Burn-out

Dateline:Crystal City hotel, Arlington VA, 3 November 2005

Up early this a.m. for 0700 breakfast meet in DC with Steve DeAngelis and some federal contacts. Great discussion.

Then back to my hotel for hour iinterview with Dong Young Yun, Washington correspondent of the Yonhap News Agency out of South Korea. She was a great interviewer, and the conversation was mostly about Kim Jong Il.

Followed that with another hour with two reporters from USA Today, Matt Kelley (who profiled me last year for AP) and Dave Moniz. Two very well versed guys in the subject of defense, so that was bang-bang-bang and then 60 minutes had passed. It's a lot of fun to go the second time with people to whom I was just being introduced last time. No need for pleasantries, just the content flow. It's a nice form of interpersonal connectivity that BFA allows me to enjoy this time around (last time too nervous).

Then I do the Glen Mitchell show out of Dallas NPR. He's a solid interviewer, and this was my third time on his show. He had a bad cold and it "showed" in his voice, but he pulled through and the questions from callers were all great. That ran an hour over the phone in my hotel room.

Then an hour with Michael Barone of U.S. News. I had extremely brief F2F with him last time during break in my National Defense U brief (the long CSPAN one) and had only interacted with him substantively over the phone, so it was cool to just sit down with him and go at it for the hour. He has an interesting style of sort of arguing-but-not-quite-arguing with you that keeps the flow moving very rapidly. I learn something in interviewing by that.

Then I go see an old friend in the hospital, and I don't pass up the chance to tell him how much I love him and how much he's meant to me as a mentor.

Then I rush to a Navy banquet, sit through dinner, and do an hour-long brief before about 100. Then I sign about . . . I dunno . . .. 50 to 60 books, maybe more. I lost track. My right hand really started hurting.

I am baked.