I’m on the last few days of a month long sprint to build the V1 of our new product we’re launching called AlumniChoose. Today I woke up at 7am and worked almost solidly till just a few minutes ago. With breaks for lunch and such, that’s almost a 14 hour day. The past month has consistently been 10-14 hours days. All of it in preparation of making sure we hit our V1 launch date of Jan 16th. By launch, I don’t mean send out the press release. I mean I have a team of beta schools that I’m working with who will test and give their feedback. From there, we’ll assess next steps in terms of development and marketing. My eyes are red and tired and my body will collapse on the bed tonight just like it has for the past month, but the crazy thing is, I can’t wait to wake up the next morning and do it again.

My job entails a lot of traveling right now. Specifically in this season as schools are ramping up their leaders for the year and orientations are in full swing. If you look at our calendar, you’ll see I’m on the road a lot. Every time I’m on my way back to NYC and I start to think about ACbert, I get a warm fun feeling in my heart. I get excited to see her. I smile, like I’m smiling now as I sit on a plane back to LGA because I start to visualize the look on her face when I walk in the door.

Anytime I come home, whether it’s on a long trip like this one, or just a simple trip to pick up cat litter, she welcomes me back with genuine excitement. How can I not help but be excited to come home every time if I know she’s excited to see me. It makes me want to come home sooner.

It reminds me of a story a speaker friend of mine, Patrick Combs, told me a long time ago about two brother who went to the same college. Every time they’d meet each other in the main quad, they’d open up their arms, draw a big smile, and embrace each other like they were long lost friends. He equated it to a dog welcoming his master home even if she just went to go get the mail. You can’t help but feel loved and welcomed.

My oldest brother, Robin, connects with people in a similar way. It’s inspiring for me to see and practice in my own life.

The TechStars Bloomberg documentary aired tonight. Some people on Twitter were calling it the American Idol of start-ups. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. We, in Red Rover, were in the NY TechStars program for 4 months and they did a TON of filming. They must have walked away with 1000s of hours of footage so they really could’ve taken the story in any direction they wanted. And they did…

Within the first 10 minutes of the show, it was pretty clear what six companies they are going to focus on for the next six episodes, and Red Rover wasn’t one of them. What that means is that they are probably not going to use any of the footage of us expect maybe a few b-rolls of us interacting with one of the main six. If what happens on TV is reality, then it will almost seem like we weren’t even on the show or in TechStars :-/.

Having done the NBC Today Show wedding contest and now the TechStars Bloomberg show, I know that producers are out to create the best possible show and whether you like it or not, they are in charge. What happens in the end is up to them not you. Apparently a $1mm+ revenue generating enterprise software solution with a group of tall guys who dress sharp and work hard isn’t good for TV . Understandably, we didn’t have any big pops during or after the filming so in terms of a story…there really wasn’t one with Red Rover.

I’m still excited to watch the rest of the season though, as I love watching the start-up hustle. You can watch with me Monday nights at 9pm EST on Bloomberg TV, or streaming on their website.

This morning our friend Lauren texted us to see if we were up for helping set up a new Irene evacuation shelter they were opening near Union Sq. It makes sense that there would be need for a massive number of volunteers across the city, but neither Annie or I had heard anything about it on the news. Had Lauren not texted us, we probably would’ve stayed home, worked, took a walk, and slowly prepared the rest of the apartment for Irene. Instead we spent 5 hours doing some serious sweat labor to make sure those in need, and their pets, had a safe place to stay during the hurricane. I appreciate having people in my life who think about others as it helps me to remember to think about others. Not only does helping others help them, it also has been scientifically proven to make the giver feel good.

“Do what you have to do in life, move forward and you’ll be surprised by how much these things didn’t matter.” – Modified Don Draper quote by Jeff Lail.

Yes, taking a bus from NYC to Pittsburgh takes eight hours and flying only takes two hours. Yes, it would actually be cheaper to fly if I added in how much my per hour cost is and added that to the cheaper bus tickets.

But it’s 2:58 in the morning, I’m drinking a beer (I snuck on the bus) while listening to This American Life, and ACbert is fast asleep on my lap. That is priceless.

We’ll be able to fly for the rest of our lives, but for now I’m going to enjoying a bus trip with the one I love curled up sleeping on my lap while we road trip to Pittsburgh because that is something I don’t see a lot of older couples doing.

As part of ACbert’s 4-day birthday celebration, we went tonight to an open mic night at the Bowery Poetry Club. Anyone could submit to perform which means the talent was all over the place making the night a bit of a hot mess. But I appreciated that everyone was wiling to take a risk and try something new whether a joke, song, skit, or story. While I watched person after person get on stage and create something from nothing, it reminded me of a blog post my former business partner, Kevin Prentiss, wrote a while ago comparing entrepreneurs to artists…

For an entrepreneur, there is nothing that feels as good as creating something amazing from nothing. This is the hope.

Like artists, we create. But we are artists that must sell. There’s no chance to be discovered after death. Our creation lives or dies in the present.

Imagine if a crowd of museum goers could make a sculpture disappear forever with their disapproval, or far worse, their simple misunderstanding. How many artists would stop showing work? How many artists would stop creating altogether? How many would create cheap crap, that was simply a quick get?

Despite living in NYC and loving it, I’m still a country boy at heart. I love the big open sky, the fresh air, the sounds of nature, and the slow peaceful way of everything.

A common street scene in NYC is young hip guys trying to sell a signed copy of their newly released music CD to pedestrians walking by. By telling you a sob story about how hard it was to produce and how they spent their life savings to produce it, your empathy button is triggered and some people actually buy one. The trick is the CD is often blank, or the recording is one of a million copies being sold by similar people with similar stories all over NYC.

Today I watched as one peddler upped the game.

It started out as usual by him handing out his CD as if he were giving it away. Then once it was in someone’s hand, he started into his story. Then the twist. Another guy walked by, took a CD, and within a few seconds of hearing the story reached for his wallet and handed over some money. Now, not only is the first person grappling to counter her own empathy button, but now she has to also overcome social proof and go against what the other person is doing and saying. It was fascinating to watch as the CD seller intuitively rattled through the same sales themes I was taught in business school. They also do it better than most sales people I know. Makes me want to write a book titled “The Art of Street Selling.” Someone put that on my list of books to write…

File this under “little things I do that no one knows about.”

The approaching trains in the underground subways of NYC make an obscene amount of noise. So much noise, in fact, that someone could scream at the top of their lungs and no one would hear.

Taking advantage of the noise camouflage, I’ll project my singing voice proportional to the noise output level of the train. So at one point, if somehow you could instantly shut off the train sound, you’d catch me blasting tunes from my lungs like an opera singer.