Michael Gracie

The other day, I was standing by a clear river tying on a fly when a colleague commented that I was carrying two fly boxes. Yes, I used to be a one-box fisherman. It was all about being minimalist - carrying as little gear as possible - and it extended to flies and boxes as well.

Unfortunately, I’ve grown older, and despite not feeling all that much wiser I’ve at least figured out that trout do not need to be handed any advantages whatsover. Now I carry two boxes…sometimes three. Gotta assume the weather might change, or that I will get lost and be forced to strip big streamers until sun-up (darn, that would suck, eh?).

My primary below deck box, usually found lashed to my lanyard and stuffed in a front shirt pocket:

Yea, there are a few dries in that one, but you get the idea.

Now, half dry, and half big and fast (but generally big):

People look at me funny when I tell them I have dries and streamers in the same box - they also carry like 12 boxes with them everywhere they go ;-).

This one doesn’t follow me everywhere, but you must be prepared for monsters lurking in the shadows:

The latter two are handled carefully, as I don’t have them secured around my neck like the first, and I’ve been known to drop full boxes in Class 4 rapids :-).

Sometime down the road, I’ll open up my salty set, but meanwhile the question remains…what do fly boxes say about a person?

In my case, self-analysis says I’m a neat freak, in need of glasses, and broke!

Are your boxes talking to you?

From bizblawg..

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in McNamee v. IRS, No. 05-6151 just affirmed a federal trial court’s determination that the owner of an LLC (limited liability company) can be held personally liable for unpaid payroll taxes. This is a significant decision, which may well be appealed to the Supreme Court.   Meanwhile, let’s look at its significance. People form LLCs and corporations to avoid personal liability for the debts of the company.  Payroll taxes present a slightly different situation because an officer (but not director or shareholder) of a corporation or LLC who is responsible for payroll can be held personally liable for not forwarding the part of payroll taxes that’s withheld from an employee’s paycheck. That’s called the “trust fund amount.”  But that’s not what we’re talking about here.  Here we’re talking about the whole payroll tax amount, both the trust fund amount AND the part the employer pays, which normally is a corporate or LLC debt and the owners (shareholder or members) of the corporation or LLC is generally not liable for that.

C-corps and LLCs have limited liability. The difference is…C-corps have a solid track record in the court system, while LLCs are still growing. My notion is that people form LLCs after being sold on the pass-through tax benefits, not the limited liability aspects of the entity type. They funnel expenses through, never realizing that legitimate business costs are already personally deductible. And if they actually do get serious about their business and it winds up an acquisition target, they’ve got a big mess to clean up before that sale.

Not to mention the little messes like becoming case law.

Mike Arrington noted that a new Ask.com/Crispin Porter ad campaign billboard is offensive. Unabomber…right.

The whole concept of “messaging” is offensive, IMHO. The assumption is that the consumer is not very smart. That might have been true a few decades ago, but it is changing as fast as the information flow is. Throw in the newspapers and television, and it is pretty easy to be skeptical about almost everything.

PS: I am not going to change what search engine I use because Ted Kazinsky’s name is mentioned along with it. It is about results, and a PR campaign isn’t going to change the results. The “messengers” need to realize that if the results aren’t good the moment you see them, you’re forever a lost customer.

The latest…online advertising exchanges are beginning to mirror commodities exchanges. Exchanges, however, seem to work best when there is a scarcity of resources. I don’t see any scarcity in the online ad realm, as the “real estate” has a marginal cost near zero, and delivery isn’t guaranteed (users can block ads).

The mirror must need cleaning.

I went to school in a state that mandated a fifth year to sit for the CPA exam. I was broke after 3 1/2 years, so after graduation I bolted to another state to work (and sit). Unfortunately, the Master’s in Accounting I skipped covered governmental and non-profit accounting, so I had to teach it to myself.

It never agreed with me, as it didn’t reflect reality. My instincts, it seems, were correct - the “right side” of the federal government’s balance sheet is short a few bucks…actually something like 50 trillion short, when you ignore accrued liabilities.

This isn’t news - David Walker, Comptroller General of the GAO, has been talking about it for a while. But major media coverage has been sparse to this point.

I just started checking out Freebase under the “alpha” test. Feels like a personal profiler on AJAX steroids. Got a warning that I was using the wrong browser (Safari), but everything seemed to work fine for me. Neat movie and music database. I suspect it will get more interesting as users input more data. Will visit again - still, curious as to what others have thought…

So stinking difficult!!!

I’ve been skunked for the first time this season. Cheesman Canyon got the best of me - I think that’s an “again” too, since I’ve been held to zero there before.

FYI - the water is flowing strong, but still crystal, and the crossings weren’t particularly tricky either (even for a guy who is well known for face plants :-). Fish are, as expected, hugging the banks. And they’re spooky as usual.

Some BWOs came by as the clouds moved in. I threw them, along with WD-40s and assorted other midges. Stripped baby beadhead woolies as dusk set in - no luck there either.

However, I still had some luck - on the way home a call came in - there were several single malts which required my attention (I think that meant before the bottles were emptied). I took those folks up on the offer, and all is good (well kinda good).

I am now hell bent on getting dialed into Cheesman - I mean really wiring the place. Any tips/tricks are appreciated.

PS: My camera got soaked when my chestpack, lying quitely on a rock, took it upon itself to roll off said rock and into the river. By the time I got over to it, the whole thing was drenched, camera included. So I am also looking for camera recommendations, as while I’m drying this one out and keeping my fingers crossed, I suspect it is toast.

UPDATE: Ode to precision screwdrivers and patience. Completely dismantled the Olympus 435, and found a few water droplets here and there. Reassembled and now working, although I have an extra screw and a little clip of some type (that always happens - extra parts!).

I.e. the glaring gap between January and May of this year…

Shut down one company

The victim was Tot Jot. Be as it may, it was a good learning experience. The biggest lesson…you can’t ignore the “feet on the ground” marketing needed by a business, even if the company is entirely virtual.

I certainly want to thank the potential investors I spoke with, even if they didn’t wind up writing any checks. Good insight can always be had from conversing with professional stakeholders. You may not think that way when they are telling you to stick your concept in the “FU bin” (yes, one actually said that), but reflection will make the message a lot clearer. I’ll also thank several close friends who supported me in the endeavor, as well as those that advised me to pull the plug.

Prepped another company for financing

A great job some folks I know did building something really fantastic. They aren’t really part of the local club, operations are spread all over the place, and they were missing a solid financial arm. We pulled together a years worth of books and records in under a week, and spent the rest of the time sculpting a set of financial projections that, for the couple of months I was involved, were mirroring actuals within a couple of percent of gross revenue and even a bit closer below the margin line. The Excel model was a bit of a pain to share, as it was over 2mb, but heck, it worked.

Now let’s just keep our fingers crossed that they get their cash.

Technology Use

I had a Powerbook on the desk for more than two years. But in my infinite wisdom, I thought I needed an Intel-based MacBook Pro so I’d have easy access to Windows and Linux (through virtualization). Now, I’d be hard pressed to think of a computer I’ve had more problems with - I think Apple has quality control issues resulting from new-found popularity and an obsession with earbuds and living rooms. They’ve jumped though hoops trying and set things straight - things are still not quite right, and I’ve given up. Sad.

Recreation

I missed out on more recreational activities than any one person should in a lifetime while working on Tot Jot. While it was a great mental exercise, a person shouldn’t have to leave a dozen fly rods sitting in their tubes for an entire season. It’s almost inhumane. I promise it won’t happen again.

Stringing together something new

Yes, but I’m not all that keen to start popping off about it. It’s kind of the in-thing to “pre-market” your “pre-alpha” product or service, and by invite-only to boot! Doing this has two effects: 1) it essentially cuts you out of any more worthwhile opportunities that might arise before your idea really gels; and 2) it almost guarantees that if you go down, it’ll be in flames. There used to be a term for this…vaporware, and proliferation of it is usually a pretty good sign that the pot is ‘a boiling over.

What ever happened to the element of surprise? Or do I mean humility?

UPDATE: I’ve got a lot of handwritten notes from the past few months - I’ll use them to fill in some of the blanks, as time permits.

Found some help, and now imports for the old Thoughtmarket.com and Spamroll.com posts are complete.

I’ve dispensed with categories in favor of tags, so posts are organized by origin (Office, Mobile, Spamroll, Thoughtmarket, and a yet to be filled category entitled “Rivers and Flats” ;-).

If you are coming from Thoughtmarket.com or Spamroll.com via a link you found, and are now looking for a particular post, please accept my apologies in advance. I wasn’t particularly concerned with preserving inbound links, and the idea of a redirect file thousands of lines long wasn’t in the cards. Use the search box, comfortable in the certainty that I hope it works for you.

UPDATE: I can’t believe there were over a thousand entries.

UPDATE 2: There are plenty of broken internal links - fixing those will take plenty of time, but if you’re finding them, I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d point them out.

UPDATE 3: Tags are back where they should be.

A mobile post [but this problem is solved].

UPDATE: If you are using WordPress and want post-from-email functionality, use Postie from Economy Sized Geek.