I know that it's been an incredibly long time since I've posted anything. I also know that nobody is following my blog or has even taken a look at my blog besides me. Sooo, at this point all I've really done is create a journal that nobody has, or probably, will ever, but could, read. It's really like I'm a 14-year-old girl circa 1984.

So, a quick update on how things have gone. I was really fortunate to land a phone conversation with the CEO of the largest pharma in the world through my brother who owns a restaurant in Seattle. It's a small world. Long story short, I was able to connect with him and make a contact through him. He passed my info along and through him I got about 5 or 6 solid leads that I was able to follow through with. Got in touch with some old colleagues from grad school and I was now fishing with 10 lines instead of one pole with no reel.

That was a lot like what it felt. Like I needed to go fishing but had no pole. Like I was dropped off in western Montana and told to fly fish a big, beautiful river and had nothing to work with besides my waders and a bag. All the peripheral gear and none of the essentials.

Well, that has started to turn around. I made a trip out to San Diego and had a few fruitful sit-down discussions that led to a few more discussions and I think that I may be on to something with a very small start-up that has some technology I would be really excited about. There is still a long way to go before a deal is finalized and any offers are agreed to, but there is real promise here with respect to both parties and I'm fairly optimistic something will work out.

As much as anything, I intend to come back to this blog and see how things have gone for me as I progress through this transition in my life. After 25 years of training it's difficult to move out on your own and break free from the mold. However, it's important to realize that truly successful people are never the ones you find in the middle of the herd and the best way to separate yourself from the herd is to separate yourself from the herd.

That's what I hope to do and I hope that I've gone about this in the right way.

I intend to keep these posts un-edited and, at least somewhat, a free-flowing stream of consciousness sort of affair. We'll see how that works. I'll also start posting pictures and trying to figure out how to link things and what not.

We are left with less than 24 weeks before we leave CT and move to San Diego. Considering I will be dormant until January 13, at least 2 more weeks, the time is going to get very short, very quick.

Here we go,
Ben

Was Gathering Moss

So, it seems that my blog has been lost and I had to rename and start over.  I think that the moral of this story is that moss was gathering on my blogging stone.  I had just started posting, hadn't logged in and lost what I had done to "the internets".  Oh well.

This is really just a forum for me to get some things out there and see what we can get going.  My original post was entitled "A Lost Shepherd" and was intended to be ironic but, instead, I think just got verbose and took itself too seriously.  The Cliffs Notes version of it, is that after a lot of hard work and the establishment of what I thought was a good foundation for my career, I now find myself at an interesting point I had not predicted.  Basically, I'm looking to completely change directions now that it's time to really get going.  Academics is a disaster right now in the world of biomedicine and I'm not convinced it's going to get better any time soon.  

Perhaps more importantly, I think that the real thing that drew me to science in the first place was my desire to know stuff.  I like to know stuff.  As a result, many things interest me.  More to the point, things I don't know are what interest me.  After being in science and medicine for about 12 years, I am starting to feel the pull to other things.  I don't know much about the business or economics of biotechnology and know very little about bringing products to market.  

This leads me to the conclusion that if I'm going to ever make a change, this is the time to do it.  Now is the time to leverage my knowledge - things I do know - to get myself started in an area full of things I don't know.  

So, through some rather serendipitous connections, I now find myself trying to get into the world of Venture Capital and feeling both incredibly overwhelmed with my loss of a concrete plan and unfathomably excited about all the potential opportunities.  I hope to keep people posted on how this works out and on what progress I'm making.

I suppose that somewhere there's an appropriate reference to be made about being from Seattle and looking for a new team, much like guys from Seattle are now trying to figure out whether or not it's OK to root for the Blazers.  I say, Go Brandon Roy!