Dateline: in the Shire, Indy, 30 January 2006

Long morning at the hospital, wading through a pulmonary function, cat scan and an echocardiogram. None of it required for the surgery we contemplate to correct a structural birth defect in one of our kids. All done just to make the insurance companies happy. If the numbers don't come up right, I will probably pay for the event myself out of pocket. The insurance company would rather wait until the issue gets so obvious that it's symptomatic in terms of organ function, but by then we're out of the less invasive answer and into the more complex one. Plus, we lose the best window in terms of body growth. So, despite the money crunch of this year, I will simply plan on making this happen sometime next summer.

Being back in a children's hospital, doing such diagnostics, brings back a lot of memories for me. But it's so much different with an older kid. Emily was just two when we ran her through so much of the nasty stuff back in Georgetown.

Still, you meet a lot of kids facing some very difficult stuff when you visit a children's hospital. It's like wandering into an alternative universe within which we were once so desperately trapped.

I occupied myself by wriiting my first column for the Knoxville News Sentinel. I decided to start with a comfortable chestnut (the Department of Everything Else), because I want to step into this process slowly, writing from a position of confidence. I realized, as I planned the first few pieces, that I haven't really explored any of my stuff in op-ed form, save for the one piece I did for the Providence Journal way back when and the one piece I wrote for the Washington Post when PNM came out (a notion that extended beyond PNM and eventually made it into BFA).

So rather than going full bore into new material, I want to sort of introduce myself in bits and pieces, establishing my "case law," as it were, before pushing the envelope. Once established, I would want to step out of the narrow confines of national security and use this platform to explore new subject matter. But I figure I dance with them that brought me to start out.

Afternoon lost to a variety of Enterra stuff, to include some research on a quiet project I'm doing for Oak Ridge. I also did a phonecon with some Raytheon execs for a speaking gig later next month. You often get this on the big corporate ones: the seniors running the show want a conversation by phone to make sure everyone's on the same page. Bit of a hassle to schedule, but always worthwhile.

Got some nice gigs being scheduled, making me realize how crucial it was for my ability to leave the Naval War College that I had signed up with Leigh Bureau back in the fall of 2004. That was the big liberation that made the whole move to Indy possible. This is why I treat every possible gig as my last, or as my most important audition. Can't get talks unless you give talks, and when you give good talks, you get a lot of talks. So every performance is your best performance.

I have never missed a performance, but eventually a failure will occur for some reason. Still, I am proud of my record. You sign me up, you get a performace worth the expenditure. No ifs, ands or buts.

I could say it's what I do for a living, but then again, I do a lot of things for a living nowadays.