Hasta La Gadget!

Day 1, complete. Polished off with a lovely dinner at Heimat in Frankfurt, which prides itself on a simple menu with an exquisite wine list. Of particular satisfaction was the pairing of foie gras with a lovely Trocken (dry) Spatlese from Schloss Lieser in the Mosel.

After a full meal and a few glasses of wine, I’m off to bed and excited for Day 2. I’ve broken this up into 3 parts, as it’s impossible to cover all three without overwhelming you, so our first will take you with me to Weingut Wwe. Dr. H. Thanisch — Erben Thanisch, a member of the VDP and producer of high quality Riesling.

I make my way through the Mosel wine region of Germany which runs gracefully alongside the serpentine-like river. The Mosel paints a story book landscape with rolling hills and the feeling of serenity.

Glistening in the sun, the river reflects much needed light the berries need in order to thrive in such a temperamental climate. Despite the clouds, as I’ve grown fond of having lived the last 4 years in San Francisco, it is a beautiful day in May, right about the time when many vineyards begin to bottle and sell last year’s vintage and release all of the 2012s. The berries are still covered in their shells which once formed will fall off, uncovering the sweet fruit of the Riesling grape.

The Thanisch Villa (pictured below), which really is a mini castle, with slate construction that will stand up to fire and an iron fence, has stood for generations and continues to carry the Thanisch prestige, having been gifted and enjoyed by President Eisenhower in 1953 and priced even higher than a 1959 Château Lefite or Mouton Rotheschild in California.

The Thanisch Villa

California Wine List in 1959

I arrive over a half an hour late to my tasting appointment and as you might understand my embarrassment, I profusely apologize to world renowned Mosel Riesling producer, Sofia Thanisch, who forgivingly welcomes me into the tasting room after pointing out the various vineyards and the elusive “Berncasteler Doctor” vineyard, which, as legend has it, produced the Riesling which cured Archbishop and Elector of Trier, Boemund II of a serious illness in 1367. The wine was delivered to the castle where he lived as pictured below.

The world famous vineyard is located right where the steeple of the church pictures below points, and creates a triangle shape plot of land, south-southwest facing, which provides perfect sunlight reflected by the river and the slate soil gives the wine a clean minerality.

Mid-Mosel Wine Region and Berncasteler Doctor Vineyard

The 2012 vintages are developing quiet nicely, but I’m particularly interested in the 2011 Berncasteler Doctor Riesling Auslese.

I am expecting an extremely well-balanced high acidity, sweet and delightful Riesling and for what Weingut Wwe. Dr. H. Thanisch is famed, and that’s exactly what I get. As I begin to taste the new releases, Sofia, heir to the estate, describes the history of the vineyards, dating back to the 14th Century.

As we conclude the tasting and I emerge from the tasting room having tasted at least a dozen wines and “forgetting” to expectorate, I snap a few shots from the back of the riverside property before I set off to see Clemens Busch in Punderich.

I am a lifelong fervent advocate for the intrinsic value of physical fitness for the world’s biggest health challenges, globesity and aging. I always seek a metaphor to plead my cause.

I have labeled exercise as the oboe’s A, as armor, as an essential gene, as a pilot light, as a metronome. More meaningfully, however, is my label of exercise as an insurance policy. In this context I have lobbied the top management at United Health in Minneapolis to provide cheaper health insurance policies to fit persons. I resent subsidizing the costs of sedentary individuals. Their response: “We will, IF you will give us a sturdy biomarker to guarantee return on such an investment.

Fair enough. Since America is sternly ruled by money, exercise fitness must pay. I continue to work on the challenge of a bio-marker with Dr. Chirag Patel, now recently relocated from Stanford to the Harvard School of Public Health. We are collectively mining many data sources to provide the evidence of the cost/benefit of physical fitness. This is a vitally important work in progress.

I have resisted the embrace of the term “exercise as medicine.” This metaphor is energetically spurred by the American College of Sports Medicine, of which I am a loyal member. It is spearheaded by Dr. Bob Sallis of San Diego. Bob is a terrific speaker and guy. I had him speak to our Stanford medical students on his pet project of exercise as medicine.

I am totally in line with the intent of this campaign, yet I resist the term, as to me it is commoditized. It tends to frame exercise as a medical feature, about one that has to do with fixing what is wrong, as a repair function.

I agree that exercise is a good treatment for almost everything, but much more importantly it is a preventive. I subscribe to what Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “The shield is nobler than the spear.” True, we need spears, but we need shields more. We need a gigantically-emphasized preventive public policy now. We know enough to prevent almost everything. Fitness is the central strategy for this, particularly as we age. Fitness is required, not optional.

Without it, we will all become broke and institutionalized. This is not a prospect that any of us would welcome.

Therefore, I offer rheostat as a new metaphor for exercise: Not too hot, not too cold. Just right for lifelong health.

Any metaphor that works for you works for me and for the rest of us.

Just DO IT!

Las Vegas cop killers Jerad and Amanda Miller were “well armed and ready to kill as many cops as they could” when they took siege of a Walmart on June 8, according to new information from Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie.

The couple died during a 15-minute shootout that he said looked liked had been planned in advance with great detail, he said in a press conference on Monday about the ongoing investigation.

The Millers had an arsenal including a Ruger .38 Special hammerless revolver handgun, a Winchester Model 1300 Defender 12 gauge pistol grip pump shotgun, and a Smith and Wesson M&P 9mm semi-automatic handgun, according to KTNV.

The equipment also included what the Millers took from two Vegas policemen they shot at a CiCi’s Pizza and armor-piercing ammunition and military ready-to-eat meals (MREs). They were also wearing adult diapers during the siege, 8NewsNow reports.

Gillespie said the first 911 call about the Millers’ came at 11:22 a.m., after the couple shot Officers Igor Soldo and Alyn Beck at CiCi’s.

By 11:26 a.m., the time responding officers showed up at the restaurant to help Soldo and Beck, the Millers were on their way to the Walmart, which they entered at 11:28, carrying their weapons and MREs.

Jerad Miller, 31, declared “The revolution has started. The cops are coming. Get out!”

A few moments later, he fired a shot into the air, causing shoppers to scramble, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

The Millers engaged in a 15-minute shootout with SWAT officers, Gillespie said. During the siege, Jerad Miller yelled at the officers, “Stand down! You have failed. I’m in charge now.”

At one point, one of them smashed a sporting-goods display case with a baseball bat to get more ammunition, the Reno Gazette-Journal reports.

Gillespie said 52 shots were fired in all; 36 by the Millers and 16 by the police, KTNV reports.

The siege ended when Jerad was fatally wounded by officers and Amanda Miller, 22, shot herself in the head. She was taken into custody and transported to the UMC Trauma Center where she was later pronounced deceased.

Gillespie won’t speculate on the motives of the Millers, who met in Indiana and moved to Las Vegas in January.

They spent time at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch with other armed supporters in his confrontation with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over grazing fees, according to UPI.com.

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The Planned Parenthood Federation of America has launched a petition against NBC for reportedly refusing to air a movie trailer because it contains the A-word.

NBC turned down three initial commercial pitches for the indie rom-com “Obvious Child” because the ads mentioned the term “abortion,” a source with knowledge of the situation told The Wrap. The network has since denied the allegation.

So far, the petition has garnered more than 12,000 supporters, including Lena Dunham. The petition reads, in part:

It’s outrageous that a major network would choose to censor mentions about abortion. For far too long, the refusal to talk honestly about abortion has led to increasing stigma around the issue, and it’s got to stop.

Three in ten women will have an abortion by age 45. And the vast majority of Americans support access to safe and legal abortion. If NBC, is censoring the use of the word “abortion,” then the network is refusing to even take part in a conversation, let alone an honest one that accurately reflects women’s lives.

However, an NBCUniversal representative said the decision had nothing to do with the word in contention.

“No final spots were submitted to NBC broadcast standards for on-air consideration and NBC Broadcast Advertising Sales was never contacted about a media buy on NBC for spots related to this movie,” the rep said in a statement released to several outlets. “Moreover, initial feedback from our broadcast standards group did not include any suggestion to remove a specific word.”

“Obvious Child” stars comedian Jenny Slate as single gal Donna Stern who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy after a one-night stand. The film follows Stern’s decision to get an abortion and her simultaneous adventures in dating. (Watch the trailer below.)

Life is good for today’s tech entrepreneurs. Hot startups are finding an abundance of interest, opportunity, optimism and most significantly a healthy flow of public and private investment capital available to fund their vision. But a sense that life has gotten a little too good for tech companies has made skeptics out of some industry analysts who compare today’s environment to the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s and predict an eminent bust.

Time will tell whether or not these predictions of a renewed bust become reality. And while many may disagree with the validity of such ominous predictions, we can all agree that it is prudent to prepare our businesses to handle and thrive in any number of scenarios.

As you think about how to maintain and grow your business in both good times and bad, think of our best practice guide below as a form of “tech bubble preparedness kit.”

1. Be selective with investors.

Today, you can be much more selective in choosing whom you raise capital from because investment capital is readily available. Use this to your advantage and be selective. Whomever you take an investment from will become your business partner for many years to come, so be certain an investor is a good fit for your business. Check references to validate that it’s a right fit both ways, and ask questions up front, such as:

• Is this investor in it for the long haul? Seek out partners that are prepared to weather economic downturns with you and your company and are able to provide additional capital to your business if other investors lose interest.

• How far along is the fund they are investing from? Funds that are near the end of the fund life may put pressure on you for liquidity in order to return capital to their investors, even at a time when such liquidity is not optimal for the business or other shareholders.

• Do they understand your industry enough to provide strategic guidance if they join your board? Strong strategy is often a saving grace in weathering economic swings.

• Can they connect you to new partners, future employees or, best of all, prospective customers? Lead channels are invaluable in good times and bad.

2. Be selective with partners.

Partnerships are critical for tech companies in today’s age of open APIs and high customer demand for integrated applications instead of siloed systems. Companies tend to look to form partnerships when times are good, but make sure to be as selective with partners as you are with investors.

First consider whether your customers will find value in a potential partner’s solution, and vice-versa. Partner with companies that have a similar customer demographic; these partners can open both new opportunities to grow your customer base as well as new opportunities to sell more products into your existing customer base. Partners that both add new prospects and increase product sales to current customers are invaluable regardless of the economic environment.

Second, choose partners with sustainable business models. You don’t want your partners disappearing if tough times hit. Make sure they’re as prepared as you are to power through a potential downturn.

3. Plan, analyze, repeat.

You can’t control everything about your business. There are too many volatile internal and external factors that make the future unpredictable. What you can do is plan ahead for different future “what if” scenarios. The more volatility there is in and around your business, the more frequently you should re-plan the future.

The most effective businesses create an actionable, efficient process for financial and operational planning and analysis throughout the year. Such a process includes building a variety of scenarios to anticipate potential upturns and downturns in your business, which will allow your team to react quickly should one of those swings occur. Equally important is a process that allows you to update plans and forecasts frequently over the course of the year. This will ensure that your team is always working toward goals that are consistent with the recent realities of your business.

Good financial and operational plans are invaluable in any environment. They force you to truly understand the levers that you have to control your business, either to drive more sales in good times or to control costs in tough times. Either way, your model should drive to a cash flow statement that provides a clear view of the cash needs of your business. The best business leaders not only know when they need to raise additional capital but also when they have the runway to do so on their own terms.

4. Focus on your customers.

Customers are your lifeblood. Treat them well no matter what. Make sure that they understand that your sole focus as a business is to ensure their success with your products or services. Every employee in your company should demonstrate this attitude at every customer touch point, every single day. Why? Because happy customers will help you succeed regardless of the business climate. They will become repeat customers. They will be great references and speak to press and analysts on your behalf. They will refer business to you. In short, happy customers will shorten your sales cycle, increase your sales velocity and lower your acquisition costs – all of which will help your business thrive in any economic climate.

5. Trust your instinct, validate with data and be prepared to change course.

When you started your business, you had a vision for how it would grow and succeed. Trust that vision, and don’t be easily swayed from it. Many people will tell you why they believe you will fail. Listen carefully to this input and consider it for its merits, but don’t let emotion alone sway you from your course. You’ve acquired an abundance of data that can help you validate theories and suggestions and help you understand the real drivers of your business model. Instrument your business as early as possible (now), and analyze it constantly. When the environment around you changes, use analytics to understand the implications of these changes. Ultimately, be willing to change course, to revise your vision based on analytical evaluation and to take advantage of the changing conditions around you.