Home from CUE

I'm home now... for now. My last day at the CUE conference was a bit slow. However, I think we got 2 good school leads that day, so it wasn't terrible. On the bright side, due to my association with John Cradler (an educational technology expert on our Board of Advisors), one of the top educational consultants in the country (and friend of John) is interested in meeting me to discuss possibilities. I can't share specifics, but there is good potential :-) On Saturday night, I also met with fellow Nu Delta alums Steve Belin and Ben Skolnik. Ben recently founded http://www.livingproofproject.org,, a non-profit organization geared toward mentorship in lower income neighborhoods, and he has influence in Los Angeles. The exciting thing is that I will be given a chance to speak at a major event that they are putting together on April 29. I will have the opportunity to speak for 15-20 minutes, talking about my career as an entrepreneur and tying things to education. This will be a motivational speech in front of a group of 100+ people, and the attendees will include young MIT alums, some Ivy league alums, and inner city high school students who are participating in Ben's program :-) Ben will be inviting school officials from Los Angeles to attend, so I hope to meet with some of them as well. There will be other speakers, of course, and then we'll do a panel for Q&A. In addition, I will be giving away free MathScore student accounts to the attendees and have my logo appear on a big screen.

I also spent the night at my cousin Jim's on Saturday. He's doing well, and I ended up eating Japanese food with him. He's a doctor, and his dream is to open up a sports medicine clinic. He knows that he has to dream big to make this happen, and I hope he succeeds.

Today, my drive back up to Palo Alto was smooth. There was some snow in the mountain pass and rain on and off, but nothing to really slow down my commute, so I think I averaged 80+ MPH for most of the drive home. I saw a cop creep up on I-5 near Coalinga (a relative speed trap), but I was driving too slow to be worth his time, so he zoomed past me (phew!) At any rate, how many times have you been passed by a Honda Civic Hybrid? Are most people surprised when I pass them? My wife only knows of 2 occasions when a Prius has zoomed past me while driving, so I imagine people find it weird when I pass them. What do you think?