I grew up in a family that valued money management. That background has served me well in running my business.
My parents, both teachers, conserved money by turning down the heat at night, shutting off lights when they were not in use, cooking our meals rather than going to restaurants, packing lunches to take with them to their work, cutting our hair rather than paying a stylist, cleaning their own house rather than hiring help, sharing one car, and shunning conspicuous consumer goods.
Read More
One of the many ways that I asserted my difference with other teenagers was to avoid the rush to learn how to drive a car. Instead, I bicycled, got rides to soccer games, and found other ways to get around. In fact, I did not get a driver’s license until I was twenty-five.
Read More
When I was a kid, I read and reread the adventures of Robin Hood and his merry men. I knew every detail about quarterstaffs and longbows and Will Stutely, Will Scarlet, Little John, and Guy of Gisbourne. In third grade, I wore a green shirt and green pants to school day after day because I knew that Robin Hood and his merry men preferred “Lincoln green.” I read different retellings of the stories and came to strong opinions about which were the correct versions.
Read More
I just returned from a NGP happy hour at Chadwick’s in Friendship Heights (it is April 7th, 2005 , my half birthday, but no one noticed). I felt proud as I looked across a series of tables packed with attractive and energetic employees who were clearly enjoying each others’ friendship. I thought back to the month when I first incorporated the business and how little I foresaw—or aimed intentionally for—in what has transpired.
Read More
In the spring of 1984, when I was a senior at Boulder High School, I interned for a short while at the Westminster, Colorado district office of then-Congressman Timothy E. Wirth. I still have a letter from July 2nd of that year—on Congress of the United States stationery (recycled paper, no less)—thanking me for “being so much help to Jickie and my staff.”
Read More
Doing new things, particularly activities or undertakings that you have avoided for psychological reasons, takes courage. What is interesting to me is how many obstacles seem large and imposing when they are in front of you but turn out to have been quite modest in size and surprisingly easy to surmount after you have passed them by.
Read More
As a junior in high school I attended Colorado Boys’ State, a weeklong citizenship program run by the American Legion. The Legion selects hundreds of boys from across the state and brings them together to build a mock government complete with elections for various offices. The idea is to instruct the participants about the structure of government and the glory of American democracy.
Read More
I spent two high school summers, 1982 and 1983, as a computer programming aide/instructor and camp counselor at the Rocky Mountain Computer Camps in Wild Basin, Colorado. I had always spent summers with my family in Vermont and I missed that, but instead I got paid to have fun, hike, teach, and hang out with a bunch of kids and other counselors and teachers in a beautiful national park setting. It was an extraordinarily gentle transition toward working life and a great experience
Read More
I own two pieces of “found metal” sculpture by the same artist, Bill Heise. He made both objects from a variety of rusted metal parts. One is a more than seven-foot-tall iron man who bears a sword and shield and is called Don Quixote. He stands in the corner of our dining room. The other is an ingeniously caped and spikily winged spirit figure, also iron. As a result of overzealous baby-proofing, that one sits outside my office at work.
Read More
Nobody has ever accused me of being ordinary or conventional, but I try to cultivate some deliberate idiosyncrasies so that I have something to talk about when the conversation flags. For instance, I collect potato chip bags.
Read More
When we bought our house in 1998, our back yard came with what I would call an old metal dog fence; a sturdy, unsightly, somewhat rusted, waist-high construct of woven wire rectangles stretched between metal posts. Our yard is large and the fence ran down both sides and across the back. It was overgrown with ivy and weeds and leaned dramatically in places. The metal posts were topped by metal ball and sunk in concrete at the bottom.
Read More
For about two decades now, I have sought to locate myself somewhere in the intersection between computers and politics. In my early twenties, I worked as a programmer for a series of political technology enterprises. Now that I am running a firm in the same niche, I think about the change in perspective that has taken place as I have gotten older and moved from employee to employer.
Read More
My first computer was an Apple ][ Plus. I still have that machine. Its arrival in my house was almost a religious experience. We never had gadgets, and it was clear that this was something new, amazing. I stayed up all night the day it arrived, learning about it, spellbound.
Read More
In the summer of 1985 I knocked on the doors of more than 70 houses a day, canvassing for COPIRG, the Colorado Public Interest Research Group. I learned a lot about people and neighborhoods and political persuasion.
Read More
Today’s posting is triggered by another piece of memorabilia: a flyer for an organizational meeting of "Yale Students with Hart" for April 15, 1987. A friend and I had printed on the flyer: "Learn more about Senator Hart’s positions, and how you can help around the country this summer, next fall, and in 1988."
Read More
I continue to go through old papers and was amused to find another item that represents a very modest milestone in my circuitous path to small software company owner. I have next to me a handwritten contract from 1/13/84, which I think was the first time I was paid for a computer-programming project.
Read More
When I found my college transcript last week, I was reminded that three of the courses that I took as an undergraduate have particularly influenced me. I have written about the other two in previous posts. The third was a class that I took with Professor Edward Tufte – it was called Statistics and Data Analysis for Public Policy.
Read More
Though I majored in computer science, and took very little political science in college, I got very involved in a few projects for undergraduate courses in American Politics.
Read More
NGP Software stands for National Geographical and Political Software, and emphatically not, as some have charged, for my initials (Nathaniel G. Pearlman). Occasionally I am asked where the “Geographical” part of the company’s name comes from, since it seems to be the least emphasized part.
Read More
This morning I continued the nostalgic task of organizing old papers and came across my Yale college transcript in a red folder labeled “Me.” The transcript is diagonally stamped “RELEASED TO STUDENT” in large block letters.
Read More