Simmering down

The last month and a half have been absolutely crazy for the Miura-Ko family. I started at a new job without fully finishing the Ph.D. and so I'm trying to do 4 things at once: mom, research, teaching and job.

The job is as an investor in a new venture capital firm with Mike Maples - a fantastic entrepreneur with a great track record over the last few years as an angel investor. I'll likely write more about this in the future but the general idea is that there is a gap between financing that angel investors provide and the amount of capital venture capitalists typically look to invest. We call ourselves micro-cap investors. The quality of the companies I've seen coming through the door have been truly impressive and I'm really excited to be in the working world again. Having said that, it doesn't mean that I'm done with the Ph.D. or that I'm quitting. I plan on finishing. I know lots of people say that but I'm committed to it and hope to be done in due time.

In the mean time, Abby has been growing and we have done some traveling! The family went back East for our 10 year college reunion at Yale. I don't think I've sung "Bright College Years" or "Boola Boola" with such gusto in a really long time. Walking through that beautiful campus really brought back a flood of wonderful memories. Yale has really flourished in the last few years.

The renovations have been done spectacularly. I was only disappointed that we couldn't visit the library and visit the circulation desk beneath the altar of Sterling Library. We did get a chance to see many of our old friends including Terry, my dear old engineering partner who bravely made it out with his wife and THREE kids, Camelia and her lovely family,

(where Abby and Aiden gave us a preview of Aiden spotting Abby on campus in 16 years) and David Gergin.


I nearly thrust Abby at David Gergin and had him hold her for a photo but we (read: Albert) decided that that would be inappropriate. David Gergin is as thoughtful in person as he is on CNN. He actually stopped to talk with us for a little while after we took our requisite photos.


The only other celebrity sighting of the weekend was Barbara Bush of the Bush twins fame. We couldn't figure out a subtle way of taking her photo so that is not included in this blog.

The other highlight for the weekend was the fact that we got to eat some Pepe's pizza. It was as delicious as I had remembered it. For all of you who knock New Haven, I have to say there is no other city in the world that has pizza as good as that town.



The low point for us was related to travel to and from New Haven. On the way out, we were on the tarmac for nearly 4 hours in Chicago with no air conditioning. On the way back, we were stuck in the airport in Hartford for nearly 4 hours due to delays in Chicago. Lessons learned: 1) do not fly through Chicago and 2) 4 hours spent in airport is highly preferable to 4 hours on tarmac. We did get home safely, though, and even knowing what I know now, I would have gone for our 10 year reunion. I'm definitely going back for the 15th!