I've never not worked for "a startup". Since the beginning of my senior year at UC Berkeley, I have been toiling away in the Silicon Valley working for private companies with amazing ideas and strong technology. But I know I made some of the worst career mistakes at the very beginning, when I went into the initial interview with the company's founder, not having known what I should ask for on the salary side, expecting him to make the first offer, and having less than zero clue as to what to expect in terms of stock options for this "Pre-IPO" company.

Back then, in the fall of 1998, everybody was either public, or Pre-IPO. By 1999, some companies were filing to go public on the same day they were announced, even if they didn't yet have a shipping product, or customers - so I knew that getting in as the third or fourth employee at this company was a big deal, especially as I hadn't yet completed my degree. This inexperience led to my floundering through the interview and completely low-balling my salary request. I left knowing I'd possibly earned myself the position, but likely on the basis of how little I had asked for as much as how well I had represented my talents.

As I wrote in an e-mail to my parents at 2 a.m. that night (October 14, 1998):

"I also had to say how much money I expected to pull. Gulp -- I had no idea. I tried to have him tell me what I should say, asking where the money was coming from, and if the company was profitable yet. The answers -- primary investors and no. The eventual plan is to put together a working product, find secondary investors as a result of the product, and then go public. He threw words at me like "stock holdings", "venture stock and capital", "initial public offering" and said that I was early enough to be on "the ground floor" although obviously not a co-founder, therefore as every Silicon Valley startup dreams of, we could "go Netscape", and there is already an established product."

Long story short, I was offered the position at the low-low price of $1,200 a month for what was expected to be 20 hours a week in Silicon Valley and 15 hours a week or so from home in Berkeley, where I was wrapping up my degree in Political Science, having completed the degree in Mass Communications my junior year. And there was no stock. Another colleague and I were told we would be given shares of the founder's stock in time - whenever that would be. Needless to say, the company didn't take off. I worked hard, and put in the hours, and eventually, the company saw it was time to raise my pay to match the effort I had been putting in - to $2000 a month and then to $2333 and maybe up to $2500 a month by the time it folded the next year. I wasn't getting rich, but felt a lot better about things than many of my starving student friends.

But how could I have known what to ask for, being as naive as I was? In another insightful piece, Guy Kawasaki says there are "Nine Questions To Ask a Startup". By my third job in the Valley, I felt I had a better handle on the salary side, but still was on the low-end to start, my past underpayments still having impact years later. Had I had Guy's instructions in my back pocket, not only would I possibly have been paid better, I may have selected more successful companies from 1998 to 2001 and made some cash rather than watching so many other people get rich when all I got was tired.

Ten days ago, in an article titled "Sports + Blogs = Goodness", I discussed a rising star in the blogosphere: SportsBlogs Nation, particularly focused on one of our favorite and most-visited sites, Athletics Nation, run by its founder Tyler Bleszinski. The rapidly-expanding network is rivaling even the largest sports franchises for breaking news and team coverage - so much so that even the mainstream media can't ignore its momentum.

In this week's Sports Illustrated, a feature titled "Writing up a Storm" says "The Internet is changing sports coverage. Columnists who seldom leave their couches hold forth." Profiling a litany of blogs - some from fans, some from journalists and others from the athletes themselves, the article features Tyler's work, and includes a photo (staged) of him reclining in the McAfee Coliseum parking lot, laptop en tow, hat turned backwards, and barefoot. I've yet to see him without shoes myself, so the photographers took liberties in their idea.

The SportsBlogs Nation train is chugging along, and you're welcome aboard. Find your favorite team's site, register and go.

For the full story, click here. For a photo of Tyler used in the story, click here.

This Saturday, my wife and I had the opportunity to visit with her father for the first time in several weeks, and as we tend to do when we see him, we broke out the playing cards and did battle at both hearts and cribbage. He, like us, enjoys a little friendly competition, and he especially enjoys it when there's a little wager on the side - a buck a game, a nickel a point, and so on. Enough to say that there's a bet involved, but not enough to hurt anybody. In fact, I think the most we ever put on a game with him was $20 for a cribbage match. He won, of course.

Since marrying my wife in 2003, I've really enjoyed my father-in-law, and from what I can tell, I think he likes me too - for he's somebody I can call up and talk about sports to, discuss the expectations for this year's A's, who he has penned to win the AL MVP this year, or how his bracket is shaping up for the Final Four. If there's a big game on, he's watching it, and he at least expects me to know the score - even if I'm not glued to the set. Today was no different. Joining him in the mid afternoon, we saw the end of LSU vs. Texas (which went to overtime) and the start of UCLA vs. Memphis, as two of the four teams were set to head to Indianapolis for the Final Four. Meanwhile, we pulled up a card table, and played our own game in parallel.

Maybe in past years I might not have played aggressively, possibly being shy to tweak my new in-law's nerves (or that's my excuse), but today, we made sure to exact as much pain as possible at the card table. Playing to 100 in Hearts, I shot the moon twice in a row, and at the end of the game, he was left at 109 when I had only 40. At five cents a point, the planned side bet, that meant he owed me all of $3.45, while the other players owed me about $2.60 and $1.50 or so. That meant I had the massive haul of $7 - possibly enough to buy lunch this week, but of course, worth much more in bragging rights. Taking the scorecard, I asked him if he wanted to keep it and frame it for posterity. Politely, he said no. Big surprise.

With him being born in 1927, and having recently spent time in the hospital, I know we may not have my father-in-law around as long as we wish, and we will have to treasure these lazy afternoons of friendly competition before they fade to memory. I hope that we continue to make time and value his company and the friendly jousting that occurs, as we fight tooth and nail for every nickel, and recognize the experience is priceless.

For the last five-plus years, we've gotten used to Bush's platitudes of "good vs. evil" and how the "evil-doers" hate freedom. For those of us with a higher education beyond the sixth-grade level, which excludes pretty much anybody who voted for Bush in November of 2004, the oversimplification and labeling of whole groups of people as black vs. white, good vs. bad, has been insulting - both to them, and to those of us expected to swallow the tripe.

Today, in a scathing contribution to the LA Times, former secretary of state Madeline Albright takes the conversation up a few pegs by intelligently outlining that "Good vs. Evil Isn't a Strategy" at all. As she writes, "It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad. It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction." In all seriousness, this isn't like Star Wars with a Rebel Alliance facing "The Dark Side". International politics, globalization and how it intermixes with religion, cannot be simplified by a black vs. white, us vs. them, good vs. evil mentality.

As we've learned, President Bush and his cronies are not interested in learning the truths that may conflict with their elementary conclusions. It wasn't until 2005 that Bush even realized that Sunnis and Shiites were different sects in Iraq, after all, and that the two groups might occasionally disagree. (Big understatement) In fact, even if some of Bush's goals are well-intended, his oversimplification and saber-rattling has served to turn the global forces against us, making it more and more unlikely that our wishes will be enacted. Albright spells this out, saying, "In today's warped political environment, nothing strengthens a radical government more than Washington's overt antagonism."

It's a shame that it has turned out like this. Bush's predecessors in the Republican party, including his father and Reagan, always commanded some level of respect when it came to foreign policy, and while they too may have had shady dealings, they didn't try to simplify the enemy so much so that talks were impossible. Even the Soviet Union's "Evil Empire" came to the table to reduce the nuclear arms race. With this group of dunderheads making policy, there's no chance we would see Iraq, Iran, or North Korea offer similar compromise.