promised land and out of the wiggles of false hope.

A year and a half ago I found myself working all day everyday on my company, thousands of miles away from the girl I loved and with almost no money to my name. This was a very hard situation to be in. Around this time my company got its first paying gig doing some contract work for a local company. This was not a lot of money for our poor little bootstrapped company, but it was a start. So here I was stuck. If went and tried to make some money outside of my company, I would lose most of my company because of strict rules in our operating agreement. If I kept with the company I wouldn't make any money so I couldn't do what I wanted to do so bad, which was propose to Jessi. So I did the only thing I could do, I sold a part of a percent of my company to my partner and his wife to be able to take a little cash out from our earnings on the contract work we had just completed. With that money I was able to buy a ring and a plane ticket back to Utah to propose to the girl of my dreams. Now in the likely event that my company does get funded and Venture backed many would say that was a really dumb move on my part. Even at a really bad evaluation on a round A of financing that part of a percent would be worth 10's of thousands of dollars. And there are some who would hold on to that, because that's what matters most to them. 

Two nights ago Jessi and I went on a date to the Temple...

 It is so clear when you are there what really matters most. There is no way that any event in this life would ever make me regret that decision. Looking back through the eternities are we going to be upset about the loss of a little wealth, or are we going to rejoice in plan of salvation and the sealing power in the Temple that binds us together for all eternity? If on some future exit event someone were to say to say to me, "that .5% sure was worth a lot", I would argue it was priceless. It enabled me to do that which is most important in this life... marry the right person, in the right place, by the right authority. I look forward to an eternity of happiness with the most beautiful girl in the world. 

Condolences and Car Trouble... and Hicks

Tuesday- Car Trouble

Well, actually we had trouble Monday also. But the real trouble started Tuesday. Monday after going to the gym our car wouldn't start. We figured by some quirk the battery had died and asked our friend Dane to come jump us. After he was half way there Lewis said, "I wish this car would just start!" and he turned the key. And the car turned on. It was a miracle. We started it four more times that night and it started just fine. Tuesday morning I left our apartment about 10 minutes after Lewis had gone to work. Again, the car wouldn't start. The roadside assistance guy that came to jump the car couldn't get it started and told me there was nothing wrong with my battery. I didn't get to go to work that day. But I got a lot done at the apartment, and even had time to experiment a little with glass cutting! All I did was get a string, dip it in wax, tie it around the middle of a glass coke jar, and light it on fire. If I had thought it would work, I probably wouldn't have done all of this in our bathtub. After it burned a good little bit, I turned on the water and the top broke off! I admired my work, and then cleaned the bathtub Really well. 

When Lewis got home he poked around the car for a while and then decided to jump it just for kicks. Guess what? It started. We drove to Wal-Mart and got a new battery thinking that would solve our problem. I got to work just fine the next day, but after work I went to the gas station and it would not start again. We gave in and finally paid a guy to replace our starter. It's so painful to get the quote for how much it would cost just to get our car working again and imagine all of the things we could do with that money instead. It took four hours for him to fix the car, and we spent the majority of that time at Hobby Lobby. Words can't do justice to the wonders of that store, so here are a few pictures. 

Friday we woke up to the news about the shooting that happened at the midnight showing of The rise of the Dark Knight in Aurora, Colorado. It was really sad to follow the story all day as more and more information was released. I think in the end 12 people were killed and over 70 total injured. It's interesting to reflect on the human mind and wonder what would cause a person to do something like that. And also to watch how society reacts to a tragedy like this. Some people are saying we need stricter gun laws, other people are saying we need more citizens bearing arms. I think we like to try to point fingers at one cause or another, just so we feel like we have some sort of control over the situation. My thoughts are that if everyone just strived to be the best parent, sibling, friend, neighbor, coworker, and stranger they could be, we would see a big change in this world. Maybe some things like this just couldn't be predicted or prevented, but I know I'll try harder from now on not to take the people I love in this life for granted.

Later on Friday Lewis took me to see the giraffe that had just been born at the zoo. It's pretty elusive for a newborn, because we didn't see it that day Or when we went back on Sunday. 

We spent the better part of Saturday in Galveston celebrating Chris's birthday. We had a BBQ with carne asada, guacamole, and grilled pineapple. Later that night we went to an Imax theatre in Galveston to watch the Batman movie. I did feel a little guilty going after everything that happened, but we had been planning this for a few weeks. I will say honestly that the shooting probably effected how I watched the movie and as a result, I didn't like it. 

Sunday evening we decided to go to the zoo again. It cooled off a little and there was a breeze blowing so it was bearable to be outside. The first thing we always do when we go to the zoo is check on the red panda to see if it is mobile. Usually it's snoozing in a tree and is kind of boring to look at. Today it decided to wake up and take a little walk around its habitat. We heard the Funniest conversation that day. This family came up behind us. The dad was about my height, wore cutoff jeans and had a dirty, sleeveless t-shirt that he had pulled up around his chest (either because he was hot, or to show off his beer belly) and a cowboy hat. The son was about 16 or 17 with bright red hair and was dressed, well, like a redneck. I didn't see the mom, because I was afraid if I tuned around to stare at them I would start laughing. Here's how it went, and imagine hearing this in the most southern hick accent ever...

Son- This ain't a panda! This AINT a panda! It looks like a... It aint a Panda! 

Mom- It IS a panda it says so right on this sign! (raps repeatedly on the sign) Says its a red panda. 

Son- Well I wanna see a black and white panda. Not a red panda. Where's the black and white panda?

Mom- Black and white pandas are in australia. You think your going to go all the way to Australia to see a black and white panda?

Son- Yeah I will! 

Mom- You know how much that's going to cost?

Dad chimes in- They say panda's are native to North America, but I have Never known a red panda to be native to North America. They're just not. 

(I don't know who is saying that panda's are native to North America... but I'm pretty sure that they are found only in remote areas in China. That kid is going to be so disappointed when he gets to Australia and can't find any pandas :)

After the zoo we decided to take a walk around the lake in Herman Park. At one point we stopped while I tried to get a picture of all the turtles swimming around in the lake and Lewis grabs me and says, That kid is killing a bird! 

This kid who looked like he was about 7 had caught a pigeon, and had a wing in both hands and was just shaking the poor bird. I wasn't sure if I should yell at him, or go smack him. I looked around for his mother and saw her sitting on a bench a few feet away, with this little smile on her face like, Oh! my child is so adorable. The kid threw the bird at another kid and the bird had enough sense to flutter away. Did the mom not think he could hurt the bird? and even if she was Cruella DeVille and just didn't care, doesn't she know how dirty birds are?! Especially pigeons?! We had barely recovered from that when we saw the craziest thing ever. Two huge muskrats were out of the water hanging out around this group of people, and there were four more smaller ones in the water close by. In the water they look kinda cute, but on land they looked nasty. One of them was about three feet long, with huge yellow front teeth, like a mole or something. While we were watching we saw one mother put a tiny piece of bread in the hand of her three year old and held it out to the muskrat. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE?! Are you naive? or just dumb? Later as we were talking to our neighbors about our walk they said, "Oh on one side of the lake there is is family of otters that will get out of the water and let you feed them! It's so cool!" I showed them a picture I took and asked if that was the "otter" they fed. Sure nuf, it was. "That's actually a muskrat." I said. They weren't convinced. "Well, somebody there told us it was an otter. Maybe otter and muskrat are two names for the same thing."

Otter... So not the same as a muskrat.

So... I'm not sure if they only teach you what muskrats are if you grow up in the Rockies, or if these people just have never flipped over to animal planet in their lifetime. 

 As we finished our lap of the lake we sat on the steps by the water and watched a couple of young men sparring with padded pvc pipe swords and spears. I had a flashback to when my brothers and their friends made padded weapons and beat the crap out of each other in our front yard. It's good to know you can find the same small town hobby in downtown Houston. :)

Dear apple, we're through

Is the world losing its love affair with apple? I pride myself in being slightly ahead on tech trends, and if that stays true then I think this is the beginning of the end of the iphone's reign as best smart phone. You can only stay in an abuse relationship for so long. At some point you wake up and realize that the abusive cycles and tactics just keep going and going and you have to man up and break it off. You see, I had the first iPhone, and I remember everyone saying "why doesn't it have 3g or a better camera or a long list of other features that were standard on other smart phones at that time?" I rationalized these thoughts away in the cool design and touch screen. I thought, well, you can't have it all. And that has become Apple's motto, "you can't have it all". So when the next iPhone came out, I had little choice but to upgrade, every other smart phone already had 3g and I was tired of the slow internet speed on my phone. But Apple stayed true to its motto and left out a long list of features to make sure that in a year you were so far behind other phones that you would once again be forced to upgrade. So a year later I forked out for the 3gs. Now this was a sweet phone, it took nice video and had faster internet and was just faster all around. But they left out the front facing camera and the one camera it did have was still at 3 megapixels, far behind that of other phones. And all of the while I'm paying much more for service than I would have to pay for any other phone because Apple just had their way with AT&T. I was pretty happy with the 3gs, and I used it for 2 years, then upgraded to the 4s on sprint. And anyone that has ever used the iPhone 4s on sprint knows how crappy it is. Apple once again tricked me... every other phone on the market had 4g internet when the 4s came out, but Apple wanted to make sure that once again, in a year my phone would be far behind. This time I was done. I sold my iPhone and got a 4g LTE EVO and now I am out of the cycle of abuse and loving life again. I have crazy fast internet (I've reached 15Mbps at home) and without having to wait on pins and needles for the next hack like I had to with iphone I can just use my phone the way I want to, not the way apple wants me to. This last weekend when Jessi saw how awesome my phone was with its big screen and super fast internet she caved too. Now the 4s was Jessi's first smart phone. She loved it so much. This was a really hard decision for her, but after one day with her Samsung Galaxy S3 she had a very telling dream. In her dream she was writing a "dear john" letter to Apple, and it went like this:

Dear Apple,

We're through. I'm fed up with your over controlling attitude and slow internet. I loved all of my apps, but I found them all again in the android market. I can't take another day wondering what I did wrong to be stuck here waiting for my maps to load to get directions while all of those around me speed on by with their faster phones. I'm tired of feeling like this was my fault, like it was something that I did. Now I know it was you. I'm better off with someone else. 

This was one crazy week. Wednesday was the 4th of July. Lewis and I made plans to drive down to Galveston to visit our friends Chris and Cameryn. It was a day full of swimming in the pool and the ocean, amazing BBQ, and fireworks on the beach!

It was a little hard to get up the next morning to go to work, but it was worth it!
When we were hanging out with Chris and Cameryn, we were very impressed by their camera. And probably a little jealous... Since we got married we have been to some amazing places and seen some amazing things. It's just hard to capture the true magnificence of a moment with the iphone camera or a  little point and shoot. The next day Lewis came home from work and said he wanted to buy a camera. By that night we were in the parking lot at Best Buy admiring our new toy.

Friday we cuddled up and watched He's Just Not that into You. I LOVE that movie! I swear all young girls should be required to watch this movie as part of their transition into adolescence and later adulthood, so they can see how NOT to act with boys.
Saturday we finally got around to hanging some pictures in our apartment. I have some major committal issues when it comes to pounding holes in my wall. What if tomorrow I decide I hate that picture there? What if by the time I am done with it our wall looks like swiss cheese, AND I still cant decide exactly where I want the pictures to go? Lewis was awesome and helped me work through my little quirk. Now I finally feel like our little apartment a home!
Later that day Chris and Cameryn came up to hang with us in Houston. We went to the zoo (with our nice, touristy cameras around our necks) and had a great time trying to see as many animals as possible before the huge storm hit! We beat it, just barely as the first raindrops hit our car as we pulled out of the parking lot.

We had dinner at my favorite restaurant, Maggianos, and after that we got the movie 21 Jump Street from Redbox and watched it in our apartment.
Sunday we drove over to Hermann Park after church to take some pictures since our power was out because of the storm that morning. Neither of us are professional photographers (although on a scale Lewis would be much higher than me!) but we managed to get some pictures that I am really proud of! A little more practice and we are going to be able to get the settings mostly right when we go on vacation in August!

Jessi loves to dance

 




This last weekend we decided to go dancing. We didn't make the decision until we were already on our way to City Center to listen to some band play. We always talked about going out and finding a cool club to dance at once Jessi was 21, and that day had come. We were a little nervous and we didn't have any clue where to start so we got on Yelp and started looking for places to dance in the Montrose area. At about 11:00 PM we pulled up and parked in a neighborhood just off of the main road. We were looking for a place called "Boondocks", but when we walked back to the intersection where Boondocks was suppose to be, we found like 4 bars/clubs. Unsure which one was which, we just decided to try them all. The streets were packed with people and we could hear a lot of music playing, so we thought we must have been at the right place. The first place we went too ended up just being a bar. We walked all the way through the place looking to see if there was dancing in the back but all we found were bathrooms. Which was lucky, because we both needed to use them. The funny thing was they had two women's bathrooms and only one men's. I remember this being a huge conversational topic of people as they made their way back to use the restrooms. We left that place and crossed the street and found "Boondocks". I was a little upset they made up pay like $3 to get in, but it did sound like there was for sure some dancing going on. We got in (and this was the first night Jessi had ever been carded) and went upstairs to the dance floor. Needles to say, there was no dancing. The music was really bad and everyone was just standing around... Well, this story could get really long... so I'm just going to speed things up a little. We crossed the street again and went to a different club, this one was free, and people inside were really dancing. But it was a very strange place. Most people inside were very overweight and the music was some kind of German industrial techno with projectors showing music videos that will haunt our memories for years. So we left that place and went back to Boondocks to see if the music improved and people started to dance. This too was a waist of time so we walked back to our car. When we got in the car a police officer drove up next to me and asked me to roll down my window. The nice lady cop informed me that my car would be towed if I left it there... good thing I was leaving. We decided to try our luck in midtown. We found the highest rated place in midtown and went over. This place had awesome music. But still no dancing. About to give up for the night, I decided to ask some locals where we should go. They told us to walk up the street a little ways to the drinkery. So we did. When we got there we saw that there were about 3-4 clubs/bars on this corner as well. Then we noticed people waiting in line to get into this place called "The Red Door". We thought if its good enough that people are willing to wait in line then we should give it a try. The line went pretty fast and before we knew it we were dancing the night away on a really nice dance floor with really sweet music with a lot of really fun people. The night was a success.