Zoom, zoom, zoom

Flew to Seattle-Tacoma (SeaTac) yesterday, transiting through Las Vegas. Armed with my SWA drink coupons (I could buy a round for the plane if I so desired), I've come to the conclusion that the bloody Mary is the perfect flight drink, largely because of all the pieces involved: tiny vodka bottle, the mix, the pepper, the stir, the wedge of lime and the cup of ice. It's the closest you come to first class on Southwest.

I finished Easterly's "White Man's Burden" en route. Overall a great book, but the chapters on military interventions were beyond naive, delivered largely in a Cold War vein that's too OBE to mention. Still, a great book overall, with lots of neat explanations and a bit too much effort at humor (not his forte).

Landing at SeaTac, I'm picked up by a Major from Fort Lewis (MP brigade), and driven to my hotel. Then out for long dinner/night of conversation with the brigade's senior officers (many with experience in both the south and Kurdistan). Nice meal, good conversation. Crashed late after watching "Seinfeld" docu from early season DVD package (really interesting, his tight collaboration with Larry David, who, like Michael Richards spent time on that weird "Fridays" way back when, and also wrote for a year for SNL, where he met Julia Louise-Dreyfus). David's HBO series is like a pure Costanza makeover of "Seinfeld"--a fascinating refraction in creative terms.

Up this morning and on-base for professional development brief (2 hours) to the entire brigade. They gave me a nice framed pic of Ranier with engraved plaque. Naturally, I did the entire gig at less than my usual fee. A lot of flying for that level of effort, but I remain committed to these venues and audiences.

The brigade's leadership had the troops read the original PNM article, and then read the book. The commander said they'd now all read BFA too. Many had seen the old NDU C-SPAN brief from 2004, so they were excited to see how much the message had evolved.

It was a good interaction for me, the first time I did an all-MP crowd. Signed a load of books (PNM softs) after the talk, then back to the airport for a long, scary flight over weather to KC.

What kept me cool on the flight was my new favorite read: Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity by Baumol, Litan and Schramm. Already have fascinating slide (doodled many times spontaneously as I read) about how you map their various models in terms of pathways.

Very well written. If you did economics, simply a great read.

Will finish on flight to Indy now.

Comments

[PamC]

Would it be possjble to add a schedule of events to the web page? Becaue I probably could have gotten in to see you there... rats!

[Ray Kimball]

Thanks for doing events like this. I guarantee those officers walked away talking about what you had to say, which is really about all you can ask for.

[chy]

I could have gotten you a tour of the mint here, if you had time, we are in Auburn Washington.

[Anonymous]

Pam: i'll look into it