Initial Public Offering

Austin has travelled overnight on the sleeper train from Stavanger. I collect him from Heggedal station at 7:25 am. We breakfast, while Liz shepherds the kids out to school and then onwards for a complex day of appointments which will take her through to 8 pm.

We work on Cosmic Ray and make good progress early on. A fresh pair of eyes and a weekend away make all the difference. In the run up to lunch we reproduce another snag I’d encountered last week. A workaround is possible, but we both feel some elegance is lost.

Lunch is outside on the veranda in beautiful weather. We discuss growth and diversification plans for after the summer. Heady stuff.

By the end of the afternoon, we’re flying along, with the Cosmic Ray doing in nine minutes what previously took over a day. The vast amount of computing power at our disposal costs less than ten dollars. An incredible pace of change.

I walk with Austin back down to the station in Heggedal. By Norwegian standards it’s hot, at 25°C. Just over two weeks ago we had snow in the garden. Another incredible pace of change, though more sinusoidal than exponential.

In the warm evening, with the kids in their beds, if not asleep, Liz and I work through Morgan Stanley forms for an IPO. I hope it will take 30 minutes. It takes 90 by the time the dreaded IRS tax forms are done. We don’t have time to find a tax lawyer. The deadline looms. We read the tax treaty, and make educated guesses. I sign something in which I claim to be competent, while I’m barely awake.