About Steve
Steve invested a second long year in his
new company focused on
residential energy efficiency.
His strategy of relying on the ARRA stimulus funds
(approved February 2009) to bootstrap the business
turned out to have a
major flaw: the funds which were supposed to be released quickly into
the
economy were held hostage by a bureaucratic nightmare of unending
hurdles.
Worse yet, the delay didn't happen all at once: it
dragged out month by month, so at any given time
over a
15 month period it looked like the funds would be available within a
month or two.
So last March, unable to wait any longer, Steve started
funding development himself.
This created a bit of a cash flow problem at home,
requiring Lisa to find ways to earn more herself
while also finding ways to spend less running the household, and stressing Steve to levels not
seen in years.
Finally on November 1st 2010 funds for the project
(defined back in April 2009!) were officially released
and the project began in earnest. The next six months will be very
intense, but if all goes well Steve's company
will develop and deploy a new web-based service that will help homeowners identify and reduce wasted energy.
This effort took up most of Steve's time & energy during 2010. Below are a few other highlights.
Steve's folks came out for a visit in March and the three of them
visited Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks.
The Sequoias are absolutely amazing trees!
Steve and Eric joined Justine in Alaska for a week during the summer and
had a great time.
Steve bikes to meetings and errands whenever possible, and in March got to do some mountain biking with an old friend from high school days who now lives in Marin.
In September Steve and Eric biked 80 miles to Carmel. The girls and dogs met us there for a great weekend. (And also drove us home!)
Lots of running this year too.
His legs and feet are now fully adjusted to
his FiveFinger running shoes, and his running buddy
Sirius is finally back off the injured list.
In November, Steve and Ironman buddy James
ran the 26-mile "Skyline to the Sea" trail,
finishing at a beach just north of Santa Cruz.
Beautiful views, and nice soft trails between
and under the redwood trees of Big Basin Park.
He also did lots of runs with his friends
from the DIPSrunclub
(shown below, on a particularly frosty Thanksgiving morning run).
And finally, taking a reading break with a Kindle in the back yard.
(Have you read
"The Big Short"?)
