Venture Capital Panel at Bell Harbor or "Due Diligence Live"

David Allen, Troy Hartzell, John Otter, Petra Franklin,
Alan Smith, John Cook

This morning was a fun Venture Capital Panel at Bell Harbor Conference Center for ZINO.  Six of us reviewed twenty companies competing for two  $50,000 checks and about $400,000 more in follow-on investments.   The twenty presenting companies ranged from sports equipment to software to real estate to an hydrokinetic turbine application for rivers.


Banshee Bungee
BedRock Hotels
BuiltBurger
Cloudpak
Daddy-O Productions, Inc.
Emergent Detection
Enroute Systems Corporation
FiatLux Imaging, Inc.
Flux Drive, Inc.
Harbor Wing Technologies
Hydrovolts
IMOS
Indie Vinos, Inc.
Mobile On Services
Moprise, Inc. 
NanoICE, Inc.
Open Mobile Solutions, Inc.
Orbiter LLC
Vioguard LLC 
Wine Valet, Inc.

And the winners were... Banshee Bungee and NanoIce.  Exciting! 

David Allen, Troy Hartzell, John Otter, Petra Franklin, Alan Smith

Naomi & Annabel on their First Day at Evergreen School

Naomi is sitting on teacher Judith Hart's left in a red shirt and ponytails.  Next to her is Annabel in fuscia.  This is the Pre-School class at Evergreen with Judith Hart and assistant teacher Melissa Norby.  Simone had Judith back in 2008.  Here is an older post where Simone's PS class went fishing at Twin Ponds on crazy hair day.  Judith often takes the class into the woods and on this first day of school they went to search for a fairy house in the woods and found one at the base of an old growth tree.  They each left a present there.  They'll return in a few days and find pencils that the fairies left for them.

Simone and Naomi have been pals for a couple years. In 2009, they went to Global Gardens PreSchool every Thursday and Friday morning.  Above is a picture of their last day there. It was June 17th, 2010.

Claudette & Susan do Seattle

Claudette and Susan arrived in Seattle with a purpose.  

They wanted to visit the Sea Otters. 

The Scuba diver has arrived to feed the fish in the giant window on Washington tank.  

Each tank in the Seattle Aquarium has an upper viewing spot as well as a lower viewing window.  

Skates and Sturgeon prowling the underwater dome. 

Simone and Claudette watching the Skates and Sturgeons in the underwater dome.

In the Tuffed Puffins and Auklet house. 

The divers talk via speakers to the kids and answer questions.

We learned that the glass is about 12 inches thick.

The girls started to droop.  David can still carry both of them!

Back to the tower for dinner and to hear about the Victoria trip.

Great catching up.  

The girls were thrilled to give Susan a tour.

Susan and Claudette do the Experience Music Museum.  What a space! 

Shall we tape a music video?  Lets call ourselves "Otter Wild."

One of the fun things you can do at EMP is create a rock band and karaoke style, tape a song in front of a faux screen of an eager audience. Claudette on the keys, Simone on drums,  Susan on guitar, David as lead singer and Naomi with me on back-up.  It is set up so that you can't actually hit the wrong notes. 

Decided to "Ride the Duck" around town and into Lake Union.

After the ducky tour, Susan, Naomi and I went to see the Freemont Troll. He lives under the Aurora Bridge and holds a real Volkswagen bug in his hand.

At one point during our visit, we started talking about gardens and growing pumpkins.  I shared that we had tried for three years to grow pumpkins on our office decks with no luck.  Lots of flowers but no fruit.   It dawned on her that our decks are 7 and 22 stories up and perhaps not frequented by pollinators. She suggested that Naomi and Simone try using a paint brush to pollenate.  

Success.  We have pumpkins and squash aplenty!  

The Troll is great for climbers and geocachers.

Hurrah!

Naomi - "I'm really big. Can you see?"

Dan Lahaie and family joined us for dinner at the tower on the second night. 

Naomi, Billy, Brooke, Justin and Kristin chill on the couch 

while David, Claudette, Susan and Dan share family stories.

Simone sitting in the window with her bear watching the ferries come and go on the Sound.

Boogie All Day Long

We're in Santa Cruz visiting our good friends Kristin, Eric and Zoe.  

Naomi and Simone headed down to the beach with a boogie board. 

Learning the game.

Dolphins swam right behind Naomi and Simone and I caught one of their playful leaps.

As the Dolphins made their way up and down the shoreline, they stopped by again to visit.

Simone is on a sand crab search!  Success!

Naomi getting the hang of it!

Uh oh!  Buried by a wave.  

A mouthful of sand too!  This was the second time on this vacation that Naomi found herself chopping on grit.  About a week before, when leaping off the monstrous dunes on the Oregon Coast and rolling down the giant shifting hills, she bit the dust. 

Simone deep into the work of creating a sand castle city.  Each day we dressed the tops of our castles with sand crabs and then added seaweed to protect them from the hot sun.

Telling the ocean where to go with a tunnel system.

End of the day...

Back to the car.

Looking down at the sand castle city!

Another day lunching at Kelly's French Bakery, one of our favorite spots, with Eric, Kristen and Zoe.

Stopping by the great whale skeleton!

What a great vacation!

Monica, David, Sophie & Annabel come over.

Naomi is thrilled to see Annabel and Sophie!  

Monica and David arrive!  

Check out how we redid our room. -Simone to Sophie

Monica and I decide to take in the sunset from the globe. 

Even after twelve years, I experience a tummy flip when I look down the dizzy slope of the pyramid.  Are we spinning?

As we share our ambitions for Mad Cap, we enjoy the Puget Sound.   

Mad Cap is the name we've given the new house Monica has rented and sublet to Debbie, Catherine and I.  We are all Evergreen moms working on Internet projects and the house is a block from the school enabling us to work nearby, walk over at pick-up and then let the kids hang-out at the house while we cram in another hour or so of computer time.   The name Mad Cap came from our initials.   

The city is inspiring.  

Sweet Annabel 

The salad was particularly good. It was a mix of argula, mash and baby greens. Threw in some raspberries, spicy-sweet pecans, goat cheese and a splash of raspberry wasabi dressing.  

Even the kids liked it.

It was juicy.