Wednesday

Looks like another great day out there. I'm going to sneak away a little early tonight and get my DCC ride in before din-din.

I spent the better portion of my day on the phone with the home office folks of my securities business trying to make proper arrangements for a new vendor whose software will hopefully give my consulting business a boost. The downside is trying to explain the process to the compliance people in the home office. I doubt if the end-of-conversation feeling that 4 had with her new Indian friend was much different than mine right now. Not exactly the warm and fuzzies.

Based on 3's comments this weekend, a family trip to Tahoe will need to be scheduled for June next year to catch her before her future job will start. 1 will need to give some guidance. And 4 will have possible internship scheduling to consider as well. 2's world could also change. Bottom line is that we need to have some collective discussion and set the dates and plan accordingly. The retro condo should be available.

Interesting article in BussinessWeek this week about a gal who runs a business in Boston called Dancing Deer bakery goods (or something to that effect). Google Dancing Deer. Interesting because she's built a business in about 10 years to $8 million in sales. Natural ingredient cookies and the like. I am humbled at my own ineptitude when I see stories of entrepeneurs like this who have taken not-necessarily-new ideas and been successful. They have a drive, or something like a drive, to succeed and do so.

Another point of note. I have written several emails in the last day or two on the Criterium address where I have caught myself editting out even casual humor for fear of offending one of the parties at the home office who might be reviewing general email traffic. I am required by my contract to have my securities related email go through the home office server. An Enron and Martha Stewart by-product. I've reached the point where I'm pretty humorless on the securities email site, regardless of the insignificance of the topic. Many people might point out that I don't have to work too hard to be humorless.

There's a lot of examples where people have put themselves at personal or professional risk by thoughtless electronic communications. Facebook, MySpace or Blogger are all places where young people can enter things that may come back to haunt them, even years later. There will always be the mud grubber who will try to find bad stuff on people.

I am reminded of the Bill Clinton or George Bush efforts to avoid the draft. And they always wanted to be politicians. Or the ISU bball coach who got his picture on the web at post-game parties. Think camera phones. The world is a difficult place to remain fully below radar.

So go out and have fun. But...

Be careful out there.