But when I wrote a story in October about the Department of Energy giving away $100 million to train engineers on smart electric grid technology, I felt hooked. I had to get someone to write a federal grant proposal.

The rationale was clear and compelling. My company runs big events and big Web sites that train engineers. In the wake of a recession of historic proportions, the Obama Administration was pumping nearly a trillion dollars in economic stimulus funds into the economy for all sorts of things including broadband access, digital medical records and training engineers to build and run a smart grid.

It was a moment not to be missed. I just wanted our rightful piece of the action.

Dozens, maybe hundreds of well meaning employees in electronics companies around America found themselves in similar positions. We were compelled to act despite a nagging little voice in our heads reminding us how hard it can be just to renew a driver's license at the local Secretary of State office, let alone apply to Uncle Sam in Washington for a million bucks.

Like many of my peers, I took a long, deep breath, and sent that first email. What follows is a map of the pot holes, panic attacks and free advice I found on my journey.

Log in, please
From the start my passion for this project felt like a dangerous drug. I forwarded my story about the grants to one manager, then another. No response. But my craving for action would not die.

I convinced one energetic and upbeat executive to spend several hours burrowing into the application process before he threw up his hands in dismay at the bureaucracy. My conscience advised I take that as a sign of the dark path ahead, but I was already addicted.

One day I heard myself ranting to my boss about the need for somebody to do something about this historic opportunity for which we were perfectly suited. In the piercing silence after my impromptu speech I realized what I had to do. I volunteered to write the grant proposal.

"OK," my boss said. "Take two days to work on it. You can always write a story about your experiences."

Two days. That's like telling a meth addict, "Here, just take two drags off this crack pipe."

"OK, I will," I said.

Proposals were due in ten days.

Lesson #1: If you decide to write a grant proposal, start early.

My first panic attack hit when I realized I did not even know how to access the instructions to apply. I quickly slammed into the iron wall between Google search and federal documents. The only way in is through one of several locked portals with names like FedConnect, Grants.gov and Central Contractor Registration (CCR).

Posted above these doorways are notices such as "You should allow yourself up to ten days to get approved for access to this government Web site."

Ten days! That's all I had left to complete the entire process.

Indeed, there were several strange steps in the process. The first piece of the first key was to apply for something called a DUNS number.

"What you don't have a DUNS number? Go back to the end of the line," said the wicked bureaucrat in my head.

I drew a trembling breath and plunged into the D&B Web site. I found out my company has already been issued not just one DUNS number, but one for every location where it maintains a coffee pot and a toilet. Jackpot, we were alive and well in the Data Universal Numbering System.

I can do this, I said. I can do this.

Unsure about my next step, I threw out my first life line to human resources who lobbed my request over the wall to someone in corporate finance at headquarters—the glass-and-brass building we call the Death Star. It turned out someone there already had a corporate account on FedConnect, Grants.gov and CCR. The ten day process was about to collapse into a ten minute email exchange.

Lesson #2: Don't reinvent the wheel.

But the keeper of our accounts was taken aback by the eagerness of my emails. Who was this unknown from a distant home office wanting to know all the secret passwords and codes to access our particular portals to Uncle Sam—and pronto? Corporate quickly concluded I must be some spammer tired of the old Nigerian bank account trick.

A few flame mails later I felt like Dorothy Gale being chided "Who are you to question the great and powerful Oz!?!"

Lesson #3: Walk gently on the holy ground of corporate power.

A few more breaths. Over a couple calm phone calls I did my best to show appropriate respect, explain my unusual circumstances and throw myself at the feet of corporate mercy—and I was in. Our Wizard of HQ sent three separate emails inviting me to set up my own accounts in the three federal portals.

After much searching, it turned out one federal Web site had the application forms I needed, another was the site where the completed forms were to be submitted and the third was apparently just a decoy to throw me off. Luckily I have seen that tactic before in a Nintendo game about finding gold in labyrinths inside castles.

I had nine days left.

Just fill out these forms
My next panic attack struck when I read the forbidding title at the top of the grant application: DE-FOA-0000152. Are there any humans out there, I wondered.

Actually I was lucky. I did not have to file a letter of intent or a pre-application for this particular grant, forms that might have eaten up most of my remaining nine days.

The directions for filing were 36 pages long. They told me all about the three government portals where I must register. (They didn't say anything about one being a dummy site.)

They broke down the grant into three separate topic areas and challenged me to figure out which was the appropriate one for my proposal. More labyrinths.

My application needed to include at least three Adobe Acrobat documents and one spreadsheet. However, under certain conditions—all carefully detailed—I might need to submit as many as seven other documents and three additional spreadsheets.

My heart and head started racing.

I retreated to what I knew best—reporting. This was just another story. The main document was supposed to be a 35-page (maximum) narrative describing the need I aimed to fill, how I would fill it, the results I expected and our unique attributes that made us suitable for this job.

I researched and I wrote and researched and wrote. Somewhere in the process I realized I had to give the government figures—on spreadsheets!—saying exactly how many federal dollars—in millions!—I wanted. Gulp.

I threw out my second life line to one of the most congenial business managers in our group. I talked his ear off about historic opportunities, expansion markets and millions of dollars in business development funds. He headed off in a cloud of crack-pipe smoke to draft spreadsheets.

Somewhere in there I read a little more fine print and realized the feds wanted us to have partners—lots of them. Each partner needed to pledge its troth with a specific, signed Adobe Acrobat support letter to be titled Commit.pdf.

We started reaching out to likely suspects, but quickly found most were neck deep in their own applications in a race to the finish line. "Sure, I'll partner with you. Call me after the deadline."

Perhaps it's just as well, I thought. Most potential partners wanted to share in any grant money. That meant more spreadsheets, more documents, more project management plans and sub-plans for sub-awardees and sub-contractors of sub-awardees.

Sub attack!

We got one nice letter from one wonderful CEO at a company that had apparently formed a tiger team just to crank out grant support letters for most of the industry. We quietly thanked our lucky stars and drove on.

Just before Thanksgiving I read through all the fine print again.

Lesson #4: Read all the fine print at the very start, even if it takes nine of your ten days.

We needed our spreadsheet to be in the format of a government form found on one of the federal Web portals. The form was thorough and detailed, to put it politely.

My business-side partner said he would attend to it along with his parts of the ten-page project management plan between bites of turkey. And so we entered three-and-a-half days of an eerie email silence.

Deadline day looms
Sunday evening I had five emails from my business partner. He was working on the project management plan with one hand, spreadsheets with the other and getting a review of our work from a group financial director—all while attending his daughter's birthday party.

I'm sure this will all come together in time, I reassured myself, still high on Tryptophan.

I first heard the dreaded question early Monday morning. "Can we get an extension?"

I extended my third and final lifeline. It turned out there actually was the name, phone number and email address of a real human being on the application.

I called. He answered! He was pleasant! He was kind! He listened to my situation! He was sympathetic!

He was powerless. His advice: File what you can before the deadline. They can always come back for more later if they like what we sent. Have a nice day.

Lesson #5: Follow all advice from kind, powerless bureaucrats.

My business partner called a telecon with me and our group financial director. The money guy asked a curious question. "Where are your revenue projections?"

Revenue? The government never asked anything about revenue. I assumed my business partner and the corporate finance guy would handle revenue. I am just applying for a grant to do some business development. Revenue comes later.

My business partner decided we better have a chat with our group CEO. I had to file in two hours. Documents were unfinished.

Ninety minutes before the filing deadline we had a telecon with the group CEO, the group finance director and my business partner. Lesson #6: Get broad buy-in early.

Under the pressures of the moment we all got excited. Crack got smoked. Thumbs went up. The telecon ended to attaboys all around. The proposal was due in one hour.

Fifteen minutes later the last of the required documents landed in my in-box, needing just a little input from me. Eighteen minutes later I said, enough--I have to file.

I had twenty-six minutes.

I went to FedConnect, and logged on with my new sub-account password.

I had a cheat sheet standing by with the answers to the five personal identifying questions I might be called to answer if for some reason my password failed. The list read like a tour through my childhood: Ricky, Teddy, Lexington Green Elementary School, etc.

I got in. I searched for the call for proposals buried under ten screens of other federal grants in process. I clicked on it. I waited. I waited some more. The blue bar indicating a loading Web page moved from left to right at a pace indicating it might complete sometime after the end of my expected lifetime. I shuddered.

I recalled a notice buried in the fine print of FedConnect. (Refer to Lesson #4.) It said "We recommend you do not try to file within the last hour of the deadline."

Of course, all 400 candidates are filing right now, I thought.

I stopped the loading page and re-started it. I watched the blue line move like a thick sludge of toxic glue across the bottom of my screen. Stop. Restart. Slow sludge. Quit, log on again, navigate to the grant, click, slow sludge.

After several rounds, I remembered another way to submit I had seen over at Grants.gov. I called up that form and started to fill it out and attach my documents to it. The instructions clearly said to file to FedConnect not Grants.gov, but this was an emergency.

I bounced back and forth between my Grants.gov form and the blue sludge of FedConnect for several minutes. I finally completed the Grants.gov form and hit the send button. It asked for my Grants.gov password.

I had forgotten it. I could not find it anywhere. I considered suicide.

Just then the FedConnect page loaded, asking if I wanted to file an application. I had ten minutes.

Racing to the finish
I instantly morphed into Super FedConnect Machine. Fill out form. Attach file. Find file on hard drive. Load file. Save file. Need to attach another document? Yes you fool, I need to attach five more @#$%^& documents!

Attach. Find. Load. Save. Attach. Find. Load. Save. Attach.

One by one the documents go in. One by one the minutes tick off. It is one minute to deadline, and I am not done. Just finish, finish, I think. What the hell, I started on time.

Not once do I remember the advice of the kindly, disempowered government bureaucrat who said file what you can before the deadline, we can always come back to you for more later on. Not once do I pause to reflect on this advice—or on anything--in this final moment of my marathon. I am just running, running.

I get the last document attached, loaded and saved. I hit send. I get a confirmation.

"Your application was received at 3:04 pm EST."

Four minutes after the deadline.

I call the kindly bureaucrat. He listens to me patiently as I control my sobs. He offers Kleenex.

He reminds me he does not have the authority to make any decisions about whether my star-crossed proposal can be accepted or not. But I can send him an email explaining my circumstances, and he can check with the shadowy and nameless others who can make a decision about my case.

I send the email. I go out for a long, long jog.

To this day I do not know if my application was accepted or will be reviewed.

The words of a venture capitalist in a panel discussion I heard weeks ago echo hollowly in my head:

"Never invest in a company that says 'Get government money' in its business plan because you will be waiting a long time."

My wait ends January 30, 2010, the deadline for announcing winners of the smart grid training grants.

Lesson #7: Hire a professional grant writer.