Tag: random

• The #davos tag in Twitter is yielding very little good stuff other than tweets from @JOHNBYRNE the EIC of Businessweek and @thomascrampton. Sounds like Davos this year is festival of grumpiness. Would have liked to have seen the Turkish dude flip out on the Israeli dude. Temper, temper.
• Byrne posted a link to this slideshow (I need to blog on the genius of the slideshow model for churning up a site’s pageviews) on “If Google Ran Your Business” based on a Jeff Jarvis meme on those same lines.
• I had the most interesting headhunter call in a long time for a gig for which I am not qualified, but which, in the right hands, could be incredibly awesome. To the person who anonymously referred me to the “dean” deal, thanks, I am flattered.
• Churbuck’s Theater-That-Makes-You-Smarter saw two wild showings this week: Häxan by Benjamin Christensen is the strangest flick I’ve seen since John Waters’ early stuff with Divine. 1922 – Danish/Swedish, silent. About witches. Demented and The 400 Blows, Francois Truffaut. The latter is awesome, the former is weird.
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• I am about to be invaded by ten 15-year old boys and girls for a Friday night birthday party for my son. Pray for me. I already have a migraine.
• I have purchased my 2009 Massachusetts Fishing License and intend to exercise it tomorrow by ice fishing (aka “ice drinking”). Report to follow and yes I will watch my step and a) not break more bones and b) not fall through the ice.

Hanna came in and through late last night, announcing itself (sorry, I can’t anthromorphize a frigging rain storm with a feminine “she”) with a burst of rain on the skylights that drove the terriers into the closets and under the couches to hide from the thunder and lightning that surely must follow. I stepped outside at the conclusion of the Sox game to check the boats in the yard and the trees were tossing pretty vigorously in the thick, warm wind.  Just another squall, so I went to bed and woke this morning to scudding skies and a stunning bright sunrise.

I walked the dog down Old Shore Road to the harbor, didn’t see any boats tossed onto the shore, just a finger pier looked a little battered over by the old yacht club beach at Mrs. Cabot’s. The skiffs, still rigged, looked safe and sound on the yacht club lawn. Some people were snapping pictures of them and a dog walker forged down the beach to Little River, plastic poop bag in hand.

Just another September morning on Cape Cod, and now I have a day of paperwork and bills, taxes and tedium before the car service comes to fetch me in ten hours for the ride to Logan then British Airways to Heathrow and onwards to Bangalore. Some Sunday morning randomness:

• I have travel fatigue. Beijing knocked the stuffing out of me and now that I’m back and adjusted to my home timezone I have to do the far worse trip to India. 23 hours door-to-door (that’s real hours, not timezone hours) is not fun. I get back on Thursday night and do it again to Raleigh the following Tuesday for four days of catchup. Week after that Chicago and New York in the same week.
• I have to prep a 45 minute talk to 400-some magazine/publishing executives at the Folio show. This has me anxious as most public speaking makes me anxious.
• I have to put the Olympic blogging program to rest. Last week was spent gathering metrics and traffic and impressions and press mentions and all that good stuff that goes into a post-mortem report. I miss that program a lot. An awful lot.
• Seriously maudlin over not seeing my oldest two when they disappeared last month for college and the eldest’s first trip to Europe. We have one left at home, he’s a high school freshman, and are staring at the empty-nest scenario sooner than later. September has always been the bluest month for me — I guess for anybody — and this one is particularly wistful.
• Crossfit kicked my ass. Yesterday’s workout, “Linda” involved lifting weights (deadlift, benchpress, snatches). My son spotted me on the presses. Ten, “declining” sets, 10-9-8-7-6….. 57 minutes. Horrifying. May need to take today off but don’t want to, will miss some workouts in transit to India and if weren’t for Crossfit I wouldn’t have survived China as well as I did.
• Fat Sunday New York Times is an indication that summer is truly over and the Times is back in full swing after the August doldrums. Some randomly interesting stuff in there. One is the profile of ad network Blue Lithium founder. Young guy. Made a stack. I have no idea what he did to make his first pile using some software on top of DoubleClick. Made no sense. Big meaty article about ambient conversations or something in the Magazine. Essentially microblogging via Twitter and Facebook and what it does to us. Don’t know about you but both services continue to unimpress me, but I know are giant foundations for the under 30 generation where relationship management is everything. And I skimmed a piece pitting Yelp against Zagat’s — ok, I get it and I use neither.
• I found myself writing two things yesterday defending Vista. I guess the Seinfeld ad’s are working.

That’s all for now. I write some posts offline on the plane and post when I get to the Ista Hotel in Bangalore at 6 am on Tuesday (local time). Couple days of workshops and I think I fly home in time to be back in Cotuit on Friday. Not sure. Need to go download my itinerary.