Journals of Lord Malinov

the poetry of madness

Flipped

I spoke at length with my Australian partners.  The time difference adds a strange twist to our communications - drinking my morning coffee as they wind their day down with a drink.  Australian and Austin dollars changing hands to restructure the organization in a new, better way that will actually allow us to cash a check.  I've been in this deal for five years now without a cent being paid to anyone for anything.  I'll be director of IP in the US should the dust ever settle, which will be fun if they give me a budget.  I have some interesting ideas on making money in IP.  If things go well, my share in the company will be worth a sweet nickel. 

I became involved with these blokes five years ago because I recognized the strength of their underlying technology and the man who created it.  Mostly I was hoping for a (someone else's money) trip to Australia.  My fingers are still crossed.

Being a patent attorney puts me in touch with an interesting crowd.  The patent game is expensive - a $10,000 ante and a million dollar call.  The rights can be worth billions and more.  An industry can be dominated with a well-designed portfolio, taking a percentage off every sale by every seller.  Some companies understand the game and the payoff.  IBM is highly funded by their patent portfolio management.  

I was a patent examiner for thirteen years.  I learned many, many things in the halls of the nuthouse.  I - in contrast to most Texans - have a working understanding of bureaucracy.  I ate, drank and slept claims through hell and high-water.

I have acquired unfathomably valuable skills.  I didn't mean to.  I have been mentored by kind folk in capitalization of my skills.   They seem to like me.  I bring them skills that are unknown in this part of the country and generally unknown even by many in Capital City.  I am a unique individual.  So it goes.

The full scope of my skills is even more impressive - they have certainly impressed me.  I am a compulsive learner.  Go figure.

I am - they say - an attractive man, in that crazed genius sort of way.  I look many years younger than I am.  I never really learned to think of myself as a physical being, so I am generally unaware of my looks.  I have learned to recognize the stares, by opening my eyes to the world around me.  I may have always been stared at, or only just recently.  I wandered in a lonely cloud, not lonely and longing but content to be alone, lost in thoughts and visions.

My introversion approached infinite at times.  I sometimes read so heavily that I became incapable of speaking to other people.  Lust tended to break these introverted spells as my need to feed on human flesh (pardon the gory analogy) pushed me out of my self-containing cave.  At other times, I have been intensely extroverted for prolonged periods.  Lust was probably the principal force, but I don't think it always was.  I do like people.  I just don't have time for them, much.

I have incredible knowledge, but my greatest skills are creative.  I have the incredible leaps of a fiercely ADDled mind.  I know how to use them, far better than I know how to organize.  So it goes.

In some ways, it is as though my life just recently began.  The sleeper has awakened.

Malinov

posted by: Malinov at 16:16 | link | comments |

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