So here I am, staring at 19 pages of patent application text, plus 14 pages of patent application drawings, plus the requisite 5 cover pages of fill-in-the-blank forms, ready to write my check for $500 to attempt to protect the intellectual property that is the PaceWheel.
All of this work and my $500 will allow me to sell my product with the phrase "patent pending" on the side, but I won't know if my patent is approved for 18 months. In fact, I might not know anything except that the patent application has been received until then. Hopefully, no one else also invented the pacewheel concept and has their application waiting in line while I'm filing for protection.
BTW, the first print run of PaceWheels will be in my hands today!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Bureaucracy
So here I am, staring at 19 pages of patent application text, plus 14 pages of patent application drawings, plus the requisite 5 cover pages of fill-in-the-blank forms, ready to write my check for $500 to attempt to protect the intellectual property that is the PaceWheel.
All of this work and my $500 will allow me to sell my product with the phrase "patent pending" on the side, but I won't know if my patent is approved for 18 months. In fact, I might not know anything except that the patent application has been received until then. Hopefully, no one else also invented the pacewheel concept and has their application waiting in line while I'm filing for protection.
BTW, the first print run of PaceWheels will be in my hands today!
All of this work and my $500 will allow me to sell my product with the phrase "patent pending" on the side, but I won't know if my patent is approved for 18 months. In fact, I might not know anything except that the patent application has been received until then. Hopefully, no one else also invented the pacewheel concept and has their application waiting in line while I'm filing for protection.
BTW, the first print run of PaceWheels will be in my hands today!
Friday, October 19, 2007
The hat trick
I know, you're thinking to yourself, "this guy has got to be kidding; you can't write a follow-up-comments-posting-record-setting blog and expect to write another decent one. Especially not after having already written a heart-wrenching, gut-churning, emotionally-draining one on a topic that hits home and is reviewed by the critics as "well-written."
Nevertheless, here I am, tapping away at my keyboard, allowing the cathartic process that is writing to work out the pain. Maybe my lack of posting over the last few months has been the reason for my insanity and lack of sleep. Or maybe it's not.
Either way, as I was looking to find the record-setting blog post from before, I ran across some earlier posts when my writing was really working my thoughts out onto the page in meaningful ways (not that the blogs were great, but that it was therapeutic). Anyway, I'll try and keep this up.
Nevertheless, here I am, tapping away at my keyboard, allowing the cathartic process that is writing to work out the pain. Maybe my lack of posting over the last few months has been the reason for my insanity and lack of sleep. Or maybe it's not.
Either way, as I was looking to find the record-setting blog post from before, I ran across some earlier posts when my writing was really working my thoughts out onto the page in meaningful ways (not that the blogs were great, but that it was therapeutic). Anyway, I'll try and keep this up.
Two in one day!
So, I've had iTunes running in the background in a vain attempt to cover up some of the multi-tasking that's occupying my brain (read "Disappointment" below if you don't know what I'm talking about), and I just realized what the "random" playlist has played the last half-hour or so:
Extreme: HoleHearted – “Priorities confuse my mind/still I’m left one step behind”
Coldplay: Yellow – “For you I’d bleed myself dry”
Fernando Ortega: Sing to Jesus – “Come you who mourn”
Marc Cohn: Walk on Water – “Are you willing to wait for a miracle”
Counting Crows: Time and Time Again – “I want it so badly”
Rich Mullins: On the verge of a miracle – “you can see it if you just hold on”
Talk about weird. Of course now it's playing Boston's "Rock 'N Roll Band" - "Everybody's waving, getting crazy, anticipating" - so there goes my streak...unless you want to really read too much into it, in which case...
Extreme: HoleHearted – “Priorities confuse my mind/still I’m left one step behind”
Coldplay: Yellow – “For you I’d bleed myself dry”
Fernando Ortega: Sing to Jesus – “Come you who mourn”
Marc Cohn: Walk on Water – “Are you willing to wait for a miracle”
Counting Crows: Time and Time Again – “I want it so badly”
Rich Mullins: On the verge of a miracle – “you can see it if you just hold on”
Talk about weird. Of course now it's playing Boston's "Rock 'N Roll Band" - "Everybody's waving, getting crazy, anticipating" - so there goes my streak...unless you want to really read too much into it, in which case...
Disappointment
Q: What's worse than finishing one place (4 points) shy of advancing to state in a Cross Country team race?
A: Finishing one place (2 points) shy of advancing to state.
1. Rampart 33
2. Coronado 80
3. Palmer 117
4. Douglas County 158
5. Durango 159
6. Pine Creek 161
The worst part about this kind of defeat is that every member of the team feels responsible because, in theory, each one could have made the difference. If two guys just pass one runner, it's a tie, and we win the tie-break with a better sixth-runner finish. If one guy passes two guys, etc. Each guy is thinking, "if only I had/hadn't _____________" (eaten a burrito, tied my laces tighter, slept in, taken July 4th off, dumped my girlfriend...you get the picture).
I think here's my real problem: instead of being able to celebrate that each of my 7 varsity runners ran their personal bests for the course, that this is the best regional finish in the team's history, or that one individual runner qualified for state (that makes 3 years in a row, and 5 out of 8 years of my career), I'm frustrated with the narrowness of the defeat.
With apologies to Wendell Berry: State qualifying is the stick I'm using to measure my season, and to beat it with.
Of course I'm disappointed for my seniors (and the other guys), but maybe I'm really more disappointed for myself. Sometimes, you do everything right and you still don't win. Or at least you do a lot of things right, and you still don't win. Well maybe, you do some things right and you get lucky enough to almost place 5th. But at least it's a moral victory. What I really want is a morale victory.
A: Finishing one place (2 points) shy of advancing to state.
1. Rampart 33
2. Coronado 80
3. Palmer 117
4. Douglas County 158
5. Durango 159
6. Pine Creek 161
The worst part about this kind of defeat is that every member of the team feels responsible because, in theory, each one could have made the difference. If two guys just pass one runner, it's a tie, and we win the tie-break with a better sixth-runner finish. If one guy passes two guys, etc. Each guy is thinking, "if only I had/hadn't _____________" (eaten a burrito, tied my laces tighter, slept in, taken July 4th off, dumped my girlfriend...you get the picture).
I think here's my real problem: instead of being able to celebrate that each of my 7 varsity runners ran their personal bests for the course, that this is the best regional finish in the team's history, or that one individual runner qualified for state (that makes 3 years in a row, and 5 out of 8 years of my career), I'm frustrated with the narrowness of the defeat.
With apologies to Wendell Berry: State qualifying is the stick I'm using to measure my season, and to beat it with.
Of course I'm disappointed for my seniors (and the other guys), but maybe I'm really more disappointed for myself. Sometimes, you do everything right and you still don't win. Or at least you do a lot of things right, and you still don't win. Well maybe, you do some things right and you get lucky enough to almost place 5th. But at least it's a moral victory. What I really want is a morale victory.
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