We are really in the heart of crunch mode now. In at 6:30 am working to 10-11 pm everyday but Sunday. I see the family for just a few minutes at night when I get home. They did come down and bring dinner one night, we spent a 4 hours on Saturday exploring downtown Luxembourg and then we spent Sunday together.
We were hoping to close a big round of funding on Friday. Wed/Thursday we were chasing down 92 documents that our U.S. investors had to sign. It was an absolute miracle we got everything signed and scanned in by when we were supposed to close on Friday. We were all dressed up ready to go the signing when their attorneys called and said they would not be able to get through the documents in time and wanted to push it off until next Thursday. We pushed back and said Tuesday. We’ll see if it actually happens. It will be a huge load off of us and would allow us to focus on deliverying the product and marketing materials by the trade show deadline in June.
For those of you who are curious what we are building, here’s a quick summary. 10% of the world’s money is Luxembourg tied up in investment funds. It is the 2nd largest fund domicile in the world just behind the U.S. Luxembourg has cut out a niche in the finance world by making investment, tax and privacy laws attractive to funds.
So we’re creating the world’s first Fund Information Network. It will allow all of the members involved in the fund industry to collect and share data and documents about their funds with investors, regulators, auditors, accounts, consultants, etc. We’ve talked to some very big players and amazingly this is a very technologically backwards industry that needs a modern technology infrastructure. An easy way to think about what we’re creating is a Facebook for the fund industry. However, the purpose is not to connect people socially, the purpose is to connect their companies together to trade information more effectively.
We’re starting here in Luxembourg because the U.S. privacy laws and practices are terrible and not respected throughout the world. No European entity would EVER allow their important documents and information about their investments to be stored in a data center in the United States. So we’ll start the network here because people will trust their information to be stored in Luxembourg. I can't wait to watch this Frontline special that came out last week that talks about this privacy issue and how we got to this point.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/
This next week is the conclusion!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/next-week-how-silicon-valley-feeds-the-nsas-global-dragnet/
Some pretty big things did happen on the family front this week. Emilee and Jacob finished their online French class early! They are excited to be done with that! Emilee, for her young women’s project organized all of our pictures on Google+, Jacob had to give a talk in church and turned in his Eagle application. I had the opportunity to ordain Spencer a priest on Sunday. We'll get the opportunity next week to bless the sacrament in French! Ashton is now up to 3,209 on his number line!
Saturday we did have a few hours together that were awesome. The Luxembourg casements are finally open. We've been waiting since we first got here to go through them. They are a system of underground tunnels that can hold 35,000 people. They are under the original fort that was begun here in the year 10. Yes, Jesus was just 10 years old when they started their first settlement here. It is pretty obvious why they built here. It is a huge natural fortification, with clean water close by!
After exploring the casements for a couple hours we walked around the Grund. It is the lower part of town where the Microsoft and Skype headquarters are located. Ashton was dead set on catching a lizard. We saw a few, but were unsuccessful at catching one.
We walked across a bridge built in the 1400's and back through the city. It was free museum day so we stopped by the natural history museum. They did have a few live animals, but the coolest thing were the stick insects. They look exactly like sticks and just sit there. We didn't see even one more. Even a little tiny one just sat there like a stick. Pretty obvious how they got their name!
On the way back through the town we past the carnival. There have been street vendors setup in both the town squares all week long. The weather was awesome and Ashton was thinking it was a great day for gelato, so we splurged and got full blown ice cream sundays! They were $10 a piece, but worth it!
This week we're hoping for our funding to finally go through and then on Friday, the kids and I will be taking a temple trip to Frankfurt with the young men and young women of the ward. We are going to sleep in the temple hostel, so that should be a new adventure.
Ahmed is still struggling, but he did come to church on Sunday. He has major immigration issues and is hoping that his appeal will be accepted so he doesn't get deported.
Ahmed is still struggling, but he did come to church on Sunday. He has major immigration issues and is hoping that his appeal will be accepted so he doesn't get deported.
We loved talking to everyone Google+ this week. We miss you all and are looking forward to our visit in August!
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