OK  – so if I did not just go through the college thing, and know people with young kids struggling to get them into a good pre-school, this would be funny.   Fact is, it is sad that this type of situation exists.  If we can send people to the moon, as a society, we should be able to offer outstanding education and schools to everyone (from pre-school to college). Monday, February 12, 2007 Wall Street Journal: London Parents Scramble for Edge In Preschool Wars By CECILIE ROHWEDDER LONDON — To get her son into elementary school at age 4, Emma Pliner signed him up at birth. When she went into labor, she took the application forms with her to the hospital. "I filled in the forms with an epidural in my back," she says. Then, as Ms. Pliner delivered a healthy baby boy, a courier delivered the paperwork to several elementary schools. The early effort paid off: Little Charlie was accepted at several schools, including Wetherby, the school Prince William attended. London, like Manhattan, is one of the most extreme examples for preschool admissions mania. At nearly all private schools here, parents must apply as soon as children are born. Some schools grant spots on the basis of those applications. At others, applying at birth might merely win a chance for a child to interview and test for admission when he or she is ready for elementary school at four. Parents who don’t apply early or who move to London with a small child are often out of luck. Competition is increasingly intense here amid an influx of wealthy parents who work in banking, hedge funds and other financial businesses. Rich foreigners from Russia, India, the Mideast, and Hong Kong are drawn to London because it doesn’t tax income earned outside the United Kingdom. As more American banks add to their operations here, their families are adding to the throng. At Wetherby, the boys school near Hyde Park, head teacher Jenny Aviss advises women scheduling Caesarean sections to have them early in the month in order to secure one of five places that the school allots to newborns each month. "If you have the option, don’t wait until the 31st, have it on the first and call on the second," she says. At Wetherby’s sister school next door, the Pembridge Hall school for girls, headmistress Elizabeth Marsden says one parent called the school twice a day for six months. Another sent flowers every week. One woman refused to leave the building until her child was given a place. She had to be removed by the police. Ms. Marsden says none of these efforts helped secure a spot at the school, whose tuition is $22,820 a year. To get her daughter, Charlotte, into nearby Norland Place School, Annette Benigni submitted forms when Charlotte was 7 months old and started calling the school when Charlotte was 3 and on the waiting list. "I called the school like a madwoman," says Ms. Benigni. Charlotte was accepted. ‘Polite Harassment’  Norland Place bursar Ian Justham, who fields most of the calls from parents, says the school encourages "polite harassment." He tells families they may phone as often as they want, provided the calls are cordial, but he insists there is no connection between the number of phone calls and a child’s ranking on the admissions list.  "It’s mainly to give people reassurance," he says.  Parents Katy and Rob Forshaw sent Mr. Justham a vacation postcard from Australia. "Here is a piece of polite harassment from far away," it said. Their son, Cassius, was admitted from the waiting list just before school started last September.  A lot of British children aren’t in this rug-rat race. Children enter schools at age 5, when compulsory schooling starts. More than 90% of children in Britain attend schools that are run by the state and don’t charge tuition. Many London schools have required registration at a child’s birth since their founding in the 19th century. Most say that such a first-come, first-served system remains the fairest and most practical approach. More Pressure  At one popular private nursery, the Broadhurst School, mothers sign up even before their babies are born. Headmistress Deirdre Berkery recently got a call from a woman who was five weeks’ pregnant. "Every year, there seems to be more pressure for places," says Ms. Berkery, whose school is fully booked until January 2010. It has 500 names on the waiting list. Mother of two Natalie Richenberg registered both her daughters at Broadhurst when she learned she was pregnant. Lela Bristol, a lawyer currently at home with two children, was too late for Pembridge Hall because she called when her daughter, Xenia, was 3 months old. She also missed a place at a nearby school that selects students by lot. The Bristols are now planning to send Xenia to state school. "I was hit with anxiety because I was worried that I was ruining her future," Ms. Bristol says. "We’re taking a risk sending her to [state] school." Thomas’s London Day Schools, a group of four elementary schools and two nurseries, require parents to register their children soon after birth, and then test them at the age of 3 or 4. Children must write their names, do puzzles and draw pictures as part of assessments. Group principal Ben Thomas says the schools look for confidence, willingness to tackle new tasks and ability to grapple with new environments. Mr. Thomas discourages parents from tutoring their offspring for the assessments but acknowledges that some do anyway. Acceptance and rejection letters are mailed out in February. Last year, Clelia Vercueil, then 3, refused to cooperate with the assessment. Clelia, who speaks Italian as a second language, "simply said ‘no’ to everything," recalls her mother, Ilaria Vercueil. Clelia didn’t make the cut, but she was accepted at two of the other five schools her parents applied to.

Addicted to L-U-V By NORA EPHRON Published: May 13, 2007 ABOUT three years ago, I stumbled onto something called Scrabble Blitz. It was a four-minute version of Scrabble solitaire, on a Web site called Games.com, and I began playing it without a clue that within 24 hours — I am not exaggerating — it would fry my brain. I’m no stranger to this sort of thing: one summer when I was young, I became so addicted to croquet that I had a series of recurrent dreams in which I was whacking my mother’s head through a wicket. The same sort of thing happened with Scrabble Blitz, although my mother, who has been dead for many years, was left out of it. I began having Scrabble dreams in which people turned into letter tiles that danced madly about. I tuned out on conversations and instead thought about how many letters there were in the name of the person I wasn’t listening to. I fell asleep memorizing the two- and three-letter words that distinguish those of us who are hooked on Scrabble from those of you who aren’t. For instance, while you were not paying attention to Scrabble, the following have become words in the Scrabble dictionary: ka, qi and za. Don’t ask me what they mean, but my guess is that in the tradition of all such things, they are Indonesian coins. Luv is also a word, by the way, as is suq. Remember that ad — “This is your brain … This is your brain on drugs”? That was me. My brain turned to cheese. I could feel it happening. It was clear that I was becoming more and more scattered, more distracted, more unfocused; I was exhibiting all the symptoms of terminal attention deficit disorder; I was turning into a teenage boy. I instantly became an expert on how the Internet could alter your brain in a permanent way, especially if you were a teenage boy, and I offered my opinions on this subject at all sorts of places, where, as I recall, no one was particularly interested. The Scrabble Blitz site was full of other deranged Scrabble Blitzers, who dealt with their addiction by writing comments about it in the Web site’s chat room during the two-minute break between games, the two-minute break being a perfect time to log off and stop playing Scrabble Blitz for good but you didn’t because you were totally hooked and besides you were only going to play one more game, or maybe two. The comments consisted of things like: “I’m an addict, lol” and “I can’t stop playing this ha ha.” My contempt for these comments led me to think I was somehow different from the people who wrote them, but the truth is I wasn’t — I was exactly like them except for the lol’s and the ha ha’s, and even I have used an lol and a ha ha from time to time, though not in a chat room, and most of the time, I hope, ironically. (But to be perfectly honest, not every time.) The game of Scrabble Blitz eventually became too much for the Web site. Lag was a huge problem. From time to time, the Scrabble Blitz area would shut down for days, and when it returned, so did all the addicts, full of comments about how they had barely withstood life without the game. I began to get carpal tunnel syndrome from playing. I’m not kidding. I realized I was going to have to kick the habit. I thought about kicking the habit. I promised myself I would. After one more game. After one more day. After one more week. And then, one day, out of the blue, I was saved by what’s known in the insurance business as an act of God: Games.com shut down Scrabble Blitz. And that was that. It was gone. I went back to online Scrabble, a mild and soporific version of the game. I restricted myself to two games a day — no more. I wandered from one Scrabble Web site to another — there are several — and recently found my way to a place called Scrabulous.com. I’ve been playing there for just over 50 days — I know because I recently received a congratulatory e-mail message from “The Scrabulous Team” on the occasion of my 100th game. It crossed my mind when I got the message that even two games a day was too much. But it didn’t stop me from playing: my habit was under control. But the other week, I had a major setback. I went onto the Scrabulous site to play my customary two games, and to my amazement, right there on the entry page, was a chance to play Scrabble Blitz. Only it wasn’t called Scrabble Blitz. It was called Blitz Scrabble. It was back. It was working perfectly. And not only was it back, so were all the people I used to play with, all of them making their sad little jokes about being addicted to the game, followed by lol or ha ha and even an occasional :). I decided to play just one game, or maybe two. An hour later, I was still there. My heart was racing. My brain was once again turning to cheese. I was hooked. It’s now been several days — several days when I’ve either been playing Scrabble Blitz or thinking about playing Scrabble Blitz. Several days that ended with tiles dancing through my head as I fell asleep. Several days of turning into a teenage boy again. Last night I had dinner with my husband, and while he was talking about George Tenet, I was thinking about the letter X. I was thinking, hex, lex, rex, xi, xu, exude. My husband moved on to talk about Iraq, and I moved on to Q: qat, qaid, qua, quae. There’s only one solution: I have to stop. If I can’t do it by simple will-power, I may have to go to the Parental Controls page on my computer — I’m sure there is one — and put Scrabulous.com on the Don’t Go There list, or whatever it’s called. So goodbye. I’m going. I am definitely going. Any minute now.  But first, I’m going to play my last game of Scrabble Blitz. Nora Ephron, the author, most recently, of “I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman,” is a contributing columnist for The Times.

Well written and worth considering.   I have passed on to the CEOs of the Board I serve on. I’ve been writing about boards of directors some lately – both changing my behavior as well as thinking out loud as I explore reinventing how boards work for the book “Startup Boards” that I’m working on with Mahendra Ramsinghani. All fit in the context of continuous communications as I believe three things about early stage companies and their boards. 1. Board members should be actively engaged with the company on a continuous / real time basis. 2. Existing board meeting dynamics are often an artifact of how they’ve been done for the past 30 years. 3. The way most board meetings are currently conducted is a waste of time for management, significantly inefficient, and generally ineffective. One of the very simple tactical things I’m shifting to is a totally different board rhythm. Historically, many of the companies I’m involved in have been on a board rhythm of meetings every four to six weeks. As they become more mature, these board meetings shift to quarterly, although many of them have mid-quarter update calls. The board meetings themselves are long affairs (even the monthly ones) – often lasting three or more hours. At some point I’ll dissect one of these board meetings and explain all the things that are artifacts of the past. These artifacts are a result of the communication methods that existed 30+ years ago that required paper and face to face meetings and resulted in very structured communications. But for now, I’ll give you three specific things to change. 1. Separate the monthly financials from the board meeting. Send out monthly financials (Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow) with a written analysis of them. This written analysis should be done by the CEO (or president / COO), not the CFO, and should be in English, not accounting-ese. 2. Have quarterly board meetings. These should be in person meetings with no laptops, smartphones, or iPads in the room. Give the people pads of paper to write on if they don’t bring their own (I don’t carry paper). 100% attention for the meeting. Arrange the meeting so you can have a dinner the night before or after the meeting. The meeting shouldn’t last more than four hours but should be fully engaged. 3. Provide regular weekly CEO updates, to all board members. The best entrepreneurs I know communicate regularly with everyone in the company and have a structured update process of some sort. The best CEOs send out short but focused weekly updates to their boards. These are not “templated updates” – they don’t necessarily fill in a set of things that they update each week. Often they are just a “sit in front of the computer and send out an email update” type of update full of substance, whatever is on the CEO’s mind, and requests for help. My favorites have typos and look like a blog post of mine (e.g. it looks like someone just wrote it rather than struggled over it for hours to get it just right.) While my 2012 board meeting schedule is locked in, I plan to shift to quarterly meetings in 2013 for every board I’m on. I’m sure some of my co-investors will still want monthly meetings, but that’ll be up to the CEO to ultimately decide and I’ll commit to being in person for one a quarter, but fully engaged on a continuous basis (like I try to always be.) (Original posted by Brad Feld) #CEO #VCs #boardofdirectors #bradfeld #boardmeetings #companymeetings #investors #boardcommunications

By Craig Huber, Fox 5  Las Vegas LAS VEGAS (FOX5) – From the Life is Beautiful festival to First Friday, art is a big part of the rebirth of downtown Las Vegas.  A new piece of art is taking shape downtown, and the man behind it says it will make your dreams come true. Read more here  http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/24710708/ever-changing-downtown-las-vegas-a #art #downtownlasvegas #dtlv #lifecubeproject

I have been doing what is fun and intersting – testing of facebook create a badge thingy. this is Scott’s profile

The Vegas PBS video featuring The Life Cube Project is online! Check it out for a glimpse into The Life Cube’s beginnings at Burning Man as well as the most recent Life Cube in DTLV (Las Vegas). This video includes interviews with artists and volunteers who worked on the downtown Las Vegas cube and footage of fire spinners, fire art, and the burn. (The segment on The Life Cube begins at 1:23.) Click here to watch the video. #vegaspbs #thelifecubeproject #downtownlasvegas #lasvegas #TheLifeCube #pbs #firespinning #Burningman #LasVegas #dtlv #firespinning #vegaspbs #video #thelifecubeproject #fireart #lifecube #lifecube #fireart #TheLifeCube #BurningMan

Bear Stearns Bailout – What are they thinking? Having lived through the real estate mess in the late 80’s, I think the current Fed action to rescue Bear Stearns is wrong! The fact is that Bear made many investment decisions based on obtaining higher returns for their investors. With abnormally higher return comes additional risk. If the government helps firms that bet wrong – what type of message are we sending? This penalizes the companies and investors that played it safe and invested wisely, though earned less. It is just “not fair”. Yes, I understand that a run on banks and investment firms and funds would not be pretty, but how many actions will they make, and how far will the Fed go to save others from disaster and then how much will it cost the taxpayers? Let’s get real. You want more return, you take risks, and then you can make more money — or lose it. Let the markets run the game. At the end of the day, there will be winners and losers, but the government will not be footing the bill. What consequences will occur if we let the markets handle this mess? Some banks, funds, and financial institutions will sell at fire sale prices – meaning that some investors who chose not to take the risk will get good deals. At the end of the day, assets will be priced fairly. Yes, I am worried about inflation, deflation, recession, the dollar, and interest rates. The US government and the Fed agreeing to step in worries me a lot more. It will prolong the pain – and could cause this disaster to be exacerbated. Bear took the risk: they were a huge player is mortgage securities, provided lines of credit under terms that did not reflect their risk, and they made bad bets. They owned EMC Mortgage Services, one of the more aggressive subprime mortgage services, did credit swaps, and underwrote loans with little regard to solid lending practices and policy. If the assets were sold at wholesale prices, then the purchasers would be more inclined to bail out and to renegotiate with consumers who owe the money. Helping here just postpones the inevitable. Which will be the next company the Fed tries to save? How many of these institutions will the US government prop up? How long will this drag out, and what will the final bill to the US taxpayer be? The message being sent is wrong. If you play with fire, if you are reckless with your investments, then you should suffer the consequences. I hope that someone at the Fed stands up and makes the tough choices.

Conan O’brien Dartmouth Commencement Speech. Link is the video. Lot of good wisdom & advice. http://i.cdn.turner.com/tegwebapps/tbs/tbs-www/cvp/teamcoco_dynamic_embed.swf?context=teamcoco_embed_offsite&videoId=254559

Dear Burning Man, We need your help. The Life Cube has just been suspended on Kickstarter and had over $10,000 in donations instantly refunded. Kickstarter claims that someone made donations in a manner that resembled fraud and will not consider reversing their decision. But that’s not important right now. What’s important is that the Life Cube needs your help. We’ve set up a new fundraiser at Indiegogo and are hoping that you in the Burning Man community would consider helping us out in our time of need. Even $10 helps. Please help the Life Cube get back to $10,000 and hit our goal of $15,000 so that we can build the Life Cube for the good of Black Rock City. Please Donate: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-life-cube-at-burning-man-2013 ENVISION: The Life Cube provides an engaging and interactive place for the shared expression of ambitions, dreams, goals and wishes, with more opportunities to participate than ever before. This project encourages participants to look at their past, engage in the present, and set goals for the future. It’s based on the artist’s belief that if you write down what you want to accomplish in life, the chances of attaining it is much, much higher! Learn more about The Life Cube: http://www.thelifecube.org Thanks for reading. Please share this message with your friends and burning man groups. Even consider copy and pasting it. We are stunned by this Kickstarter decision, but we are hoping that with your help we can turn this negative into a positive. Thank you. #indiegogo #TheLifeCube #brc2013 #Cubelifecubelifecubeprojectlifecubelifecubeproject #BM2013 #Burningman #brc #fundraising #BurningMan

My friend Chaz sent this WSJ article to me….take a look. January 26, 2007 TASTINGS By DOROTHY J. GAITER AND JOHN BRECHER DOW JONES Sprucing Up for Wine’s Night Many Ways to Fete Open That Bottle; Italy Tour, at Home January 26, 2007; Page W4 Next month, Loni and José Represas will fly from Mexico City to Atlanta with a mission: to help John T. Whaley open a bottle of wine.  It’s not just any bottle. It’s a 1990 Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame Champagne that Mr. Whaley’s son, Wyatt, gave him in 1999 when Mr. Whaley was made a captain for United Airlines. Mr. Whaley knows it should be opened. He just can’t stand to do it. So on Saturday, Feb. 24, Mr. and Mrs. Represas and Mr. Whaley and his wife, Nancy, and Wyatt and his wife, Dawn, will grit their teeth and, together, finally pop the cork. It will be Open That Bottle Night 8, when many of us, all over the world, finally open that bottle of wine we’ve been saving forever for a special occasion that never comes. For OTBN 5, Mr. Whaley, who is now a CPA, opened "the first bottle that got me interested in wine: a 1971 Mirassou Cabernet Sauvignon. To my surprise, it was still drinkable after surviving a divorce move and two moves precipitated by two airline bankruptcies." In each of the past two years, he opened a bottle of 1976 Chateau St. Jean Cabernet Sauvignon that he’d purchased at the winery many years ago. "The wine was in great condition and received rave reviews from our guests," recalled Mr. Whaley, who also may open two other cherished bottles next month, long-held gifts from appreciative friends: a 1974 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1983 Dom Pérignon. Something Extra This is why we invented OTBN, which is celebrated on the last Saturday of February every year. Whether it’s the only bottle in the house or one bottle among thousands, just about all of us have that very special wine that we always mean to open, but never do. On OTBN every year, thousands of bottles all over the world are released from prison and enjoyed. With them come memories of great vacations, long-lost loved ones and bittersweet moments. The whole point of our wine column is that wine is more than the liquid in the bottle. It’s about history, geography, relationships and all of the things that are really important in life. In Forest Hills, N.Y., Barrie Stern plans to open a 1948 Rioja she found when she was cleaning out her mother’s house. "It was probably a gift from my uncle for a special occasion and never opened," says Ms. Stern. "Too bad they didn’t have Open That Bottle Night then." In Lexington, S.C., Mandy Ackerman, celebrating her second OTBN, is deciding whether to open a Sawyer Cabernet or a Freemark Abbey Cabernet with 16 friends. Andrew Rosenthal is planning an event in Philadelphia at a bring-your-own-bottle restaurant with an alumni group from the University of Pennsylvania. The Geneva Golf Club outside of Chicago is celebrating OTBN with a special dinner for 60 to 80. Main course: pork loin with apple-cranberry chutney. Restaurants are getting into the spirit as well. Some restaurants drop corkage fees for OTBN. Occidental Restaurant in Washington, D.C., is having its OTBN on Feb. 23, the night before the world-wide celebration, as part of its own centennial festivities. It’s planning several different menus (for $130, including tax and tip) to pair with the wines people will bring. The restaurant’s wine guru, Daniel Hennessey, will ask diners what they plan to bring so they can be assigned to tables with appropriate menus. Some distributors have agreed to kick in Champagne and dessert wines. Mr. Hennessey said the $30 corkage fee will go to a charity that helps homeless people. While OTBN has become a time for parties, large and small, don’t forget that it also is about romance and intimacy. In our case, for instance, we’re going to stay home — and travel to Italy together. Many years ago, long before we wrote about wine, we visited the Piedmont region and, through a series of happy accidents, were virtually adopted for a week by the Cerettos, one of Italy’s legendary winemaking families. When we were leaving, with tears all around, they handed us a signed bottle of grappa, the distilled firewater. We don’t often drink serious alcohol and we had never even tasted grappa, but the next year, on a very cold day, we opened it and we each took a sip. One sip was enough for the whole winter. Memories, and a Mystery Winter after winter, we took a sip of that grappa, usually while standing knee deep in snow in Central Park or outside our country cabin, until, inevitably, we have come to the last few sips. On Open That Bottle Night, finally, we will finish the grappa and remember the hills and fog of Piedmont and the generosity of strangers. And, yes, of course we’ll open a special bottle of wine, too, but which one? Part of the fun is figuring that out, so we don’t know yet. Mr. Represas also is trying to decide what wine he will bring to the Whaleys’ home, even though he said bringing wine into the U.S. from Mexico City "is a real nightmare." A few years ago, he was on a flight from Bogata to Mexico City that experienced hydraulic failure and had to fly in circles to burn up fuel before attempting to make an emergency landing. "It was a good opportunity to review my life," Mr. Represas said. "It was comfortable to find out that I was pleased with most of the things I’d done and the way I left things — the wills, the properties. But the one thing that I was really upset about was all of those bottles of wine that I had left in the cellar that I would never drink and didn’t know who would eventually do it. "It was a tough landing. All of the tires of the airplane blew out. The pilot did a really fantastic job," he recalled, adding that he had to drink "a couple Scotches before I could even call home." So when the Whaleys, whom he had met on a barge trip through Burgundy, told him about OTBN, "I knew this was something I must do. It is a way to commemorate the importance of not leaving this world without enjoying what you have in this world." If you plan to participate in Open That Bottle Night, here are some tips to help you make the most of it. 1. Choose the wine. This is the all-important first step. You don’t necessarily want to open your "best" wine or your most impressive wine, but the wine that means the most to you, the one that you would simply never open otherwise. Maybe it’s Grandpa’s garlic wine. You’re looking for a bottle full of memories. On the other hand, if you have, say, a 1929 Lafite that’s just sitting there, we certainly couldn’t argue with that. 2. Stand older wine up (away from light and heat, of course) for a few days before you plan to open it — say, on Wednesday. This will allow the sediment, if there is some, to sink to the bottom. 3. Both reds and whites are often better closer to cellar temperature (around 55 degrees) than today’s room temperature. Don’t over chill the white, and think about putting the red in the refrigerator for an hour or two before opening it if you’ve been keeping it in a 70-degree house. 4. With an older bottle, the cork may break easily. The best opener for a cork like that is one with two prongs, but it requires some skill. You have some time to practice using one. Be prepared for the possibility that a fragile cork may fall apart with a regular corkscrew. If that happens, have a carafe and a coffee filter handy. Just pour enough through the coffee filter to catch the cork. 5. Otherwise, do not decant. We’re assuming these are old and fragile wines. Air could quickly dispel what’s left of them. If the wine does need to breathe, you should have plenty of time for that throughout the evening. 6. Have a backup wine ready for your special meal, in case your old wine really has gone bad. 7. If you are having an OTBN party, ask everyone to say a few words about the significance of the wine they brought. This really is what OTBN is all about, sharing. 8. Serve dinner. Open the wine and immediately take a sip. If it’s truly, irretrievably bad — we mean vinegar — you will know it right away. But even if the wine doesn’t taste good at first, don’t rush to the sink to pour it out. Every year, we hear from people who were amazed how a wine pulled itself together and became delicious as the night wore on. 9. Enjoy the wine for what it is, not what it might someday be or might once have been. 10. Drop us a note at wine@wsj.com1 about your evening. Be sure to include your name, city and phone number, in case we need to contact you so that we can share your account with other readers. Copyright 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved