Miles To Go.

Mobile has and will transform our lives like no other phenom, bringing knowledge and data to our fingertips that no 20th (or 1st) century genius could match. It will enrich our life experiences in ways we have only just begun to fathom. Mobile is perhaps the greatest technology of our lifetimes, and its effect will outlive us. The impact of new technology is hard to overstate, but here is an yet another example of how it can change the understanding of an entire era:

(Excerpt Phil Leigh) Mathew Brady compiled a photographic portfolio during the American Civil War that forever changed the way people remembered loved ones through a rather new technology of the time: photography. The war remains vivid in our visual understanding because it was so well photographed. Thousands of soldiers stood before the camera on their way to serve. Many were photographed in death, including a solemn series of photographs Brady exhibited in New York City just after a Maryland battle that turned back Robert E. Lee’s first Confederate invasion. Their graphic power overwhelmed cynical New Yorkers of the day. At last, someone had captured ‘the terrible reality and earnestness of war.’ The photographs by his colleagues of the dead at Gettysburg will never lose their power.

Such is the impact of a new technology as it transitions from early adopters into the mainstream. And so, video records are at a similar evolutionary threshold and Mobile will play a part in the shift again.

I never met my deceased great grandparents, or other older relatives, and are curious to know what they were like. I’ve spent countless hours on Ancestry.com trackng them down to coals mines in PA, battlefields of France and the backwoods of Northamptonshire. So far, we have a Purple heart, a Son of the American revolution, and one prolific Spencer that fathered the last of 24 kids when he was 74.  Both the facts and the legends were hard to find, and harder to verify.

The practice is new and it remains to be seen if it morphs into widespread use. But I would say the impact of mobile on our lives and beyond is a dead certainty.

Start by taking the “QR Memorial Poll” here 

Huana AKA Sugar loaf

I was in Deer Valley recently for a Pelion LP meeting and the topic turned to high- altitude climbing. Entrepreneurs that I work with know that I constantly use the experience as an analogly for building companies. (I have analogies for everything, some more crazy than others.  At least, that’s what I’m told).

The basic premise is that, as you get to higher  altitudes, your mind and body play tricks on you. Cognitive powers are altered. Moving carefully and deliberately is important, but so is having a guide to help you move quicker and avoid mis-steps. For a look into real-world mountain climbs, there’s a great book called Into Thin Air by Krakuer that covers it well. (and the rebuttal by Anatoly Bukareev is just as good). As for entrepreneurship, there are very few books about a company’s pending danger and death; most focus on reaching the top. I wrote a bit about that aspect in a prior post called Let ‘em Crash. I personally have been to what I define as” high altitude,” both in climbing and entrepreneurship. (Over 10,000 and over $100M+ in valuation, respectively.) Here’s a hairy story from one climb: entrepreneurs, see if you can pick out the analogie(s).

A trip to Peru brought me to the Machu Picchu lodge and my altitude adjustment was fully set, having begun the trip in Cusco at 11,000 feet. I had climbed Huana Picchu earlier that day, at dawn. I saw the most spectacular sunrise, as many Inca priests had before me (hint, these would be VC’s), and marveled at the symmetry of the Sun Gate and the other temples in the complex. I returned to the lodge for late breakfast. It was there we began talking about Cerro, the peak I had seen obscured by mist from Huana, with a giant flag fluttering at the top. I did some quick calculations and decided I could make it by sundown.

Cerro is the highest immediate peak above Macchu Pichu, but there’s nothing technical about it.  Like most of the Inca trail, .ost of the path is carved rock.  A little slippery at times, and occasionally requiring pull-ups, but mostly the climb is a mental one. I say this because the Urabumba River roars on three sides of the peak, and the drop is about 1,000m, sometimes straight.  After a few thousand feet, the mist socked me in. All there was in front of me were stones, laid by Incas many hundreds of years ago, and vines. And the sound of the river. It became my navigation.  As I heard it down and to my left, I knew I was on the west face; at it switched to my right, I knew I the path had traversed to the west. Half way up, I met two Japanese who were on descent. You alone?, they asked. Yup. Even that small exchange heartened me, not for the guidance, but for the fact someone else would know where I was on the mountain if things got bad. As it was, their estimate was a bit off.

 Ninety minutes later, I came through a skree field of snakestone (awesome green stuff that looks like malachite, but softer) and arrived at a gate of carved rock. It was the first clue I was entering a holy place. From there, I experienced my closest-to-divine moment. The path became flat, and the mist enveloped my feet, such that only my footfall revealed the path in front of me. I was on the spine of the peak, so the sun, or what was left of it, made the way brighter. I noticed orchids, which grow wild at that altitude. And hummingbirds which fluttered around like some  Natural History Museum display. Summit euphoria was taking over, as I heard the flag flapping in the wind in front of me. As I reached it I sat still for twenty minutes, precious time given the daylight. It was total peace. (Have you guessed? This is an exit!) 

When I turned to go, I notice the river roaring about me not on my left or right, but on three sides. With the dimming sun, the mist, the flowers and birds it was truly heaven. The euphoria lasts through the first fifteen minutes of descent, as I passed markings I had made in my mind during the ascent. I allowed myself to gain momentum, feeling free, and frankly as good as a teenager in springtime. Then I mis-stepped. In an instant, I was hurtling down one side of the face, when I instinctively grabbed on of the vines hanging from the face. It caught me, and I quickly recovered, with not a small amount of briars — and a pulse suddenly 2x. I kept rolling, and reached the main Inca village by dusk.

Llamas get around without Merrils

At dinner that night back in Macchu Pichu, one of our guides, Juan —- asked if I had walked or crawled on the spine of Cerro. I told him, and he was surprised. Most people crawl, he said. The spine is only 2m wide, and the drop to the river there is about 800m on the right side, and 1,200m (4,000 feet) on the left. Well, I walked the whole thing… maybe leaning a bit to the right to compensate for the difference…

But the most interesting thing about that climb was what it taught me about the entrepreneurial climb: the height of the ascent is an optional objective… but the return is mandatory!

» Monastario-Cusco
» Machu Pichu Lodge
 and ask for  Juan and Lourdes Sotomayor

...and a popular one at that.

If you are lucky enough to see this place it will teach you quite a bit about the French, which is to say, 1) they assign hilarious import on meaningless things, 2) they only follow rules if it will inconvenience someone or make something into a farce, 3) sex sells, 4) it all ends up with stunning beauty. And remember, I love France, and the French. Onward?

Pere La Chaise is a vast cemetery on the far eastern side of Paris proper named after ”Father Chair”, a priest of no consequence except that Louis XIV, France’s greatest King, unloaded on him just before expiring. Seems the cardinal had stepped out just as Louis took a turn for the worse, and there was Father Chair to hear surely one of the great last confessions of all time. He then became ?the man who knew all the secrets?, as far as France was concerned. Voila, instant fame and glory. Three hundred years later, on the plaques of every door of the Cemetery, begins the phrase ”Pere la Chaise, last confessor to Louis XIV”? I think I have proved point #1 above without going on.

Of the twenty cemeteries in Paris, Pere-Lachaise is the most famous, it has over 70,000 plots and receives some two million visitors a year from all over the world. With 44 hectares and 5,300 trees, Pere-Lachaise is also the largest park in Paris. One inside the gates, one finds a stunning display of early 19th century mini-architecture and crypt design. Each alley is flanked with majestic horse chestnuts, the walks are all cobblestone, and the crypts themselves are marvels of taste and style. With the possible exception of Disneyland, no-one has ever done miniature so consistently. Of course, this magic kingdom is real limestone, granite and marble. If you are lucky enough to get a sunny day, it is a tremendous place for a quiet walk. For the more directed, there awaits a grave hunt with some very fun and famous artsy names to seek out: Chopin, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison. Wait a minute.

Here is a place that hasn’t taken new arrivals (except cremations) for years now. And double forget it if you are not French or loved by the French. So what is Jim doing here? (If you really believe he is dead). Well, simply refer to rule#2 above. The commissar decided it would be a hoot to let Jim join the other pillars of French culture, so there he is, down in Map plot #31. Americans and stoners alike have scrawled Jim this way>>> and Come light my fire>>>> in many of the tombs en route, so it’s an easy find. Indeed, he seems to have actually been able to break on through to the other side. No word yet on coming back. We’ll keep you posted.

Meantime, it’s up the hill to the main parade ground where we can, in an instant, prove rule #3. Seems a very young couple met an untimely death in the middle of the prior century. Legend has it they were flush with love in the springtime when the unlucky demise ended their days on earth. But the power of their love seems to live on. You see, it has become legend that a visit to these graves and a touch of strategic parts of the departed’s statuary (to my eye, I’d say rubbing is more like it) will restore one’s procreative powers. No word on what it does to the deceased, but that is the shiniest brass in Pere la Chaise.

Pere la Chaise has it all. Stunning beauty, silliness, culture, irreverence, and superstition. You decide which applies to what.

If you go
» Pere la Chaise History

Rottweiler extraordinaire Netscape came to her end, taking it with dignity and grace. Much like Mom did last year. (Where does this courage come from?) I’ve noticed that the number of my friends on the other side of the golden reeds has been growing. I could have hardly made a list ten years ago. Now I have plenty of friends there, and more new ones keeping getting added. I just never know when, or who with any certainty. One point Dad made rings true, if you have friends on both sides, it’s not so lonely a passing.

I’ve also taken the summer to teach my wacky niece to scuba dive (way under age) in the pool out back. I gave her a short course on the dangers and excitement of being underwater, an we take a tank down to share. If you want to see the definition of wide eyes, check out an eight year old when she breathes underwater the first time. We mostly play ”coins of the world” or tic-tac-toe until the air runs low. As always, we plan our dive, dive the plan, check our air, and ascend with no complaints when it’s over.

When I first began to dive, it was all about the gauges. How much air is left? What’s our depth. How far am I from my buddies if I have an issue?. How is my buoyancy? My equalization? My BCV? Where’s the boat? How far did we drift? How are my dive partners faring? How much air again, and again and again. I was running so many calculations and working so hard, I would blow through 3,000 psi in 35 minutes and be done.

Of course, I was in the Galapagos getting the crap scared out of me by hammerheads, bulls, white tips, thermo climes and nasty surges, so that sucked up some extra air as well.

But somewhere around dive #50, I hit a very different zone. My skills improved to the point of being quite natural with what was quite foreign during dive #10. I now know I have 55 minutes under, because that is generally the boat rule. And I know that time can be cut short anytime if something goes bad. The choice I do have is what I accomplish when down there. If I do all the things a good diver does, I have 55 minutes of pure bliss in the most beautiful natural habitat on the earth, the sea. I can fill my time with as much exploring, learning and observing as I can take. So I don’t complain when time is up, and we ascend to the surface. (The calming affects of nitrogen absorption may help a little as well).

So, why is a life to be so different than a dive? We all have a timer on us. We all jump in knowing one day were out of air and headed back to the boat. It really boils down to what we make of our dive. Gauges are important, but they are not the reason we dive. We dive to learn, to explore, and to enjoy. My mom would sometimes say ?it is not the number of breaths you take, but the number of times your breath is taken away?. Indeed.

If you go
» Suunto, if you need a gauge
» Captain Saam, if you want a great, over the top instructor