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Shortly before leaving Seattle, I stumbled across a new retailer at Bellevue Square Mall while doing some holiday shopping. At this point, I had already begun planning my travels in earnest, and being the gadget geek that I am, was constantly looking for versatile, effective gear.

Having lived in the Pacific Northwest for the past 5 years, I’ve become a bit spoiled when it comes to outdoor performance apparel. Yet even the highest quality trekking clothing doesn’t quite work for travel, as they tend to come in bright (dare I say garish?) colors and patterns. I needed something that would transition more easily between the jungles of Burma to the urban equivalent in Tel Aviv.

Enter Nau, a brilliant new startup based out of Portland. Started by one of the co-founders of Marmot and former execs from Patagonia and Nike, their clothing is developed with three fundamental design principles in mind: beauty, performance and sustainability. The net result is a buttery soft micro fleece made completely from recycled polyester and styled like a motorcycle racing jacket or a pair of trendy 100% organic cotton trousers that have been treated with DWR. None of their clothing feature logos of any sort, and its also worth mentioning that they donate 5% of every purchase to a non-profit of your choice!

Enthused about my new find, I quickly picked up a few select articles, knowing that these would be the only clothes I would carry with me for a year on the road. Thus far, I’ve been incredibly pleased with how the clothes have held up under the rigors of travel. I’ve lost count of how many travelers I’ve met who have marveled at how small my backpack is, and I’m convinced this due in part to the small, but efficient Nau wardrobe I’ve invested in.

Here are some thoughts on what I’ve been wearing for the past 4 months:

Profile Fleece
As mentioned above, its styled like a motorcycle jacket, with micro fleece on the interior and a smooth exterior that enables it to easily layer under a hard shell. Relatively thin for the warmth it provides, it rolls up tight and takes up much less space in a pack than a “traditional” fleece. It’s been an essential insulating layer for me both in the frigid winters of northern China and Tibet, as well as the occasional Thai bus that has set its air conditioning for arctic freeze. I also appreciate the hidden chest pocket which I constantly used to safely stash my passport.

Asylum Jacket
The hood of this storm shell blends seamlessly into a high wrap-around collar, which provides that little bit of extra protection from the elements. The hood was designed to be helmet compatible, so it layers well over a wool cap, but its light enough to be worn without insulation underneath in tropical downpours. Hmm… The matte finish on the jacket doesn’t resist the grime of travel all that well. Over the past few months, daily wear has caused it to develop a permanent dark mystery layer in a few places.

Base 2 Wool Shirt
Made from finely spun merino, this shirt has made me a true believer in the wonders of wool. It somehow regulates body temperatures, so that it provides a surprising amount of warmth for its weight in colder climes, yet is breezier than cotton in heat. It naturally wicks sweat and tends to resist odor. This shirt comes with a small side pocket that blends into the seams - useful for room keys, for instance. Since it dries much more quickly than my other shirts, its been my daily wear ever since Thingyan has started. Hmm… The seam in one particular area is starting to come loose, though it hasn’t gotten any worse in the past 2 months.

Cargo Pants
I wanted a basic pair of cotton khaki trousers, but even here Nau has exceeded my expectations with little extras. They mixed just a touch of spandex into the fabric, so that the pants stretch nicely for more athletic endeavors. I’ve hiked up steep trails in the Tiger Leaping Gorge and played pick-up soccer in Laos in these these trousers and never once did they impede my movement. The cargo pockets have been sewn into the seams so they blend into the profile of the pants, which is appreciated since nothing screams BACKPACKER! like jarring, slapped-on cargo pockets. Hmm… I doubt there’s anything that Nau could do to solve this problem, but these pants are now sporting multiple stains from eating greasy street food that just will not come out.

Nau also interacts with their constituents by holding regular contests where people can send in pictures of themselves sporting Nau clothing.

Guess which satisfied customer won a merino polo this month?

I’m starting to appreciate the irony of Pandora’s choice in brand.

Pandora is an online music service that has taken an interesting approach to personalized internet radio. They’ve identified over 400 attributes that capture the essence of a given piece of music. I don’t know exactly how this works, but I imagine some of these attributes must include aspects like tempo or major vs minor keys or which instruments were used to create the music. By mapping out the music genome of hundreds of thousands of songs, Pandora is able to create streaming radio stations tailored to your tastes.

Its a pioneering music service that does an incredible job exposing listeners to obscure yet relevant artists. Unfortunately for music aficionados, Pandora seems to be living up to its namesake.

While Pandora (the webcaster) hasn’t necessarily introduced new evils to the world, by attempting to create a truly innovative digital music service, it is calling attention to evils which already exist.

In this case, Pandora’s box is the music industry and when it was open, out came SoundExchange, the Copyright Royalty Board and international music licensing. Here’s a quick recap of two litigious events which have recently besieged this company:

• SoundExchange is the branch of the RIAA which governs radio. They’ve gotten the Copyright Royalty Board to approve a request to increase the royalty which internet radio companies must pay by 300% - 1200%. This rate hike makes most internet radio business models completely unviable. The only option small companies like Pandora have for survival is to strike deals directly with the labels. This something which would almost certainly entail handing over programming control and ruin precisely that which makes Pandora so great. Major labels will either further line their pockets or gain enough control to promote their top 40 stable of artists.

• The beauty of the internet is that it gives anyone instant global distribution for digital content. As word has spread virally about Pandora, listeners from all over the globe have begun tuning in and creating their own custom radio stations. Unfortunately, due to licensing constraints, Pandora is being forced to block access to their service outside of the US. Knowing how fragmented the international licensing landscape is, it could take years before Pandora is able to open its doors back to foreigners.

At the end of the day, its the small, innovative music services and ultimately music fans everywhere that lose.

Fortunately, the story doesn’t end here. House Representatives Jay Inslee and Donald Manzullo are introducing the Internet Radio Equality Act which if approved would neutralize the rate hike. SaveNetRadio is a newly formed grassroots coalition of artists, listeners and webcasters with the same goals in mind. Pandora is actively working on acquiring the licenses needed to operate outside of the US.

Much like the Greek myth, Pandora finds that in spite of the tragedy, there’s still something left at the very bottom of the box - hope.

This year at SXSW, there will be a special screening of the upcoming film by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, Grindhouse. A month ago, SXSW put out a call to film makers to submit a mock trailer of a fictitious exploitation movie. Rodriguez will review all of the submissions, and the top trailer will open up at this special presentation of Grindhouse.

For the layman, an exploitation film is generally characterized as a movie featuring excessive sex, drugs and violence. Think El Mariachi and Sin City, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Anyway, my buddy Nate got together with some of his co-workers from Superfad and pulled some long nights these past few weeks producing their submission for this contest.

Titled Maiden of Death, it hints at a plot involving a young punk rocker who’s brutally raped and murdered. Making a deal with the Devil, she returns to life as an avenging angel wielding a shotgun/chainsaw Gibson. At one point the maiden cuts a car in half with her guitar and the final shot shows her pounding out a power ballad on top of a mound of corpses.

Its completely over the top, and its one of the best Grindhouse trailers posted to YouTube. Enjoy!

Ever taken or given out your phone number to someone at a bar, only to seriously regret it the next day? If you have, then no doubt you’re familiar with the beer goggle effect.

I first encountered beer goggles my freshman year at Penn. However, I’ve never seen it quantified like this. In a nutshell, a group of researchers at the University of Manchester have actually developed a formula for calculating the beer goggle effect.

The equation is straightforward enough, so I went ahead and put together a simple spreadsheet to help you determine what your beer goggle effect is on a normal Friday night.

As for myself, I figure on an average night out, I get minimal beer goggles with a rating of 10.0.

I’ve mellowed out since college, and tend to hang out at dive bars, having maybe 4 beers total. Smokiness is not a factor, since smoking indoors has been banned in Seattle. Most dive bars are relatively dark, so I set that parameter at 35. My vision is pretty bad - even with contacts I’d rate myself at 0.9, and 3 meters seems like as good a distance as any to check someone out.

What rating did you end up with?

I’ve spent one hour a week for the past several months volunteering with Junior Achievement and teaching economics at an inner city Seattle high school. I was initially intimidated by the prospect, but quickly developed a rapport with the students.

I ended up really enjoying the experience and even though I was there to teach them commerce, they also taught me the importance of a few classic business principles. Here are the top 3 things I learned from Barbara Lynch’s third period business class:

1. Roll with the punches.

Every class has a class clown (or six) that will try to heckle the teacher, incite laughter and generally disrupt things. One day, I asked the class to think of a problem that they could build a business around solving. Several kids blurted out answers, but one smart aleck yelled out, “I hate it when, after I go to the bathroom, I wipe but I don’t get it all.”

Rather than ignore his outburst, I went along with it and conceded that this was indeed a valid problem. I put the guy on the spot, asking him what product would he develop to solve this problem. “Extra grippy toilet paper” was the response I got. The remainder of the discussion focused on target market (”old people who have to go a lot”), competitive pressures (”wet wipes”) and start up costs (”need a factory”).

Everyone in the class got a good laugh out of this. But they were also very much engaged and it ended up being a memorable lesson.

Good corporations are also able to take the hits in stride; the best ones can make lemonade. Jeff Bezos was able to take one of Amazon’s money pits, under-utilized storage capacity, and turn it into arguably the most important web service of Web 2.0.

2. Be relevant or be ignored.

No high school sophomore gets truly excited about supply and demand. So how do you teach economics to adolescents raised on the bite-sized over-stimulation provided by the likes of YouTube and Robot Chicken?

I put supply and demand in the context of over-inflated Xbox 360 and PS3 prices on eBay. I used the DeBeers diamond cartel to illustrate how monopolies can disrupt normal competitive forces. Every lesson was encapsulated in a larger story that was as entertaining to a teenager as I could make it. It was clear that I had to stay relevant if these lessons were to stick.

Teachers certainly aren’t the only ones with this challenge. MSN has spent millions developing a search engine that delivers more relevant results than Google. Established publications find themselves competing with the blogosphere to produce more relevant content. Good advertising is targeted advertising is relevant advertising.

3. Respect must be earned.

I remember my high school teachers, and some of them acted as though their position as a teacher made them superior. While it did inherently make them the authority figure, it did NOT automatically make them worthy of my respect. Case in point, President Bush.

These high school students didn’t give a rats ass what school I’d gone to or what my job title was. They demanded (rightly so) that I prove my worth before they really began to open up to what I had to teach.

Whether you’re a young professional starting to teach a high school class or a new CEO taking over the reins of a company, I would argue that your previous accomplishments have little to no meaning. What matters is what you do now, with the new set of people you’re interacting with.