Friday Donuts

Friends, Spring has established itself. It feels good to get-up bright and early to fill your lungs with the rich morning air as the sunrise reveals a world alive with possibilities. Trees are donning fresh new leaves and green lawns soothe the psyche as temperatures regularly reach the goldilocks zone. Longer days provide more opportunities to see goslings by the lake as bunnies successfully evade cars in the neighborhood –I can’t say the same for prairie dogs. The final days of school are upon us and Summer will be here before you know it. As you consider vacation destinations, consider also what a donut might do for your mood. If getting out in the spring weather was not sufficient motivation to get you to the office today, perhaps a donut might get you off the fence. Happy Friday!

Friends, In the world of circular shapes, the sphere, cylinder and cone hog the spotlight. They need no introduction and no one has to google a description or photo to know what they are. Not so for the ellipsoid and torus. These slightly more obscure names are as common as their popular cousins, yet, somehow mainstream recognition eludes them. This lack of unaided recall is puzzling. If one were inclined to create conspiracy theories, one might suggest it’s our modern culture’s health craze that is behind this second-class citizen treatment of the aforementioned shapes. After all, a subset of society frowns on deep fried doughy treats –of course the ellipsoid (think bizmark) and the torus (think donut) resemble them. The only hole in this theory, of course, is the donut hole (which is spherical). This morning, I encourage you to show your support for circle-based shape diversity by grabbing a donut (or bizmark) from the dozen I picked-out for you. Happy Friday!

Friends, I overheard a thought-provoking joke this week. The punch line goes something like “my smart speaker stole my bitcoin and eloped with my vacuum in my self-driving car”. It’s funny because this 21st century problem, while unlikely, does seem somewhat plausible. It speaks to the promise and threat the future holds. I don’t know how you feel about this, but my first inclination is to get a little freaked-out. Then I take a deep breath and think these changes are being driven by humans to help humans. Ideally, technologies like blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence will remove friction, lower cost and remove humans from job functions for which machines are better suited. Repetitive tasks, driving insights from large datasets, structured problems. Of course there are always unintended consequences. If quantum computing reaches sufficient qubits to enable artificial consciousness and humans cease to be the center of innovation, then I hope our new overlords will…

Friends, Life is like curling. You know, that obscure sport we only hear about once every four years at the Winter Olympics. Think of your trajectory as that of the heavy granite stones. Where we end up is a function of impulse, inertia and friction –and interactions with other stones. A lot of time and energy is devoted to sweeping, which is important, as it hones our course by removing friction. That being said, where we end-up is largely determined by the shots we take, setting in motion our journey towards the button (i.e. our goal). Yes, collisions will derail us, however, we get several shots –so make them count! I’m sure other parallels can be drawn –let me know any you find insightful. You know what’s not like curling? Donuts! With a low inertial mass, a hole in the middle and totally edible, donuts couldn’t be more different than curling rocks if they tried. Take a shot at  one -or two. Happy Friday!
P.S. The bolded terms come from the world of curling. Yes, I had to google…

Friends, This past Tuesday brought with it a whirlwind. I’m not talking about marketing activity, although there was plenty of that. I’m talking literally! Looking out of our Broomfield office windows, you could see the street signs bending, tumbleweeds smashing into cars and plastic bags zipping by at 86 MPH. There was even a breeze in the second floor corridors (all that air being sucked out of the building through the first floor front doors –propped open by gale force winds!) On the drive home, a couple of fences had fallen, a couple of rooftops looked mangled and a couple of stop lights stopped working. Then there was the tree toppled in my back yard, which fortunately managed to miss my fence, gazebo and siding. While we’ll miss its shade, it provided an obstacle course for Tina, our dog and firewood for my pyromaniac family (alright, for me!).
You’ll notice I resisted my impulse to make corny Wind-stream tie-ins. I also resisted going out of my way to Wind-chill’s donuts (or …

Friends, This week I discovered our Denver North office has a Bitcoin Teller Machine (BTM). What?!? A convenient way to cash-out on all your Bitcoin millions before the hype wears-off. Except, this teller only TAKES your hard-earned dollars and converts them to Bitcoin. It does not DISPENSE hard currency. What’s the use case for that? Never mind, duh! It’s the general scenario that will ensure Bitcoin never goes to zero (despite recent trends). Crime! Say you are a crime boss (or petty criminal) who wishes not to have your transactions traced. An anonymized crypto-currency is the perfect vehicle to contract for that hit job, buy and sell stolen goods or funnel your monies far from prying eyes. But what if your cash business still accepts, well, cash? What do you do with all that clunky paper? Depositing it at your bank so you can buy your crypto online defeats the whole scheme. Enter the BTM. First you rent some office space at Spaces (which, by the way, makes for a great front). The…