Monthly Archives: October 2009

(Community Matters) Let’s keep Senator John McCain’s advice within the context of his record:

You know that old Beach Boy song Bomb Iran. Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.

But I believe, Katie, that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators.

There’s not a history of clashes that are violent between Sunnis and Shiahs. So I think they can probably get along.

And, don’t even get me started on former VP Cheney

(Community Matters) Just booked a ticket – airfare $450; taxes $411.06. Astounding.

(Community Matters) I’m staying over in DC for a couple of extra days. Received an invitation to attend the White House ceremony with President Obama celebrating signing of the Matthew Shepherd Hate Crimes Act.

(Community Matters) Juan, Teresa and Michael returned to DC late morning – from visiting their daughter Vicki at Harvard for parents’ weekend. Visited with them, then with Kirk Rudy to lunch, a tour of area around the mall, and the national portrait gallery.

With National Finance Committee members to Mt. Vernon – wow. Quite moving. George Washington had quite a spread. He started out with 2,000 acres, expanded to 8,000 – though not so terribly big in those times, his neighbors, the Fairfaxs, had a 1 million English King land grant.

Hung with our Austin group (Kirk, Alexa Wesner, Glen & Linda Neeland), Guy Selden, Adrienne Donato, Andy Tobias, Peter Reinhardt, Tony Martinez and Paul Horning.

(Community Matters) An HHS official is telling me the swine flu is a very serious threat, especially to 18 – 23 year olds. You MUST get a vaccine, and if you develop flu symptoms please go immediately to the doctor. This flu shuts down the body functions and young people are dieing. Universities are setting up quarantine dorms. Some schools likely not to reopen immediately after holidays.

(Community Matters) Real Clear Politics – poll of pollls showing growing discontent among independents against existing politics.

“Independents have flipped negative,” warns Bevan. “That’s not a good thing for any party.”

“What do these phenomena have in common? In two words: disillusionment and disgust,” says Lara Brown, Villanova University political science professor.

Voters wonder what happened to candidates they elected to clean up Washington, stop partisan bickering and remove Wall Street titans who retained fat bonuses only because taxpayers bailed out their companies.

A CNN poll last week suggests most no longer agree with Obama “on the issues that matter most to them.”

Other polls suggest Americans feel Republicans are merely “obstructionists.”

(Community Matters)

(Community Matters) I’m off to Washington DC for national finance committee meetings, including a party at Mount Vernon tomorrow night.

(Community Matters)

Had a fantastic birthday celebration with Luke and his parents (in from NYC) over dinner at Fonda San Miguel last night. Regret won’t be here to celebrate with the bigger bunch tonight, though loved the intimacy of our dinner and hearing all the wonderful stories.

(Community Matters) PeopleFund’s Conference on Economic Opportunity (formerly the East Austin Economic Conference) gets underway at 8:30 this morning (yikes, I gotta pack for DC and make it out their prior to flying out).

Congressman Lloyd Doggett

Congressman Doggett has been a longtime, consistent supporter of & champion for our organization. Good gosh, I’ve been on the PeopleFund board for nearly 12 years.

David Hinton, National Director
Minority Business Development Agency

I didn’t have much of a chance to visit with David. He’s President Obama’s appointeee to the Minority Business Development Agency. We’re honored he’s delivering one of two keynotes this morning.

Amy Evarhart, Byron Marshall’s niece & Lisa Byrd

Amy & Lisa dear friends. Amy with the Mayor’s office; Lisa runs Pro-Arts Collective

Adrienne Neely, Margo Weisz & Henrietta Neely

Margo the founder/executive director of PeopleFund/PeopleTrust. Adrienne a board member and overseeing the construction of our new building on the Featherlite tract.

(Community Matters) 415 volunteers at Zilker Park working on every sort of project at the Park, Botanical Gardens, Nature Preserve, Nature & Science Center and around the pool. Approximately 2,500 volunteer hours worth nearly $50,000 from 25 of Austin’s companies led by entrepreneurs.

gathering at breakfast – thanks Starbucks & Taco Cabana

Austin Ventures team including Mike Dodd, David Lack & Kim Carter

PricewaterhouseCoopers

A million thanks to PwC for being one of the day’s sponsors (along with DLA Piper, Thinkwell and Square One). Together with members of Austin Ventures, Collider Media, Convio, Sante Ventures, and Nvidia, they removed invasive species, thinned out some trees along the Nature Preserve trail and lined the trail with rocks.

PwC

PwC’s managing partner, Jim French & Mike Dodd

the Phurnace Software team
led by my Texas A&M student leader colleague, Larry Warnock
he was commander of the corp

Whitney Mayfield w/ Clif Bar & Co @ Austin Biodiversity Greenhouse

Emily Mayfield w/ Manticore Tech @ Austin Biodiversity

volunteers from Handmade Expressions

a Dell team @ McBeth Recreation Center

vcfo’s Corey Blahuta

back breaking hard workers – always think of Corey, Jeff Browning and John Dirvin

Comerica’s team

Paul Gerling and associates at Comerica
I had a good pic of their Pres. Tim Klitch, where is it?

lunch for 415, thanks to Schlotzsky’s and Ben & Jerry’s and Sweet Leaf Tea

Mayor Lee Leffingwell

the Handmade Expressions team

I enjoyed meeting these guys who have established a social motivated, for profit, fair trade business to provide sustainable wages for India-based artisans – Handmade Expressions

Bryant Howell & Dan from BazaarVoice

BazaarVoice team @ Nature & Science Center

Loved seeing my former undergrad student Harrison now at Bazaar

Boundless team @ Nature & Science

Adlucent @ Nature & Science

Marc Cannon w/ Boundless

Denise Kotria (Sitestuff), Tyler Metzger (Creditcards.com) & Alythia Raya (sitestuff)

Kat Diederich (AV) & Jenny Murphy (Sante)

Creditcards.com @ Nature & Science
team led by Faith Johnson

Parks & Rec Central Parks Director, Joanna Mesecke

Parks & Rec was outstanding. Twenty-three-ish staff members and key volunteers leading our member company volunteers. They prepped and cared & feed all of us really well – many thanks!

Peter Frey & Jenna Poldrogar closing down

Shobie Partos is our program manager extraordinaire who organizes a thousand moving pieces flawlessly – of course well led & assisted by Amanda Chiampi & Peter Frey. EF couldn’t be luckier to have these three as its full time staff.

(Community Matters) My friend Mark Salmanson sent to me and that he’d confirmed on FBI website as legitimate

Jury Duty Scam

Pass this on to your grown children. This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty that a new that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced



The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo, your identity was just stolen.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma , Illinois , andColorado . This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system.

The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites , warning consumers about the fraud.

Check it out here: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm

And here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp

(Community Matters) Today’s the Entrepreneurs Foundation’s Fall Service Day. We have 415 volunteers from 25 companies gathering at Zilker Park’s Rock Garden Picnic Area who will then fan out to the Botanical Gardens, Nature Preserve, the Nature & Science Center, the Pool and other areas of the park. They’ll log in over 2,500 volunteer hours (valued at over $50,000) today, on projects as diverse as thinning bamboo to creating a mosaic murals.

FSD ’08

Participating companies include Adlucent, Austin Ventures, Bazaarvoice, Boundless Network, Collider Media, Comerica Bank, Convio, CreditCards.com, Dell, DLA Piper*, Handmade Expressions, HomeAway, Manticore Technology, NVIDIA, Phurnace, PricewaterhouseCoopers*, QuickArrow, Sante Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, SiteStuff, Surgient, Thinkwell*, Troux Technologies, vcfo and Vinson & Elkins. Many thanks to our sponsors*

(Community Matters) It’s down to the wire – 48% to 48% in the campaign to overturn marriage in Maine. Supporters of LGBT equality can help by making remote calls. check out http://www.couragecampaign.org/CallForMaine

(Community Matters) Yesterday was historic, the first time ever fully inclusive legislation protecting members of America’s LGBT community passed Congress. On top of a terrific week when the President’s administration announced proposals for Housing and Urban Development to ensure its core housing programs are open to all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity AND that HHS will establish a national resource center to assist in providing services and support for older LGBT Americans.

Thank you Mr. President!