Grab Not Grob

Serious chess study is almost an absolute impossibility amidst the shifting sands of life or the churning seas of the ocean.

After years of integration, the miraculous is almost ready to happen: while assisting a customer, two weeks ago, with a routine question easily dismissed as 'not in my area' when the plumbers were otherwise occupied (read mischeduled or 'out to lunch'), I dove in with both feet and insisted on getting his question answered. I called our store in Bellevue. Imagine, you cannot call down the hall but must call another more trusted location: Bellevue in lieu of Seattle, which is, incidentally, not far from Microsoft in Redmond or Medina where no less than Bill Gates Lives.

Long story, fast forward: in the course of quickly giving him outstanding service, just for sport, not for money or honor, as I am want to do, he realized that he knew me. Ken, who I will mention in a second, recalled having invited me to his house four years ago for a New Years Party, all from a deep conversation in my former haunt in flooring which, again at our store, annoyingly included wire shelving: read cut myriads of wire shelving with irritatingly loud and dull phenumatic shears.














I decided upon a second encounter with Ken, not to attend, very deliberately not to attend with a courteous email to count me out. He seemed rambunctious, and I had quit drinking in September of that year, and was in protection mode from all possible or elective disturbance.

So we finally recognize each other, and have a connection which is vivid four years latter again, only he has changed and I have changed. He is present in the moment, as I am... "Gosh, how are you at computing? I am CFO of a start up, and we sure could use a person like you..."

I check the website. Oh my god.... this is it. I email him within 24 hours, and the die is cast. Four rapid emails at 1 am in realtime, and I decide to go for broke and test the waters, and send him a dk-esque email as you can all imagine, with ONE OF MY CRAZY PHOTOS, THINKING 'if this doesn't stop them, then this will be ok and I can be accepted'.



As I drove home, this is the first thing I heard on the Radio!

You know how he responds? "To work at L., you have to be a little bit crazy, and you will fit in perfectly"...

I read the Mezzanene B financing PDF and all kinds of alarm bells are going off in my head... interview set up, hours of preparation, read a 54 page doc, and watch four YouTube promotional videos. This stuff is cool, I am thinking, I cannot sell what I do not believe in. They need a Customer Service Guru and Ken saw me, all while taking care of him at the store, take care of swarms of persons calmly...





















Today I had a several hour interview. He hugged me at the door. I used an example of the leasons learned in three marriages (not me = 0) off the top of my head, and he reaches behind him, shows me a photo of his wife, and it is his 'third marriage', yes, I tell him, 'I AM AN INTUITIVE'.

So this ties together architect, financial sales, CRM or customer resource management, buildings, and knowledge managment, project management , and contact management...

First interview with G: "Yes, you were in charge of OEM licensing at Microsoft and program management?" "Yes, HOW did you know that?" "Well, I read the whole report and it is all here", pointing at my head, "I had a photographic memory when I was 18..."

I raise issues about distribution, sub-prime crisis, intellectual property, the works.

I get the tour of the office, I hear Russian. From my job, I can recognize about fifty or more accents, including distinguishing Somali from Eritrian or Etheopian, Persia from Arabic.... we round the corner, and there is a chess position set up at a board, 'to capture the win for everyone'. Bunch of Russian Engineers! Here I am.

I take Ken down the hall, from the stair landing: pointing to the street directional arrows: "Did you ever notice that those match the company logo???!!!" "David, this is why I love creative people"...
















I of course memorized the names of all their markets, no mention of Dubai... "Have you guys thougth about Dubai?" "You saw that?" "No, it just came to me now with Japan and Switzerland, Germany..."






















The Entropic Break Point of our Planet: Aerial View of Burj Dubai and the Mall underneath

He said that had had other offers to sell and could go public, but prefer to build the company first. I mention Honeywell, Siemens, Motorolla, General Electric, then he says 'those are all obvious ones" but 'what about Microsoft or google?'. They are in wireless home automation...
















These guys are grabbing me. Love is like that, business is like that, friendship is like that, the pets that somehow find us are like that, books are like that, spiritual teachers are like that, and even blogs can be like that. :)

I'd be surprised if I didn't get the job, but they must raise another million or two to get to six. Life is amazing. And, guess what? Out of 'the retail environment' I can join the USCF with more weekends free, a lot more in fact, and meet some more of you here, or on the road goodness sake!