This has been a long week, and I’m so glad it’s almost over. Earlier this week I spent a day spying on my company’s competition by sitting in during one of their presentations to a client (a large telecom company with a three letter name) who’s contract we’re both trying to win. After that I spent 23 hours at Newark airport which is quickly becoming one of my least favorite places in NJ. Then this morning, one of the clients for a project I’m working on held a conference call to share the news that their parent company is cutting them off, which basically means their company is disbanded until they can find new venture capital. Apparently this announcement is not going to be made public for at least a few more days, so I suppose that gives me some time to short a few stocks… but I’m not, because insider trading is illegal. ;) Anyway, at least this lightens my load at work, although you can bet it’s just a matter of time before my boss throws more stuff at me.
(Read on …)

Surprisingly, my World Cup round of 16 predictions were all spot on– the teams I predicted to move on to the quarterfinals have all advanced, and so here are my predictions for the next round:

Germany vs. Argentina: I know Germany has the home court advantage, and that may be enough to get them past Argnetina, but Argentina is still my favorite team, so I’m going to have to pick them over Germany.

Italy vs. Ukraine: Italy wins over Ukraine in another close but boring game.

England vs. Portugal: England may be a proud soccer nation, but her run ends here. Portugal just has too many good players on its team. Besides, if you need Beckham to score for you in an international game, you know you’re in trouble.

Brazil vs. France: Do I even need to say anything here?

I’m hoping for an Argentina vs. Brazil final match but wouldn’t be surprised of Germany knocked them out in the quarterfinals. Still, I’m picking them to advance past Germany and Italy in the semis.

… and a sigh of relief. I just got done with a two day presentation to some big shots at a company down in Florida, which effectively sealed the deal for a partnership between our two companies potentially worth well into the upper six figures. This was probably the most stressful assignment I’ve had to date. It didn’t help that I was given less than a week to prepare for this. I actually scared my boss when I gave a crappy dry run of the presentation on Monday to some internal folks– a presentation which I basically winged with hardly any preparation at all because I didn’t have time to work on it over the weekend. (I can’t believe how so many hi tech companies in the US expect their employees to work over weekends.)

But I do my best work when I’m under pressure (a habit from college, and probably not a good one), and that was enough to get me through these past few days. I flew into Orlando on Monday, met with our client on Tuesday to discuss requirements and expectations, worked non-stop from Tuesday night to Wednesday afternoon to create network designs based on data gathered earlier on Tuesday, presented these designs on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, and just now got confirmation that our client has decided to definitely take us on as a partner. This was a make or break presentation, with their president of engineering in the audience, and thankfully nothing broke.

Although it’s a great feeling to have successfully presented your product and company to a client’s upper management in order to position yourself as a strategic partner and earn some big dollars, it’s not worth all the stress, time, and anxiety in my opinion. Probably I’m just not the type of person for this kind work. In any case, all this coffee isn’t good for you.

The latest Google puzzle, based off Erich Friedman’s “Distance,” from the 2003 Google U.S. Puzzle Championship, is a pretty fun challenge. Like many puzzles, even though it involves numbers, no math skills (besides counting) are required. Rather, pattern recognition coupled with process of elimination are the keys to solving this entertaining little piece. Go play the game, and when you get the answer, check it against mine. If yours is different, let me know because I’m curious whether or not there are multiple solutions.