Another day late on the musings, mainly because…

Seattle Politics and Sports
…I wanted to see what the City Council would do on the vote to vacate a deserted alley behind a strip club, in order to clear the path so someday it would be possible to build a $500 million arena. This is one of those votes that would only be newsworthy in Seattle. Not a vote on building an arena. Not a vote on financing an arena. A vote on whether or not to SELL – not give away – an abandoned alley to the would be developer of the project. This decision is so simple to make, it would literally take a group of misfit buffoons to be fooled into voting the wrong way. Well Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you the Seattle City Council. According to the Seattle Times, three of the people voted against vacating the street because they didn’t like how another Council Member was being treated on social media. Yes, we have the only politicians in the country who cast their vote based on how social media is treating their friends. It’s just maddening.

Personal Life
I mostly write about thoughts, observations and rants here, but it probably is worth mentioning that I joined an Australian company called Whispir. Very cool technology being used extensively in Asia. The Americas team is just getting off the ground, so it should be a fun experience. It probably also means that since I’m not going to be building a content development agency, I probably don’t need to write a lot of content. Just enough to keep up the SEO rankings (and rant about the Seattle City Council.)

Sports
The Mariners keep winning. But man it’s hard to root for them when they did so much work to keep the new arena from being built. How do you support the game of baseball but protest the Mariners management? I think I’m simply going to take a little break from them and explore things like hiking and such on days I would normally go to games. Let me know if you want some of my tickets.

Tech Events
The Geekwire Awards are on May 12. Always a fun event. Usually sells out, so buy your tix now. (Coincidentally, it’s being held on a piece of property that at some point the Seattle City Council would have had to give away to Paul Allen so he could build the EMP there.)

So I broke the #1 rule of consistency. But it’s been kind of a nutty week. More announcements to come…

Sports
All Hail the Mariners. All Hail a 10-9 record. All Hail being in 1st place in the West with just 88.3% of the season remaining. At this pace they’d win 85 games which *could* get them close to a playoff spot. For comparison, last year the Astros made the 5th playoff spot with 86 wins. So that’s saying something.

History
I found myself pretty intrigued by the historical TV show “Turn: Washington’s Spies” over the last year or so, and did a little research on some of the American Revolution’s main characters. Here’s a little stat you don’t read in your 6th grade history books. Ben Franklin had an illegitimate son. That son had an illegitimate son. That son had an illegitimate daughter. I’m not sure those are the family values the Daughters of the American Revolution type conservatives want to talk about.

Politics
Man, is this really going to be Trump vs Clinton? Most interesting idea I have heard lately is to temporarily pass a Constitutional Amendment making the President a 2 year term of office, giving us a redo for 2018.

Business
Good luck to the 32 teams still remaining in the University of Washington’s Business Plan Competition. This is the first year in a long time that I don’t have any students trying to get their companies off the ground. But I’m still looking forward to seeing what this year’s group has come up with.

Culture
Where would you say Prince’s death fits in terms of impact and surprise? Not quite Cobain level perhaps? But close. RIP.

Economy
Happy Tax Day! This might a good day for Bernie Sanders to dial down the rhetoric about raising my taxes. It’s a little bit of a sore spot for me this week, Bernie. Or another way he can look at is, “I don’t have any money to donate to a political campaign for about the next 4 years. Or charity for that matter…”

Politics
Speaking of Bernie, this political theater just gets more interesting by the day. The New York primaries are this week and I have to admit, I just want results to fall into place that will cause the most amount of chaos. I have my extra large back of popcorn kernels and am ready to sit back and enjoy the absurdity of super delegates switching sides, both parties having candidates claiming unfairness, pledged delegates being bribed and threatened, rules being made up on the fly, and the eventual elecetion of someone not even in the race right now. It just fascinates me that in one day, Hillary Clinton can have photo opps with Wall St billionaires and the leaders of Black Lives Matter, and vigorously tell both of them that she has a plan that works for them.

Seattle | Sports | Events
Startup Grind is a good event to hit. But next week, on 4/26, it should even be more fun for you sports fans. Adrian Hanauer, founder and owner of the Sounders, will be on stage with host Michael Grabham. Get your tickets now, as this one may sell out.

Business
So my new business is officially off the ground. I’m calling it Content365.Online because my niche is developing content and materials for B2B companies so they can publish every day of the year. Take a look and give me a shout if you know any B2B companies that might need what I’m selling. Content is hard to produce, but I’ve been working on a process to make it easier.

Have a good week.

Politics
Last week really brought home a harsh realization about Presidential politics. We the People actually don’t have a right to determine who a Political Party puts up for President. This wacky delegate rule is different in each state, but what’s clear is that its the members of Political Parties in each state who get to decide who they nominate. Sure we have the right to participate with an opinion on the matter, but we really don’t have to right to choose. This illusion is displayed in many different ways, with the Colorado GOP at least making it perfectly clear it doesn’t really care what people think.

Politics and Sports
You may have missed it, but the attacks in Belgium were not supposed to take place in Belgium. They were supposed to be in France during Euro 2016. Now that’s scary. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans shuttling around France’s airports, train stations and metros. Now, consider that the mass shootings in France last year happened during a soccer match.

These two things make it seem really possible that the Paris shootings were a dress rehearsal for some sort of multi-faceted terrorist attack during Euro 2016. I’ll watch from home thanks.

Sports
In 2 games pitched, Felix Hernandez has given up 1 earned run in 13 innings, with 16 strikeouts. Over the 1st 6 games, the Mariners are 2-4. But here’s the twist, they didn’t win either game that Felix pitched. This has the markings of a frustrating season.

Sports
The Sounders are not playing well. But Oalex Anderson and Chad Marshall bailed them out.

There is a key to this play that no one is talking about. The Dynamo had the ball at 92:40. All they needed to was possess for ;20 and the ref would have blown the whistle. But inexplicably, they booted it down the field where it went out of bounds. That gave the Sounders a throw in at about 92:50, and the ref let the play run its course until the Dynamo got possession back, even though it took the clock past the 3 minutes of extra time he called for. Quirky soccer rule. Dyanmo can only blame themselves.

Startups
If you are a B2B tech startup, you have three great reasons to attend this event on Tuesday at 11am, “Go-to-Market Strategies for B2B Tech Start-ups.” 1) It’s taught by Matt Heinz, who probably knows more about this than anyone. 2) You meet the folks from 9 Mile Labs, who are actively looking for promising B2B Tech Startups. 3) You get to see Galvanize, where a whole bunch of tech startups are hanging out. This is an easy call. Go check it out.

Have a good week everyone.

Global News
At least 69 people Christians died in a suicide bombing last week carried out by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. No, not in Belgium, in Pakistan. The bomb went off in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest and wealthiest province and the political powerbase of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It didn’t get nearly the same amount of coverage as the Belgium bombings, but we should pay attention to non-European terrorism as well.

Sports (and Conspiracies)
Sure, the World Cup isn’t technically until 2018, but every country has 3 or 4 rounds to get through in 2015, 2016 and 2017 just to reach the final 32. The U.S. *should* be able to get through six games in a preliminary round vs the likes of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, and Guatemala, in which they only need to finish 2nd to advance. But ruh roh, Guatemala just beat the U.S. 2-0. There’s still time to right the ship, starting tomorrow with a Guatemala rematch in Columbus, OH. But an unexpected loss there suddenly means that halfway through the 2nd round, the U.S. destiny would be out of their hands. Now, we know soccer is corrupt, so do you think there is a chance FIFA is sending a message to our fair country for coming in and prosecuting them?

Politics and Culture
I’ve been watching House of Cards,Season 4. Is it just me, or does the show attempting to show politics in the most ludicrous light possible, actually seem tame and predictable in comparison to the actual Presidential election?

Sports
Baseball season starts one week from today. Things will finally seem balanced again. What’s your prediction for Mariners wins? Personally, I’m simply hoping for them to stay competitive until the Seahawks start playing regular season games. I hate when I’m forced to watch a pre-season game because the Mariners have already fallen out of contention and playing games that are equally as meaningless.

Sports
And finally….Syracuse in the Final Four? Syracuse??? Come on… no one wants to watch that boring zone in the Final Four.

A few thoughts from last week.

Sports:
If you are not a fan of March Madness, I really feel bad for you. All the talk around the water cooler today will be about the insane drama that unfolded over the weekend, including LITERALLY the greatest comeback in the history of college basketball.

Coincidentally, I couldn’t fall asleep Wednesday night so I built a big spreadhseet with about 10 inputs that I tried to normalize in some way, in order to predict game results. It’s a mini-me version of what Bing, FiveThrirtyEight.com and EESPN.com do. (You can read about their versions here in Geekwire.) For the record, in the first round Bing was only 21-11, FiveThirtyEight.com was 23-9 and ESPN was 24-8. The Boyer algorithm came in at 26-6. 26-6! Take that Nate Silver.

And yes Sounders fans, it is time to prepare your panic kits. Panic is just around the corner after this weekend’s 2-1 loss to Vancouver. If we’re not going to have speed, and we’re not going to have power, and we’re not going to have luck, we at least could have some help from the refs. Instead, we got the opposite. Here are the videos of the supposed penalties. Decide for yourself.

Politics:
Apparently Bernie Sanders was in town Sunday. I’m kind of amazed that my Facebook feed was not lit up with people planning pre-event parties or asking who wanted to carpool. But I guess he drew 20,000 people or so. It really would be fun to see him have some sort of role in an administration someday.

Culture:
Guess who is coming to down this week after Bernie Sanders? No, not Hillary Clinton. Better! Bruce Springsteen at Key Arena. It could be the last tour of his career. Very much looking forward to it.

Have a good week.

Somethings left over from the week behind, and a few things I’m looking forward to in the days ahead.

Sports:
God bless March Madness. The only thing that stinks about the NCAA Tournament is that I seem to get sick every year during the first Thursday and Friday, causing me to miss work. Such a bummer… And congrats to an Oregin State team lead by Gary Payton II. Very cool to see a kid with some Seattle roots make the long path through Prep school and Junior College to finally make it to the NCAA Tourney as a senior.

More sports:
Did you have a good weekend? I bet yours wasn’t as good as Russel Wilson’s. He got two of his favorite people locked down for the foreseeable future. First he put a ring on Ciara, then his bosses dumped a truck full of thousand dollar bills in front of his buddy Jermaine Kearse. Congrats to everyone.

Even more sports:
I’m not ready to panic about the Sounders yet, but I have to admit, I don’t like the fact that they have no one with scary speed. I always feel like you need at least one guy who can run past everyone. Otherwise, it’s way to easy to play defense.

Politics:
So this could be the last two days I’m able to keep making my ridiculously bold prediction that John Kasich is still somehow going to end up the GOP nominee. Here’s the blueprint: 1) Win Ohio 2) Rubio loses Florida and drops out for a wink wink nod nod spot as Kasich’s running mate 3) Trump doesn’t get 50% 4) A brokered convention in Kasich’s home state enables him to rally the GOP faithful into the “Anyone but Trump and Cruz” bucket.

Media
Need a harmless Netflix series? “Death in Paradise” is a delightful little British detective series set in the Caribbean. Good characters, ok plots, and a generally decent way to avoid being crushed by 45 mph winds.

Happy Monday morning. Here’s a look ahead at a few things I noticed last week, and a few things I’m looking forward to this week.

1) A couple of good events this week in the Seattle Tech world. Tuesday is the March edition of New Tech Seattle at Galvanize. Looks like 4 interesting companies will be on display. Over on the Eastside, on Wednesday, Startup Grind Seattle Eastside hosts Sally Bergesen, Founder + CEO of Oiselle.

2) Welcome back Sounders. Tough loss to start the year, but they’re still delivering a top fan experience. The new mobile app is interesting, as they are trying to get rid of paper tickets forever.

3) The Mariners started playing Spring Training games last week. What do you think? I’m walking the line with everyone else and thinking they’ll win about 81-85 games. I just hope they can be playing competitive baseball until September. I hate that I find myself watching Seahawks pre-season games in August because the baseball season is already over.

4) Have a favorite marketing blog you like? I’m on the hunt for some new ones.

EDIT / UPDATE:
5) Check out this cool new product from the head of Startup Grind Seattle, Michael Grabham. Simple idea, crisp execution. I hope the Kickstarter campaign for Package Guard does well. Check out the Package Guard product web site here.