I recently read a post written by Christopher Griffin in which he was discussing Ron Conway’s views from an angel panel at Techcrunch50. The takeaway for Griffin was clear: “if you aren’t moving to the Valley, you can’t complain about a lack of capital.”

Whoa, hold on there. First, everyone has a right to complain - the question is if the complaint is valid - and I believe that it is.  Why?  Because I believe that there is a fundamental flaw in thinking that entrepreneurs should just “get moving.”

Certainly, I agree with the statement that there is a large talent pool, investable dollars, and a plethora of big companies situated in the Valley, but I disagree with the thinking that a company’s success in raising venture capital funding is based upon their ability to move to where “everyone else” is. (more…)

As far back as I can remember I was always told by my parents not to shove anything up my nose.  Of course, as a school aged child, everyone knew the one kid that put some kind of object - blunt or shiny - in their nostrils for the enjoyment of their peers.  Then, in college, there was always the road trip that brought the usual pranks among your friends - for us it was one generous snorer who had a penchant for pencils, pens and straws in his nose without his consent.

Those were certainly the days.  But Avery?  No.  You never should put anything in your nose!

Well, that is where the story begins.  The other night, while lying in misery due to my clogged sinuses, Colleen has this brilliant idea.  She called it the “Neti Pot,” and according to her, it was the solution to life’s greatest questions.

What do I have to do was the inevitable question next in the queue.

“You just lean over the sink and pour warm, salty water in one nostril and it will drain and clear out the other.”

“Huh, what?” was my response.

That’s right.  The kid that was taught to not put things in his nose and who preaches it to his own child was about to shove a miniature watering can in one side of my nose in the hopes that it will come out the other side.

Surely this was a prank.  I mean, can’t I get the same solution by being made to laugh and squirting milk out of my nose?  At least, at that point, nothing will have purposefully entered my nasal cavity and we’d get a good laugh in the process.

Alas, it was no prank.  I gave in to the claims of “wonderous” and “I swear by it,” only to be greeted by water streaming out of my eye and a distinct feeling that I had just drank a glass of ocean water.

Note to self.  Don’t put anything in your nose again.

It has been over two years since I have contemplated a new design here on Goldblatt.info.  Now folks, it is on its way.

While its foundation is built upon what you see here on the site today, it also draws inspiration from some of the best web designers in the world.  The new design will more fully incorporate activities that I partake in around the web, including Twitter and Facebook, but will not lose the main focus of content - which we will bring more of to you.  There have been late nights and it is still a work in progress as my Photoshop, XHTML, CSS, and AJAX-y skills were in need of some dusting, but it is coming… soon.

I’ve thought about this post numerous times. In fact, I have actually begun writing it a couple of those numerous times that I thought about it.  It has been a while since this blog has seen life, and it is time that changed.  There have been broken promises - to myself and to you, our readers - about getting back into it.  For those that follow me on Twitter you’ll know that I am active - sometimes. While I put together this new template that is better suited to aggregate everything that we do around the web, I ask that all seven of our monthly unique visitors hang tight and see what the future brings.

I can understand that the prospect of losing your title as the most decorated Olympic swimmer/athlete in single Games is traumatizing, but give it a rest.  It is no longer about you. Your feats from Munich in 1972 will live on in history as the first, but no longer the greatest.

How about giving credit where credit is due, Mr. Spitz?  You were the standard, now Phelps is poised to surpass you. You, yourself, said back in July to the Agence France-Presse that “Records are made to be broken, including mine. Thirty-six years is a long time.”

Quite true, Mr. Spitz, records are meant to be broken.  We can attest to that, considering the plethora of records that have fallen from their perches over the past six months alone.

We can certainly give you the benefit of the doubt because you obviously do appreciate the potential historical significance of Phelps’ accomplishments.  But to ask why you should observe Phelps’ exploits on your dime and to truly believe that it is demeaning to you and your own accomplishments?  Surely you jest?

You also mentioned, “He’s almost identical to me. He’s a world-record holder in all these events, so he is dominating the events just like I did. He reminds me of myself.”

Does it bother you that Phelps just wants to be the “first Michael Phelps” not the “next Mark Spitz”?

This is not the first time that your comments have ruffled feathers this year.  Your innuendos recently that world record holder Ian Crocker, and I am paraphrasing here, needs to wake up and stop feeling sorry for himself, were not taken well.

Phelps even went so far as to pay homage to you and your era with his Fu-Manchu leading up to these very Games.  The least you could do is show your respect and be here in Beijing when, and if, history is achieved. You do know that the Olympics take VISA?

Pat Forde said it best, “… see ya later, Mark Spitz. Here’s a hankie. Now stop crying about nobody flying your smug self over here. History is unfolding just fine without you.”

As a Jewish athlete, you inspired me.  You gave me hope that I could one day achieve greatness.  But there is solace, Mr. Spitz, you are still the greatest Jewish Olympian in history - I can say that without shadow of a doubt.  But I would add that Jason Lezak might, now, be infinitely more popular than you ever were.

See you in Beijing Mr. Spitz.

Update: The Baltimore Sun’s Kevin Van Valkenburg wrote his own version of a letter to Mark Spitz.

History. Greatness. Phenomenal. There is a language full of superlatives that you can use to describe Michael Phelps’ accomplishment.  The text message Michael received Wednesday morning prior to his races said it as straightforward as any single person can. The message read, “Time to be the best ever.”

But how does he do it?

“I don’t believe that it is the quest for eight gold medals,” head Men’s coach Eddie Reese said describing Phelps’ desire. “If he can win something, he’s gonna go for it… First half of the race he’s gone. It’s amazing… There’s nobody in any sport that can win like he wins.”

Disregarding all conventional wisdom, Simon Burnett told Reese that he believed he has found the legend behind Phelps.  “I’ve figured out Michael Phelps,” Burnett said. “He’s not from another planet, he’s from the future.  His father in the future made a time machine ‘cause 60 years from now, he is only an average swimmer. But he sent him back here to mop up.”

When asked to explain just how amazing his accomplishments were Phelps so eloquently described it as “When you have an Olympic gold medal, it stays with you forever. You know, your birthday happens every year, Christmas happens every year, but you only have so many chances to be a gold medalist.”

But what does it feel like to be the best ever?

For a man that always seems to know what to say, all Phelps could get out was, “I think I am almost at a loss for words… To be the most decorated Olympian of all time, it just sounds weird saying it. I have absolutely nothing to say. I’m speechless.” The tears welling in his eyes during the 200-meter butterfly awards ceremony told us of the appreciation he has finally found for his accomplishments. Later, Phelps admitted that being the “greatest ever” was actually a “pretty cool title.”

Yes, it is.

There is a Michael Phelps you don’t see.

Many people do not know that Phelps will typically go out of his way for the media.  He will always stop to answer questions or give a quick quote.  Yes, there are times that his schedule prevents this, but it is rare for him not to take the time if he has it.

This side of Phelps rang true today during his press conference, as he showed a graciousness that we could only wish upon every other athlete out there.

With just two questions remaining and time running out, a local reporter posed a question.  It was a long one - perhaps a minute in length. It was also one that Phelps found some humor in – as did every other journalist in attendance.

The humor? It was due to the fact that the translated audio was not working to Phelps’ earpiece, and try as he might to comprehend, the language barrier did not give him the ability to.

Another local journalist attempted to remedy the situation and quickly translate, but it went woefully wrong.  After a brief few moments, the moderator simply chose to move on to the next question.

But there was Phelps, stopping the moderator dead in his tracks, in an effort to have someone translate the question so that he could answer it. Graciousness. Poise. Maturity.

The question?  Something about mathematics.

The answer? “I am terrible at math. Math was always my worst subject in school.”

In the grand scheme it was a question that would not have been missed. But to that reporter, it meant something.  Phelps respected that, and in the process earned an added respect from all in attendance.

We’ve all seen the commercials. The ones by Citibank where you are watching some sort of nondescript video of an overweight man lying on the couch, while listening to a cheeky voice-over of a 16-year-old girl talking about what she just purchased using “her” credit card.

Funny but serious issue that identity theft thing.

But what happens when it involves two swimmers?

With Federica Pellegrini’s world record effort yesterday in the 200m Freestyle, she effectively removed Laure Manaudou from the record books by snatching another record from the Frenchwoman’s grasp.  What is interesting is that records are not the only thing that link the two.

Earlier this year Pellegrini began dating Luca Marin – Manaudou’s ex-boyfriend.

It gets better.

Manaudou’s ex-coach Philippe Lucas now coaches Pellegrini.

I am guessing that that might be all Pellegrini may want to “take” from Manaudou with those photos out there and all.

People love swimming

As of 4pm yesterday (East Coast time) there have been 1.1 million streams of the Men’s 4×100m Freestyle Relay served on demand from the NBCOlympics.com website, and now takes the credit as the most watched video in the site’s history.

You can quote me on that

“I think he’ll be swimming the 100m free.  That’s been our plan for a while.” - Bob Bowman on whether Michael Phelps will take up the event in the future.

What we watched this morning was perhaps the greatest race of all time.  Wait, scratch that.  It was the greatest race of all time, and I think that it is safe to say that you’ll all agree with that opinion.

But with a collective sigh we can take a deep breath and say “thank goodness for the 32-year-old from Irvine, California.” It is quite safe to say that NBC’s Dick Ebersol was among those to do just that at the moment that Jason Lezak’s hand touched the wall.

Lezak saved sports as we know it.  As sporting fans, we all want to believe in something magical - to witness something otherworldly. We want something we can tell our children we witnessed.  We want something untainted in today’s world filled with drug-induced records. Michael Phelps presents us with that opportunity. For a moment some stopped believing. But in 46.06 seconds, Lezak was able to breathe life back into that dream by snatching life – and a gold medal - from the French.

Casual sports fans at home don’t care about the who’s and the what’s.  What they watched tonight was about “saving” Michael Phelps’ eight gold medals.  We can delude ourselves, as swimming fans, with the belief that sports fans care about that relay because of what it was – the greatest race of all time – but I am much more skeptical. While I will be the first person to congratulate each of the men on that relay personally when the opportunity presents itself, I believe that the casual fan is more fickle.

Jason Lezak has five Olympic medals – three gold - but this one is the most important of them all.  To Jason, it is about redemption after two prior unsuccessful attempts in this event at the Olympic Games.  To everyone else? It saved the Olympics as we know it, and gave everyone a reason to continue watching. Thank you Jason for your performance this morning, you are my hero.

Michael Phelps is a football fan.  Everybody knows that. But somewhere along the way, Phelps became a basketball fan.

Or a LeBron James fan.

Or a Kobe Bryant fan.

“Got a text after my swim last night,” Michael said. “It said LeBron James was pretty pumped up about it.”

That would make anyone say “cool.”

But especially Michael.  Don’t believe me?  I quote you this:

“I talked to LeBron a few times, it was pretty cool.” - Michael Phelps

But what would a game of one-on-one look like between Phelps and James?  Probably as one-sided and silly as it would be for LeBron to don a LZR Racer and hop in the pool.  Regardless, I’d like to see it.

You can quote me on that

“The Americans? We’re going to smash them. That’s what we came here for.” - Alain Bernard on the 4×100m Free Relay