About nine days ago, I refocused my weight losing energy, reset my goals, and created a mountain of a goal in trying to climb a 14er the weekend after my birthday. What an interesting experiment! I decided that the way to continually be motivated was to force success or failure. So, I eliminated all track of my progress. I told myself that I had lost ZERO pounds, and set the goal to lose 20-30 pounds by the time I was ready to climb the 14er.

I bought the book, Fat Smash after seeing the diet work for a bunch of various people on television. (Yes, I saw the Tyra Banks episode where Dr. Ian Smith showed the success of his diet) I committed to it. The first phase of this diet is a “detox” where one eats mostly fruits and vegetables, some good carbs and fiber. No meat, no cheese, and the hardest thing, no coffee. The first three days sucked, but by day four I had all my energy back, and the diet really wasnt that hard.

In addition, my trainer Heath, gave me the following workout for the week:

3.5 continuous mile this week and a half mile more each week.

To work on elevation gain you will be working the step mill & treadmill with elevation. Each one to three times per week.

8/6 Monday - treadmill 20 min & stepmill 5 minutes.
8/7 Tuesday - treadmill routine with .5 elevation added throughout routine.
8/8 Wednesday - easy bike routine
8/9 Thursday - Stepmill 10minutes & treadmill 20 minutes
8/10 Friday - other treadmill routine with 1% elevation added throughout routine.

AN hour walk/hike on the weekend.

So how did I do? I lost 10.4 pounds in the last week! And on Monday of this week, I completed 60 minutes on the treadmill, with a pretty tough incline, finishing just over 4 miles! I am very proud of myself, but I know that its just the beginning. I need to continue to force failure or success to keep my motivation up.

While the success of the week certainly gets me excited; I know that for me, I need to have a failure, so for lunch I had a Bronx Bomber sandwich from Heidi’s Deli. I will have to overcome this failure this week. I focused back on the diet (the detox ends tomorrow, then I get coffee again! And some meat…) and am planning on another 60min on the treadmill tomorrow am, followed by another 30 minutes of weight training.

Now I am about 12 pounds from the high side of the weight I need to lose, and have about 6 weeks to go.

Here is my workout for this week:

8/13 Mon - 4 miles with routine

8/14 Tues - stepmill 15 minutes - can split time, treadmill - 20 minutes, easy.

8/15 Wed - Easy bike day

8/16 Thurs - 4.5 miles. Flat, outside

8/17 Friday - Other shorter routine with added 1% elevation

A 1.5 hr hike on weekend.

So who is coming with me on the big hike?

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To paraphase Too $hort: “So you wanna be a Startup…and all that sh*t.”

Back in February, when I sold Current Wisdom, I knew that I wanted to get back into the technology scene. But, my California bias made me believe that there was little to no startup activity in Colorado. With the money I got from the sale, I decided I would start researching startups in Colorado, and think about investment. After all, I was busy enough with trying to get/stay healthy and shepparding the transition of Current Wisdom into Indigio.

For the first two weeks after the press release went out, I was bombarded with phone calls from financial advisors, stock portfolio managers, a couple early stage companies, and several investment houses. When I was starting Current Wisdom, I begged for some of these folks to talk to me, and they all ignored every attempt I made. So, being the vindictive guy I am, I did the same thing.

Soon after selling the company, I landed a pretty big new client. One of the folks working at the new client was leaving to start a tech company. He told me he was part of a group called TechStars. I looked into the group and saw Brad Feld and Seth Levine’s names. Two of the investors in ServiceMagic, where I had worked prior to starting Current Wisdom. “Small world,” I thought to myself.

Then I remembered my buddy Danny Newman. I knew he was working on some mp3/ringtone deal, but for years Danny’s biggest challenge was focus. In many ways, I saw Danny as a younger, less good-looking version of myself. His technical knowledge is superb, and because of that, it held him back by giving him the ability to pursue any crazy idea he came up with. I, on the other hand, could only intellectualize many of my ideas, and found that since I couldnt physically work on the ideas, I was better at helping improve other people’s ideas.

I called Danny. Turns out that someone finally convinced him of the importance of focus, and PocketFuzz was running and funded. Go Danny! I spoke to him about my desire to get back into the startup scene, and he mentioned a couple of the things going on in Boulder.

So, I continued my exploration of the startup scene. My only experience with Boulder was when I first moved to Colorado and lived with my biological father, which, in the interest of shortening the story, sucked, and really soured my view of Boulder. Even so, I began to connect to the startup scene in Boulder. And what a scene it is:

• There are several investment groups in the area;
• More than a couple funded startups;
• TechStars; and
• StartupWeekend.

After growing up in Silicon Valley where it felt that everyone worked for or started a startup, it was nice to see something similar in Boulder. And, frankly, StartupWeekend, with 70 people attending and contributing in a high-level way without the loss of community, just reinvigorated me. Ideas started flowing again. I was intrigued by new technologies. I even attended a search engine marketing trade show, where I learned something!

So, I decided it was time to start networking again. I met with Todd Vernon of Lijit, David Cohen of TechStars, Brad Feld and Seth Levine of the Foundry Group, Alex King of Crowd Favorite, and many others. I have met with about 1/2 of the TechStar teams, and you will see MadKast and IntenseDebate’s technologies integrated with this blog. Oh, and this blog. I decided to learn about blogging. What a way to let the world know about you in a really non-invasive way.

And, with each person I have met–Tara Anderson of Lijit, Andrew Hyde of StartupWeekend, Jeff LeDoux (soon joining) Me.dium, Gwen Bell and Paul Salamone of PlungeArtists, Rich, Chris, Braken and Michael of Hypersites, and so many more–I have realized that the energy I have been missing was alive and well in Boulder’s startup community. I have found the right combination of community, intelligence and ambition.

So, I am exploring options. I have a couple of ideas that I am pursuing, including VoSnap, which I would very much like to see through to completion. I am still working on the transition of my company and growing that business (we have doubled since January, the sound you hear is me patting myself on my back.). But who knows what the future will bring. If all it brings is more connections with people like those I have met this year, then it will be a future that I am going to be excited to be part of.

<soapbox> Let me also say, being part of a community doesnt me just “being there.” One must participate. So, sign up for every beta, and test the product, providing feedback. Give support where you can, even if its just a blog comment (*ah hem, hint hint*). And if you must be critical, provide a critique, not a bashing. Something constructive that helps improve the focus of the critique. Success is only derived from calculated failures. Feedback and critiques allow people to see their failures and learn from them. I have been disappointed when seeing a major publication like TechCrunch report on a Boulder startup that all the comments are either from homers or haters. One can be critical and supportive at the same time, thereby increasing the value of the feedback. A community can only grow through that type of feedback loop.</soapbox>

Dear Larry (Thats what I decided to name my blog…LearntoDuck Larry):

About a month ago, I wrote a post listing the top 10 reasons I would not buy an iPhone. In fact, I wrote that post the day the iPhone came out. I was so proud, so happy that I was going to finally withstand the pull of the newest, coolest gadget. I spent the day doing other things, laughing at all the people who waiting in line for the shiny new status symbol.

Then my friends began to fall. First one got sucked into the iPhone Mafia, then another. Then people who I thought were above the iPhone frenzy were made by the Godfather, Steve Jobs. But, I was strong. I was resisting. I was reading my post to remind myself why I wasnt going to buy an iPhone. Why the iPhone mafia would just have to operate without me.

And Friday turned into Saturday. And I was still no iPhone hypocrite. I still had my dignity. I could still giggle at the lines and the shortcomings of the iPhone. But, peer pressure was whispering in my ear. “What will everyone think?” It slyly, seductively seduced me. “You ALWAYS have the latest gadget before everyone else.” Still, I resisted. “I dont need an iPhone. I cant be a hypocrite.” I swore. And Saturday passed with no iPhone.

I began to break down Saturday evening. I started reading reviews. Always a bad sign. I starting looking for hacks. REALLY bad sign. I started looking for accessories. I knew I was doomed. The iPhone Mafia was winning.

I woke up Sunday morning, and almost without thought, I clicked on my MacPro. As my screen came to life, I opened FireFox. “Stop,” I thought to myself. “Read your email first.” As Entourage took its sweet time loading, I switched back to FireFox and started reading more about the iPhone. It was really cool. As I continued to battle the iPhone Mafia, my resolve continued to weaken. “Its only $600,” I reasoned. “It’ll get your exchange email, no problem,” I justified.

“Fine! I will be a damn iPhone hypocrite! I will join the iPhone Mafia. After all, I need to be one of the cool guys at StartupWeekend. I will go at like 2pm. They will be all sold out in Cherry Creek.”

And so, my destiny as a member of the iPhone Mafia and as a certified iPhone hypocrite began. I went to Cherry Creek. “We have dozens in stock!” The ‘geniuses’ exclaimed. “4GB or 8GB?”

“8GB,” I muttered, hoping no one would see my strange mix of shame and excitement. With a swipe of my credit card, the deed was done.

“Hey, Coach! Buy that for me?” Floated up from the crowd behind me. One of the kids I coach in lacrosse was standing behind me with his parents. Clearly, the iPhone Mafia was laughing at me. “Bastards,” I grumbled. Feeling a little like Darth Vader, I said “Hi Luke [his real name], what are you doing here?” The rest of the conversation was a bit of blur. I just wanted to go home and play with my new iPrecious…I mean…iPhone.

It is now over a month since I have owned the iPhone. People have stopped coming up to me in coffee shops and stores to ask to touch and play with it. I have never got it to work with my corporate email, and will be getting a blackberry to handle that. But, I do really enjoy the phone. It does enough of what I need it to, and strangely enough, my inability to send corporate email (I can receive it), has actually made me less of an email junkie. Now I have to decide how important returning the email is because of the effort (phone call or finding a laptop) it takes.

So, I have completely joined the dark side, and now proudly proclaim my membership in the iPhone Mafia (La Costra iPhone Nostra) as the head iPhone hypocrite, and as Michael Corleone so eloquently said in Godfather Part III, “Every Time I Try to Get Out; Shiny Objects Suck Me Back In!” (maybe I’m paraphrasing.)