1/11/2003 11:45:18 AM|||Travis|||

Wow, amazing past couple of weeks?!? Wow I have not updated this pile of characters for a while. Well here is an update.

New Years Eve was insane- I went to downtown LA where club GIANT segmented off a couple blocks to throw a really big party. There were two seperate DJ's with an amazing sound system right on the street, a park to sit around in and a huge foutain that was turned into a bar. Now granted I was not 21, but there was a pathetic wrist-band system that was easily exploitable - and so I did (along with some of my friends.) It was a bit unsrucuplous, but I don't agree with the "you can't drink unless we say you can" cop mentality so I can bend the rules a bit.

I remember dancing in the crowd and looking up at one of the bars where they were serving Vitamin water. It was ovverun with people, and there was one particular girl that was looking right at me. Eventually she pointed at me, and I reached my arm up and pointed back at her. Slowly but surely, I made it through the mass of people and got up on the stage with her, looking right at her the whole time.

We danced their until people had to literallly pull us off!

The hotel was something else, and I didn't realize how big it was until I tried to find a room. My friend told me that they were in room 23 something so I went to the second floor and started to walk around. Did I find anything? No, just a bunch of shoe-shops and resturants. When i finally asked the bell-hop he laughed and said that what I really wanted was to go to the 23rd floor!

The hotel was awesome, because the first four floors were a mall and then the 26 floors above that was the actual hotel. A glass elevator when up, and at about the fourth floor it busted out of the mall and was then attached to the outside of the builiding so you got a good view of LA. And when you went to the first floor and walked out the front door you were inside the party, with all the DJ's out in the street. It was a great event.

I have learned a great deal lately about the importance of leadership, which was spawned in part by a gift from my father. He gave me a book called "Who says Elephants Can't Dance?" by the once CEO of IBM, Louis Gerstner. He came into a dying IBM in the early 90's and slowly transformed the culture, product line and company into the once again successful company that it is now. It was an amazing story of a turnaround, and inspired me to become a great leader one day, leading a compnay worth many billions of dollars.

So I started reading about what leaders actually do, and what it takes. As it turns out it is tough! The only real way to lead is by example, which means that you need to get yourself dirty in the work of your employees, and push the daily grind(tm) all the time. Every day you need to keep focus, getting the group together, making sure they are working on something important. At least that is what I am doing for Gnostic Labs now, and it is working out quite well. We are getting closer and closer to a demo... I can almost taste it.

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