Bill

It has been a crazy month or so since the last time we blogged!!!

I have been working on getting two companies started both of which are now going.

The first one is Cyber Asset Recovery or CAR for short! Can you guess what we do? Yes in deedy that is what we do! We locate stolen or misappropriated assets (money, yachts, etc) through using our cyber skills and then arrange for those assets to make their way back to the rightful owner. It is a long process to get the assets back but the identification can happen within a few days. We already have one client, but the way this works is that we have to get the assets back before we can get paid (we take a percentage). Once we demonstrate the ability to do this, the market for these services is huge!

The second business is a little more "normal" - whatever the hell that means! We are staying stealth for a couple of more months but we have $1M of the $2.5M we need already. The business is to protect mobile social media and social networking with government grade protection. We have filed patents for our clean, neat and extremely fast approach and hope to have some customers within the next month or so. But all the meetings to get money are time consuming while designing and coding the products.

Debbie has been invaluable in adding sanity to my insanity and keeping me straight on the financials!!!  She is nothing short of AWESOME!!

Patrick has been doing an incredible amount of research for my companies and this again has been invaluable.  He has been helping define our marketing strategies as well as our positioning in the markets we have chosen.

Took a little bit of time to scoot down to Phillip's to install a tile back splash in his kitchen. Check it out:

OK so it has been since March since we last Blogged, but we got wrapped up in all kinds of things and well to be honest, blogging was not top on my list of things!! Sex, Love, Rock and Roll, starting new businesses and helping the next generations of Marlow Kids (that includes Brent, Dallas, etc) took precedence over being witty and "all interesting."

So to catch up, in no particular order:

I was bitten by a brown widow spider - the little cousin of the big bad Black Widow. The result was that I got Bell's Palsy. Intellectually a very interesting malady. The left side of my face went dead, not just in feeling but the muscles stopped working so it went slack besides having no feeling. More over I lost all taste. While all of this sounds onerous it really was very interesting. For the first time in my life I actually had a serious side!! No smile, no laughing, and no pronouncing "P's" (it just made my cheek puff up and the air flutter from my dead lips). I also lost about 8 to 10 lbs because if you can not taste, you tend not to eat very much (sounds like a great business idea to me - a drink or pill that temporarily blocks you taste buds - weight loss = big $$$$$). All my kids had a great time laughing at my serious side. You also find out how much your face depends on muscles for support Your eye does not blink (eye drops of course) and at night an eye patch. So Debbie got to go to bed with a Pirate every night - Arrrrh! OK that was enough of that fantasy. I was really good at the Stink Eye!! After about 5 to 6 weeks I have some feeling and control back, most of my taste buds and I can now close the eye.

We bought a Townhome for Phillip down at Virginia Tech. It has been an adventure to say the least We got a really good price on it, but it required significant updating! Lucky for us our friends from Ohio, Ron and Lisa, came down to help us. "Le Ron" as we call him is a master at tiling, plumbing, etc. In a week, we tore out the fiberglass master shower AND created a custom tiled shower, re-tiled all the bathrooms AND the kitchen. Since then we have torn out all the kitchen and had the cabinets replaced and created an island, replaced all the cheap railings with oak, re-carpted the entire home, painted every single inch of wall space (THANK YOU DEBBIE), repainted all the base boards and doors (THANK YOU DEBBIE AND LISA). Phillip has taken to the home repair/updating like a geek to computers or fish to water. He replaced all his locks, updated the lighting in the bathroom, installed a ceiling fan, bull nose molding, etc! Oh and did I mention he and I build a work bench for him.

We have been to the boat a number of times, enjoying it during the really crazy 100 degree weather we had.

Updates on the Gang:

Patrick worked this summer at PNC Bank in their Wealth Management Department doing marketing. He had a great time and learned a lot. He had to wear a tie everyday and look good - something that is not too difficult for him. Patrick and Marybeth had a great summer hanging out with friends and are really stoked about football season starting. Yes, Patrick got 40 yardline, 9th row tickets for his birthday and his team, THE BALTIMORE RAVENS, are consider to be one of the top teams this year. They went to a pre-season game and at the end Le'Ron McClain (number 33) saw Marybeth wearing his jersey so he came over to her and gave her his hat!!! How cool is that.

Phillip worked for Cyveillance, an internet security firm, this summer AND they like the "uber geek" so much that they have keep him on as an employee working from college. He and Mari found to time to hang out even though both were working a lot.

Debbie is doing great and helping me with starting two companies - can not say much right now about them but as they develop we will be blogging about them.

Hope everyone had a great summer!!

Wow - it has been a while, so lets catch up. Let see - where to begin ... We have been negotiating for a townhome in Blacksburg Va for Phillip. What a pain in the big toe! The sellers live in Chicago, we live in Northern VA and nobody wanted to give up anything. Oh well, we finally came to an agreement and will close and take possession on Thursday. It is a really nice place: 3 bedrooms, 1575 sq ft, 2 1/2 baths, 2 car garage and - most important to Phillip - a huge workshop for his woodworking. It will be a great place for him to live, relax and put up his parents when we come to visit. Mari is doing well and they are having fun commuting between VT and JMU.

Patrick is once again proving he is amazing - his interim report for school shows him to be an awesome student. MB is doing great and we really enjoy having her around.

I have started 2 new businesses - which keeps me out of the way and Debbie is amazing in helping me figure out what works and what does not.

Phillip, Mari, Dan, Eric, etc were home for Spring Break last week and we REALLY enjoyed having them home. It is great to catch up face to face - they really do not communicate well long distance. Of course we laughed and had a great time. Enjoying life and Enjoying each other ---

LIVE, LOVE AND LAUGH

Uncle Mark made it down last week for lunch and it was REALLY, REALLY good to see him. He look good and appears to be doing well. We miss seeing Alex and Elisabeth as well but we will make it up for it on Alex's birthday.

We are getting ready to take Patrick on college visits, should be fun.

Debbie is FABULOUS - and I am not just saying that to get lucky - she keeps everything running smoothly and her insights are, for me, invaluable.

OK to the entertainment value - you should checkout this YouTube Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dut1b--AgLM - it shows a guy peeling a hard boiled by blowing it out of its shell. OK so we were hanging out - so I gave it a try. A) this is too fricking funny, b) it does not work, and C) Make sure, if you feel like you just have to BLOW an Egg, - that it is hard boiled first. I under cooked the first one and egg shot out everywhere It was VERY entertaining.