“but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.”

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I’m going around this week to all my favorite Boulder spots for great meals with friends.

I’m also switching my computing to an iPad. This is the first test in blogging via email to the main blog, which will be far more general as I travel.

I leave in a week! NYC then a weekend in Vermont before a week in the Pacific Northwest.

I’m preparing for a 40 person dinner party tomorrow, Ignite on Thursday and a visit to my Grandfathers ranch on Saturday.

My last Boulder Open Coffee Club in the morning, then meetings all day with people that want to talk for some reason. These meetings are generally very taxing with little reward, but they are important to the folks, so that is ok by me.

If you are reading this, the post published with no problems! Wahoo!

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It is almost here!  Ignite Boulder 12 will be at Chautauqua again, September 2nd (this Thursday).  Tickets are still on sale here.

Ticket sales are down for this one, which is odd because we have had 11 strait sell outs (I think we will be at capacity for this, but sales to this point have been slower than past events).

Is it Burning Man?  Is the event happening too much?  Is it because everyone thinks their friends are doing the talking?

Well, we need your help.  Pass on the word, Ignite is this Thursday and tickets are on sale here.  Plancast here.

This will be my last Ignite Boulder and I am for the first time in Boulder speaking about How To Build a Trail.  The rest of the speakers are listed here.

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22.8 miles on the trail with a highpoint of 12,080 feet with 4000 feet of climbing and descending.  Not too shabby.

Luke took some fantastic photos, including this 12k foot high picture of the three of us:

We started at the trailhead at 6:15.  Chilly morning, but warm enough to be in a tshirt for a run.

I chose to wear a very light flask belt.  The others (faster runners) agreed and carried a bit more water just in case I bonked.

We got up the first climb in some impressive time.  Steep enough that a run was out of the question.  Early enough in the day that nobody was pushing it.  It didn’t feel that way at least, that is, until we caught up to at least five groups and almost passed a group of horses.

Chasm Lake was beautiful as always.  We chatted with the tourists (you RAN up that?).  Took us an hour and ten to get to Chasm from the trailhead.  Getting up another mile to the Granite Pass was pretty fun, as we started to run.

Time for a big old hill to get down.  About a 3000 foot descent.  Oh, my knees!  Couldn’t have been a more scenic trail though.  Just amazing, flowing and wonderful to go down that trail.  It had a rhythm.

We could see Bear Lake from this point.  We flew down and met up with Jeremy Tanner who was a hero bringing up water, sunscreen and M&M’s.

We had a great next four or so miles as the trail leveled out and Joel had a great story about U2 in Texas when he was a Senior in High School.  The climb up Storm Pass was a challenge for me.  Felt a bonk, but came back and almost caught the others at the summit.

We ran down the hill to Long’s Peak Trailhead where we started our day, completing our big ass run / hike / romp through the beautiful treasure of Rocky Mountain National Park.

Lessons learned:

• Dream big
• Team efforts are great to be a part of
• Compression socks are great
• I’m a huge guy and running might just not be the best thing for me

If you are in Boulder and not up in Rocky Mountain National Park once a month, you are really, really missing out.

Super fun way to spend a Wednesday, that is for sure.

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So the big trip is getting closer and closer.

I’m already tired about talking about it.  The first response people have is generally, ‘oh, like Eat, Pray, Love right?’  It has shifted in the last week to ‘where first?’

Boulder is first.  I’m treating this like a destination.

Yesterday on the trail I was thinking a lot about this area and how much I have not done.  It is an amazing place that I have had a hell of a six years playing around in.

One year seems like a big trip.  So does six years.

I’m going to miss my friends, my home, my laptop and the treasure that is Colorado.

But what is my planned trip?  Here it is.

But Boulder is first.

Living here, exploring here.

Taking walks, going for adventures and treasuring the people.

The trip has already begun.

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Tomorrow Luke Tilsley, Joel Bush and I will be doing the ‘Longs Peak Marathon’ or a 22.4 (we will pad some ‘lost miles’ I am sure) run from the Long’s Peak Trailhead to Bear Lake and back.  Going to be super fun, super excited to be able to do this.

Here is a map if you need to send a search and rescue or a nice cocktail.  We do need a restock at Bear Lake, so if you are overly excited to see a sweaty me, let me know.

Here is the milage and elevation.

*UPDATE* We finished!  Took about 6:30 to finish.  Not a whole lot of flat out there, so the uphills were hikes / very little running and the downs were a pretty slow run protecting the knees.

Just amazing country, great running partners and a perfect weather day.  We started at 6:15 and were eating lunch in town at 2.

Jeremy Tanner met up at Bear Lake Trailhead for a restock, which saved me.  Huge thank you!

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A bit of a startup and social post here. The last few days have had a fever pitch of stories bubbling to the surface of counting > action, namely, Leo Laport’s post Buzz Kill.

I built a following of over 17,000 people. I was happy.

Then last night I noticed that my Buzzes were no longer showing up on Twitter … A little deeper investigation showed that nothing I had posted on Buzz had gone public since August 6. Nothing. Fifteen posts buried, including show notes from a week’s worth of TWiT podcasts.

Maybe I did something wrong to my Google settings. Maybe I flipped some obscure switch. I am completely willing to take the blame here. But I am also taking away a hugely important lesson.

No one noticed.

Not even me.

One of the things I hate about the social web is how painfully predictable it is. The problem that Leo ran into is part of a larger problem of our obsession of counting as a means of validation.

• I have x followers.
• I have x page views.
• My company has x friends.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

“Because of audience, I will spend energy.”

The problem is that most are really good at counting the total (1000 followers on Twitter) but not at looking at what that really means (lets be real here). My guess is (after looking at metrics from personal and industry statistics):

• 12% of your connections on a service will ready any given post (120 per 1000)
• <1% will have action (click a link, repost, comment) (1 per 1000)

Most startups or social types looking at metrics will think “1000 people are reading this” and not the correct “120 are reading this, of which, 1 will care do do more than scanning.”

Our obsession with numbers, or total numbers is overtaking or masking just why we post. In Leo’s case, nobody told him because they either thought someone else would have or there was so much else there, that Leo wasn’t missed.

All that energy for an audience you thought was there, and it feels like nobody was. Leo left buzz, which is very understandable.

What does this say about startups / communities / iterations on a whole?

Lets assume in your startup or social life:

• Pageviews / # of ________ / some counting mechanism is meaningful
• Game mechanics used to up the numbers

The lesson that is predictably painful: all games come to an end.

Nobody cares about your obsession with counting, and if it becomes an obsession, your just asking for the game to change unfairly. Rising numbers for you means rising numbers for everyone.

You are participating in a game that multiplies without rules or order, with players with different motives.

Games are coming to an end.

Let’s not act too surprised.

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1. Backpack
2. iphone
3. Small Camera
4. ipad
5. Long Sleeve Shirt
6. Short Sleeve Shirt
7. Long Pants
8. Board Shorts
9. Underwear
10. Sandals
11. Sunglasses
12. Wallet
13. Towel
14. Jacket
15. Toiletry Kit
16. Irritating sense of superiority (well, not really, but let’s just cut off that being a motivation right here, after all, I’m going to be unemployed and homeless)

I’m counting chargers as part of an item (iPhone, iPad, Camera) and packing some extra underwear (who talks about that online anyway).

That will be it.  15 things, weighing about 9 pounds.

I can’t get there without you buying my stuff, so see what I have already

I’ve done 30-45 day trips this way, here is a picture from what I packed last year for a 16 city trip:

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