DATELINE: In the Shire, Indy, 4 February 2004

This week went by in a blur. I mean it. I'm having trouble piecing together all the places Steve DeAngelis and I rushed to, all the people we met in those places, all the possibilities revealed and the opportunities posed. How Steve keeps it all straight in his head is simply amazing. I'm so here and now, but Steve's got like this unreal filing cabinet in his brain where he's always got reminders going off, saying we need to get back to this subject, this person, this company, this something. He is the perfect match for my career right now, because the parade is nonstop and I simply need somebody to see all the connections and business opportunities, which Steve manages on top of his own stunning agenda of non-stop activity.

I feel like I left on Tuesday. I had one night in Yardley, then a blur of a day in the office in Enterra. We do a stop on the ride down to DC, meeting with a manufacturing client in Delaware. Then a great after-dinner meeting with Frank Akers (another blur-meister, I don't think Frank sleeps in the same bed two nights in a row).

Thursday was a morning meeting in Maryland with a big corporation, and then lunch and another meeting with a key player in the intell community, then an intense meeting of the senior players Steve has put together for Enterra Solutions's Washington Operations Center (a frighteningly competent and focused group--excluding my vague, visionary self, of course). Then I bag it for some room service and blogging while Steve heads out for another brain-busting evening strategy meeting with yet another company that wants some relationship with Enterra in the best way. Steve and I got to talk over that latest opportunity during a midnight fire drill at our hotel, which was fun.

Friday we're up, strategizing over breakfast coffee, then I head over to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where I speak to a large audience in their lower-level conference room. It is one of the best briefs I've ever delivered, and probably one of the funniest. Hard to explain, but the audience just brought it out. Too bad C-SPAN passed, cause Evan Bayh's bit was a poor substitute (I caught him on the network that night, taped at CSIS apparently earlier in the day), staring at his text and pretending that calling everyone in sight our enemy/threat constitutes a "tough but smart" national security strategy. Smart, my man, is getting what you want, not simply labeling more countries deserving of our "tough stance." Seriously, I am getting more and more worried about the candidates for president in 2008, on both sides, because it's like some idiotic race--already!--to declare the world to be going to hell in a hand-basket and thereby deserving of all sorts of "tougher" U.S. foreign policy. Outdoing Bush is not improving Bush. Please, let's get that straight.

After the CSIS talk, I went out to lunch with the head of International Resources Group, a very connected, very experienced, and very wise man by the name of Asif Shaikh, who's been a friend and regular mentor for roughly a decade. Asif's a Pakistani by birth, a real citizen of the world, and probably one of the smartest American patriots I've ever known (he likes to remind me he's been an American longer than I have--ha!). He's a serious compass for me and it was great to see him. Asif's talked me into keynoting a foreign aid conference on Valentine's Day. Not just anyone can put me at that much risk with my spouse, but for Asif, I will do it.

Then I take the Metro out the orange line and catch a cab to the National Conference Center (the old Xerox training center). I am whisked into a big auditorium, hook up, and then, after a quick head call, I'm signing books non-stop for 20 minutes for a long line of naval medical officers before giving a 1:40 talk and doing 20 Q&A. Then back for another 20 minutes of rapid-fire signings where my hand gets kind of shaky near the end.

Then I'm in my dorm-like room at the conference center (I swear, they filmed "Andromeda Strain" here) by 2130, which was weird, because my travel nights almost never end with me in a room before 10pm. I'm blitzed, so I check email: a couple of interesting offers to speak in China and perhaps join some new think tank that will bring together Chinese and Western strategists. I speak to Steve about it on the phone before going to bed. We agree it's cool and intriguing, but where would I be going if I'm building those types of global bridges while advising people across the national security community? I mean, the paranoia on China right now is profound, so what are my logical choices?

Fly back today through Dulles, editing my first column for the Knoxville News Sentinel on the flight. Then drive straight to Terre Haute for some kidsitting to let my spouse and older kids see a movie. I end up napping with my two-year-old, which, quite frankly, was damn cool. I'm going to start considering this whole going comatose in the mid-afternoon thing more often, cause it's quite refreshing.

Then we caravan everybody back to Indy, where the Families with Children from China have a Chinese New Year's celebration in the famous Indy Children's Museum. The whole place is rented out for the night, so we have a blast. Still, a weird way to end a day that begins in VA. Felt like I was moving all day, save for the nap, and the all-day snow storm here added to my sense of discombobulation.

I fear this whole year is going to be like this week, but I am ready for it. This is going to be a year of making a lot of things happen--for real.