Self-Aggrandizement: The Competition

Tuesday evening, I grabbed drinks with a West Coast entrepreneur friend passing through the city. A few years younger than I, he already runs a company that's fast closing in on the million dollar sales mark.

But if it was a reminder that I've long since been displaced from the 'boy wonder' end of the startup spectrum, I was at least consoled to find age - or, rather, an additional few years of an effective liver-training regimen - has its advantages.

My friend emailed this morning:

Good meeting up with you on Tuesday night. You were definitely right about the Russian vodka; it sneaks up on you.
So here is what I gathered from other sources about the remainder of the evening after we left from margaritas. First I began by drunk dialing a ton of people, one girl 8 times throughout the course of the hour. I wandered through Times Square, telling people on the phone that I had no idea where my hotel was. I stopped in a bar and bought a Corona, so I could use the bathroom, but never touched the drink. While I was walking, some gay guys started trying to pick me up, or so I told people on the phone. Who knows if by then I was just hallucinating. Apparently security kicked me out of some place where I was walking and then I stopped at Sbarros and grabbed two slices of pizza. Nobody really knows how I ended up back at my hotel, could have walked, could have been a taxi. And then I proceeded to puke my guts out.
The funny part: when I woke up in the morning, I really had no idea what had happened, and until I started thinking about what I had done the night before, about 2 hours into the day, I had even forgotten that I had puked. Never a good sign.

I, on the other hand, made it home that night in time to bang out some late-night emails before hitting the hay. Looks like I haven't hit forced retirement quite yet after all.

The Competition Filed Thursday, September 22 2005.

The Competition
Filed Thursday, September 22 2005.