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A dream come true . . .

I think one of the keys to happiness is to be thankful for what we already have.  I travel a lot and sometimes I forget what a privilege it is, even with the increased security and crowded flights.

Here is a video about a guy in Deli, India, who bought a retired Airbus A300 and put it in his yard so kids can achieve their dream of sitting in an airplane.  The video reports that 99% of Indians have never boarded an airplane, and that hundreds visit the plane every week.  Think about that next time you fly and see if you don't feel a little bit better about your life.

Mr. Gupta, I'm sure you are inspiring a lot of future engineers and airline pilots.  Well done!

Tom Keller is blogging

My friend Tom Keller is blogging, and I know this because he asked if I was responsible for a quote that he wanted to use in his most recent post.  Years ago I said something like "building a business is a marathon, not a sprint."  Now I realize it is a series of marathons, and that perspective has helped me stay in the race.  Lots of entrepreneurs that I've met over the years, especially during the dot com bubble, quit after a year or two because they just couldn't keep sprinting.  I still sprint when I need to, but you can't sprint the whole marathon and expect to finish.  Check out Tom's post on keeping your work life balanced.

Tom wrote another post on "The Significance of Voluntary Transactions."  I love thinking about economics and how they make the world go 'round.  Tom takes on "Fair Trade Coffee" and "Sweat Shop Labor" and explains the economic view of them very well.  I hope Tom writes more along these lines and gives some ideas about how to make the world a better place, while working within the laws of economics.

My first email from Antarctica

On Thursday I received my very first email from Antarctica, and I was forwarded a voicemail from Antarctica as well.

John Weller, one of the driving forces behind the Last Ocean Project is on a ship in Antarctica where he's on board a Russian ice breaker for the next 25 days.  I've posted his most recent updates at Lastocean.org.

Is it just me, or are there penguins everywhere?  Ever since I met John and saw his amazing photographs of Antarctica, I've been noticing just how many penguins there are on greeting cards, advertisements, and as toys.  See if you don't start noticing all the penguins around you now!

Colorado Life Sciences

Adam Rubenstein emailed me last week to say that the Colorado BioWest Conference is going to be using TechStar's graduate EventVue's platform for their upcoming event.  (Congratulations guys!)

If you have any interest in the business of life sciences, check out Adam's blog Colorado Life Science Deal Flow.

More Kindle Books

I'm still loving the Kindle, Amazon.com's new ebook reader.  I've read four full-length books on it now and except for reference books I think it's better than paper.  I just checked to see how many books are available in the Kindle format and was really surprised.  The last time I checked a week or so ago, I'm pretty sure there were less than 10,000 books.  Now there are 93,756!  I also just read that the first third-party books are available.   Even 100,000 is a small fraction of the books in print, but it's more than enough to keep me busy.

Last Ocean Project update

John Weller left the Falkland Islands this morning on a Russian icebreaker, bound for a 38 day trip to Antarctica.  I've updated the Lastocean.org blog for John, and I'm expecting frequent updates and the occasional photo during the trip.  I wrote about the Last Ocean project in my post, One last place we haven't screwed up.

John's been camping within walking distance of four penguin colonies on Saunders Island for the last 12 days.  He called me yesterday to give me an update and he's very excited.  I'm still amazed at how quickly our world of telecommunications has advanced.  The call sounded as if John was next door, though there was a slight delay and it did cost $4 a minute.  He also said (after his first phone card ran out) that it took him fifteen minutes to get an outside line, but it's still amazing that it's even possible.  He also emailed me a couple of photos from an Internet cafe.  Shackleton wouldn't know what to think about all of this.

In my update on the Last Ocean blog, I mentioned my good friend Herb Morreale and his new blog about Domino Theory.  Check it out.  This is something Herb's been working on for years and once you get the idea, you'll be seeing Dominoes everywhere and wanting to be one yourself.

Here is another of John's photos - I can't wait to see the new portfolio.  Photographs are copyright John Weller, 2007.