Have a nice Labor Day weekend

(Busy)

Speaking at banking conference in Colorado Springs.

Packers-Browns game Thursday night

Took Vonne Mei.  She's wearing Starks' actual back-up jersey for the Super Bowl.  He gave it to his college (Buffalo) and we got it on an online auction. It is bizarrely tailored for a tight fit.  I could barely get it on myself, so I now understand why staff have to pull them on players.  It comes with all sorts of tightening bands you don't find on the official replicas, so it's fascinating to look over.  Starks signed one of the back 4s.

We left Indy about 7pm and got to the seats a solid hour beforehand, so I could stare at all the construction above us (the new upper deck sections that effectively ends the pure bowl status of Lambeau but adds 6,700 seats, which may increase the Barnett total because my Mom is very close to the top of the waiting list (collectively, my Mom, brother Andy and I now possess 6 seats x 2 regular and 1 preseason game)).  We drove back to just south of Chicago before crashing in a cheap hotel around 4am Friday (EDT). It was quite the trek.  Naturally, I had to limit myself to Sprite.

My brother Andy came over and shot this as halftime.

My sense of the additions:  

• We now have real speakers loaded right behind our upper-bowl section, so the sound is superb on that score now.
• The new high-def screens are awesome.  No sense in us watching the closer-in one because the angle distorts the clarity, but distant one is so good you almost catch yourself watching it versus the field (which would be stupid, because you miss all the defensive backfield info)
• The closing in of the bowl will make field goals a lot easier.  It also cuts down on what used to be plenty of wind in the open south end, where my seats are.
• Now, I must admit, I feel like my two seats are in a real pro stadium versus on top of a college-style big bowl (Lambeau is the only bowl in the NFL, and the only one with benches versus real seats). Bit sad because now when I go out on the terrace behind our seats, it's no longer an open-air terrace but semi-enclosed. I used to feel on top of the world (or at least Green Bay) before. Then again, there will be actual shelter from the rain/snow/etc back there now.
• Us "bowlers" will be offered the right to move our existing seats up to the new sections.  The tradeoff: will be colder up there, but also roofed.  Same basic view for me, just higher. Up there you'll have real seats and I could sit side-by-side with my other seat instead of right behind it like now. Downsides: my front seat now sits in row 1 at end of row, so my kids get an unobstructed view.  If we go topside, I'd need some assurance that would still work via sharper incline (likely). Of course, they will only grow in height . . .
• Lambeau clearly upgraded the food, which is good, because it has sucked bad for years.  Having gone to a good half-dozen other stadiums over the past 2-3 years, that much was evident.

I have the Bears Thursday game in early September, right after a Madison speech that afternoon.  Taking an old college roommate to that one because I can't manage one of my kids due to a preceding speech in Denver.  So I make that up to my son Jerry with 8th row seats for Saints game in late Sept. Will take older son to Cards in Nov.

Thursday night's showing was dreadful.  I don't think we have to fret over a perfect season possibility this year! I think the key is to pray for A-Rod's health, because we are looking like a Colts team under Peyton, right down to the Curtis Painter-type backup in Graham Harrell.

Yikes!

Advice sought and delivered

Got a request from somebody who's a protegee of someone Linked In to me.  We subsequently linked to each other.

This fellow then asks me for career advice in the following vein:

The purpose of my message is to learn about your ascent to being a world renowned analyst. 

Often times, analysts are perceived to be indispensable because of their technical ability to first access data and then render it in easy-to-understand graphs and charts. After the completion of this time consuming task, analysts are then expected to explain data trends and irregularities in "plain English". By this time, my eyes are so glazed from normalizing data, my write up - while good - is lackluster at best. 

As I read "The Pentagon's New Map", I see the book's content as a balanced amalgamation of data, research and insights. You are exactly what I want to be what I grow up.I would love to be that analyst who makes a difference in the way business and political decisions are made.

How do you recommend I get to that point in my career?

My reply:

Never turn down a chance to do public speaking.  In fact, seek them out at every opportunity. Even if you do a lot of public speaking, it will take the usual 10,000 hours before you get really good.

Study as many foreign languages as you can fit in.  Studying several languages is more important than mastering one.  Good storytelling is ultimately translation, and the best-communicating experts are experts at talking to other experts from fields other than their own.

Write every day.  If you don't get enough opportunities, then start you own blog or join a group blog.  

Prepare to view good writing as a lifetime pursuit.  It will take nonstop writing for about a decade before you really get good.

Whenever possible, seek out and work with professional editors on everything you write.

Read authors whose style you admire and work their tendencies into your own material.

Listen to what people say you do best and then do that as much as possible, getting others to do things for you that you do poorly.  So if mentors you trust tell you're not a good writer and not a good speaker, then spending your life trying to overcome your weaknesses is probably not a great idea.  You'd be better off sticking to what you're best at and trying to make those skills world class.

Nobody is good at everything.  Life involves choices.

I have learned - over time - to keep my advice general like that, versus trying to plot out career paths for others, because, when you do, you inevitably advise them to either: 1) retrace your "brilliant" journey; or (worse) 2) do the opposite of what's made you such a bitter fuck about your life and career.  It's like when you go around asking profs for advice on your PhD topic (which I did all over greater Boston): they either have you updating their own diss or tilting at some windmill they now wish they'd taken on instead.

In truth, I don't advocate anyone pursue a long and steady career, which is why I'm not partial to dispensing wisdom about following my "brilliant" path, nor am I one to suffer bitterness over the choices I've made. Every choice I made, I made because I felt it was time to move on and I was more fearful of creative stagnation than career stagnation. Simply put, I feel good when I feel creative, and when I don't, I go with no regrets.

Peinvention, as scary as it is, beats stagnation every time. The only thing you can be assured of in this world - in this era - is that your "beloved" or "hated" career will likely terminate much faster than you expect, forcing you into a new one (this one feels like my 5th).

Personally, I love that about this world.  To me, the scariest thing in this world is the person who works the one track for 35 years and then retires - a disappearing notion.  To me, that would hell on earth.  I have always been distinctly aware that I only get one at-bat, so I plan on swinging at everything before I go.

Everybody needs a Plan B.

I am always plotting my escape from my current career, because the minute something become un-negotiable, you might as well cash it in.  Because that's when your career starts owning you instead of you owning your life.

TSA @ SFO, WTF?

You know you're really old when . . . TSA totally writes you off as a terrorist threat.

And here I was all excited about being able to run in the 50-59 pool at road races!

Still, something to look forward to, heh?

Naturally, al-Qaida will adjust . . .

This poor bastard . . .

Waited for several hours while I painted dozens of kids' faces.  Then he sheepishly asked if I would paint him too.

It took a while.

This is actually his mug shot from his arrest later that night.  Apparently, he tried to Jedi mind trick some cop who caught him driving like a maniac.

Sad.  Really sad.

The church fair

My annual face-painting duty.  Got back yesterday from ATL and my speech and was sucked immediately into this.  Even longer day today.

My two youngest.

Abebu's wolf looking pretty good after nachos.  Metsu breaking out her serious pose face.  She was supremely careful with her paint job.

Prior to the fair, I redid their hair as three french braids to keep it off what I knew would be complex jobs.

My 50th b-day declared national holiday

At the 500 today

Tower Terrace seats, close to the Finish Line, and behind Pit Row (which means we are inside the track).  Twenty-seven rows up, which is ideal for getting some perspective.

Wife got em in a raffle, so they go to me and my eldest son - the only two in the family able to withstand the near-100-degree heat over a VERY long day.

Should be fun, though.

Never been.

ADDENDUM:  Hottest 500 ever - temp-wise, but we did well by hydrating throughout and covering up from the sun.  Second record set:  most lead changes ever.  This was ascribed to the new car design that makes sling-shotting much easier to do.

Nice time down in Tampa with a living legend

Major General James Livingston (USMC, ret) received the Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam in 1968. He is now the head of Kronos Advisory, a strategic advisory firm XO'd by Michael Smith and headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina.  Kronos will soon announce my role as partner (stay tuned for the formal announcement). The firm has focused heavily on counter-terrorism and the irregular warfare space since its organization in 2011, and provides a lot of pro-bono support to members of Congress interested in terror-related issues. I will lead the firm's expansion into other areas of work, namely strategic assessments and and systems analyses for USG clients.

We three flew down to Tampa early this week for talks. Hadn't been at MacDill in a bit.  Got to see a few friends on the side while in town.

It was a real honor (no pun intended) to finally meet the general face to face and spend some quality time.  He's a very impressive individual (especially in meetings) and we share a lot of views. I look forward to collaborating with him and Mike in the future.

Catching a glimpse of new World Trade Center "Freedom Tower" construction

On charter bus (with wifi!) after all-night drive from Indy to Manhattan (not advised).  Chaperoning my son's championship show choir's end-of-competition trip to Broadway for various training opportunities with local professionals.  They will sing at Ground Zero tonight and then we catch "Phantom," which I've always wanted to see on Broadway (not sure how I've missed it all these years).

Really something to see Freedom Tower in distance as we approached.  It's now over 100 floors.  Very positive sight.

I look forward to some ribs at Virgils!

Lost in thought

Interesting client, desiring deep look ahead, meaning hundreds of years into the future. Fate of humanity, movement into galaxy, etc.

In a word - fun.

But making me a bit less interested in the blog or writing beyond the weekly column and GPS effort.

Ben Shobert on Wikistrat's look at China-->Africa FDI dynamic

Find the post at Cross the Rubicon.

The bit I found interesting:

Dr. Barnett several years ago made a prediction that I imagine some rolled their eyes at, if for no other reason than it seemed outlandish at the time.  He suggested that as China’s presence in Africa grew, they would be greeted as a new colonial power, admittedly different in form and context, but none-the-less viewed as an outside power interested only in extracting resources from lowly Africa.  This would ultimately, as he saw it, create situations where African extremists would target Chinese operations in Africa, kidnap workers, etc.  It is worth noting this is precisely what has been happening, with a handful of other people asking the question, as Stan Abrams did earlier this week, what the world would think if China were to drop its equivalent of a Navy SEAL Team into Africa to get its people out.

If you want to participate in this business and do it well, your work will constantly be on the edge of outlandishness, otherwise you'll be trailing the pack and just picking up the conventional wisdom (like the increasingly regurgitated debate on state-capitalism-ruling-all versus America-in-decline-or-not?) as it's beaten to death.  

Spending my time, as I have for nearly a decade now, exploring the future reality of Chinese and US co-management of the world, puts me on the edge of most people's plausibility. After all, we got that "Chimerica" definition from Ferguson just as the global financial crisis killed the long-running model he was describing, so OF COURSE we now shift into a long-term rivalry between types of capitalism (strategic pivot et. al) and the "resumption of history" and so on.

But, of course, none of the larger structural dynamics in the world system have changed. We're just seeing the elite's perceptions begin to catch up, and when they do, they naturally package the undeniable reality into old boxes - like containment and superpower rivalry and AirSea Battle Concept (a painfully unimaginative retread from the 1980s with the Sovs).

However, for those of us who stick to their stories (scenarios), tomorrow's superpower interdependence will have less to do with the promise of shared death (MAD) than the promise of shared wealth - and the commensurate challenges of a world ruled from the middle for the first time in history.  That world, dominated by the C-I-A troika of China, India and America, is the subject of my next book, which I'll simultaneously crowd-source within the Wikistrat community over the next several months.

Processing the loss

 Off doing my regular lecture series at the satellite school (Belvoir VA) of Leavenworth's Command and General Staff College, so feel it's the right time to purge myself of the huge bad feeling created by Sunday's nightmare game.

Fan Cam HD 5-gajillion pixel shot of entire stadium that yields the following zoom capture of Jerry (mostly obscured and just above extended left arm of drunk in Packer yellow hoody) and myself (Packer hat, my glasses tinted by sunlight) in section 114, 37th row, seats 19-20 at the Packers-Giants game Sunday afternoon-eve. It was hard to tell when the camera was shooting in our direction.  We later stood up to be better spotted, but we must have missed that click.

Naturally, we were hugely disappointed by the game, but such is the NFL.

Watching the DVR later, after we got home, it seemed even more clear to me that we lost that game as much or more than the Giants won it.  They played well and deserved to win on that basis, but we just didn't play our game on offense and that wasn't due so much to the Giants's D, which was good but not that great, than it was to our consistently bad play (Rodger's first fumble of season, Kuhn's first of career(!), all those drops and several serious misses by Rodgers who had his worst statistical game of the season).  Rodgers simply blew an easy TD pass to Jennings on the first drive and Jennings simply dropped one in the end zone in the 3rd.  Those were plays both made in their sleep all year, but suddenly couldn't make on Sunday - to all our shocked amazement (the fans really were stunned).

That game was there to be won.  Our D played well enough for us to play ourselves right back into a tie or better all across the third Q and well into the fourth, but we simply didn't take advantage.  Time and again we shot ourselves in the foot with bad play, bad decisions, bad timing - just a lot of unforced errors in my opinion. Then we just sort of folded halfway through the fourth and stopped playing after the Grant fumble. I have simply never seen a Packer team give it up like that during an important game.

But that, quite frankly, was the vibe the entire game: no energy, no urgency, no nothing. It honestly felt like a preseason game on many levels, and all that bad juju left me wondering how much the whole Philbin death trauma played out, because all these guys spent Thursday night at a wake and Friday afternoon at a funeral. Take that dynamic out of the week and put our offensive coordinator in normal mode, and I don't think we play like we did.

Still, in the end, I think that was trivial compared to the decision to skip the last game, which probably created the bulk of the timing issues we had on offense (and they were egregious).

So what the team is left with, after this hugely disappointing showing, is an off-season of rebuliding the defense and asking themselves why they took such a conventionally bad route on handling the end of the season - specifically, the taking off of the Lions' game. Yes, we did Matt Flynn a huge career favor - how classy, but we sat Rodgers down so that he was taking his first serious snaps in three weeks during the far more important Giants game. I've seen this dynamic sap so many #1 seeds in recent years - especially in the NFC, and McCarthy's choices here all seem - in retrospect - to have been bad ones. We just looked lost out there on offense, like it a warm-up game instead of a truly important one. To waste such a season and team as this with such bad choices and weak preparation is depressing, but - again - such is the NFL. The Giants were ready and willing and won on that basis. If we had been, there's no question in my mind we win, but we weren't, and so the tourney moves on.

Having made all those whiny excuses, I will now say that the biggest thing for me this season was the blossoming of my son Jerome as a supreme Packer fan, the surprise being that he's not a football player per se (though he loves to throw and catch with me and plays with friends during recess; he instead does cross country in the fall because he's quite good at that) and instead came to it through Madden - the video game. After all these years of being a rather lonely fan in my family, I now have someone with whom to talk about darn near everything Packer-related.  After writing a school report on Lombardi, Jerry is now plowing through Jerry Kramer's several books on the 1960s Packers. True to form, in the wake of Sunday's debacle, Jerry is now already issuing demands about coaching changes and draft needs. Naturally, we have scoured the list of teams we're playing next year and have already decided which away games we'll hit in addition to our Lambeau visits.

Still, the game was a crusher for the little man.  First great brush with "there's always next year!"

Now I'm just left with cheering against the Pats . . ., which just doesn't compare.

Since I like to lose to the champs, I'm pulling for the Giants over 49ers and the Ravens over Pats.  Then, by nature, I'm pulling for the real NFL team over those frauds from the junior league.

NFL playoffs: my best guess scenario

Wild Cards:

• Thought Bengals would win on QB play, but happy to see Pats now probably have to play both Steelers and Ravens;
• Like Steelers over Broncos;
• Cheered very hard for Lions over Saints last night, and am suitably scared of playing the Saints - but less so outdoors and in the cold; and
• I see Falcons choking again at NYG, althought I am totally cheering for them.

Divisional

• Believed Pats would beat anyone with ease;
• See Ravens beating Steelers again;
• Believe Saints will pull it out in SF; and
• Know Pack should be able to handle Giants at home.

Conference championships

• Gotta go with Pats at home, but see this as hugely close; and
• Will say same about Pack v. Saints in Lambeau

Super Bowl

• Like my Packers in wild shoot-out (over 100 pts) over Pats.

Would like to see Pats lose to my Packers again - just like before. Also want to see Rodgers beat Brady in the Big Game.

Think AFC will go as I see it, with the championship game being close. In NFC, see the talent level being so high that it could go a lot of different directions. Really think any of the six could pull it out, much like last year.

As a Packer fan, I am simply grateful I've got reason to care about football deep in January and that they've positioned themselves well for a shot at championship #14.

Oh what a night!

Xmas present to wife, who's never been to Lambeau and wanted a piece of this magical season.

ARod's career-high 5 passing TDs and first time GB ever wins 14 games and only second time it clinches home-field-advantage-throughout-the-playoffs.  Plus, first time ever we beat Bears 4 times in calendar year (we also were at NFC Championship at Soldier Field last Jan).

Others: Driver becomes 36th receiver in NFL history to top 10,000 yards, and ARod breaks nearly 3-decade-old passing yardage record of Lynn Dickey (early 1980s).

Real nice seats behind Pack bench, on left 40-yard-line, and a surprisingly warm night - not onerous at all as far as the cold war concerned.

I did not think they would win the SB last year (felt they were a year  early) and feel like Ted Thompson, the GM, erred a bit on the side of offense this off-season - over the far weaker defense, but who knows?  I think they have a great opportunity to repeat, and that's all you can ask for.

Whom do I fear?  Saints and Pats are our mirror images. The Ravens, Steelers and 49ers are more polar opposites, with the Steelers probably providing the worst match-up (strong-enough O, always strong D).

Then again, I would have said the same thing last year.

Home from Prague, digging out from under

Unfortunately, my one piece of luggage is still touring Europe, thank you British Airways!

For all of you who've been asking:   Yes, Wikistrat ran a post-Kim Jong-Il simulation last spring.  I'm presently summarizing the results.

Going to go below the radar til the end of the year so I can concentrate on getting the house straight and working in preparation of a big simulation that Wikistrat is launching for a client the day after Christmas (a holiday not on everybody's radar in this world).

Will pop back up once thingds are settled here.  No column next week.  First one of year will be my semi-usual top-ten foreign policy wishes for the new year.

Enjoy the holidays!

Some downtime

After months of bitching to myself about my mortgage, we successfully sold our house yesterday, which meant we had to find a rental home last week and move in over the weekend to accommodate the closing. We could have rented from the new owners, but I don't like doing that and prefer clean breaks when selling houses (this being my third go-around).

As such, I am awash in boxes that need unpacking, so this will be a very light week on the blog, especially since I leave for Prague tomorrow and don't get back til Saturday.

We are very happy with the new house, where the rent is about 1/4 what I was paying on the old mortgage. That was my fault, because we tricked up the old house (new build) considerably, moving in at the height of the bubble.  But that tricked-up nature also meant we could still move it in a bad market when we found the right buyer.

So we feel very lucky to have gotten out of the old big house and into this slightly smaller but simpler home that hasn't sold because the owner is more stubborn on the price than we were with ours.  Our decision to cut and run from the old house is predicated on our desire to move back East in 2014, after several family members finish at various levels of school, and this way we can sked our departure with a lot more confidence as renters than as owners.  The recent market just scared me too much to wait and try and sell it when we really wanted to go, so we just kept dangling the home in the market now and then and eventually found the right buyer at an acceptable price.

What I already adore about this new home (other than the great room (which will soon feature an even bigger home theater screen!): my allergies here seem non-existent compared to the old house.  I think it's because we're not in the country anymore, surrounded by fields.  Or maybe it was something in the house.  Because it's stunning: in the old house, I woke up EVERY morning feeling like I drunk a fifth of vodka, and I'd be so drowsy and feeling so bad that I'd just want to shoot myself. I'd have to sleep about 9 hours to feel coherent, when before we moved in, I typically slept about 6-7 and would just wake up feeling fine - not able or wanting to sleep further.

Well, two nights at the new house and it's like my life is back.  I go to sleep around midnight and pop up awake and refreshed at around 6:30, and it's like my day is suddenly enlarged - plus I don't want to run screaming from the state every time I have to pop a pill, which I haven't bothered doing since we started sleeping here three nights ago.

Absolutely amazing and the best news (along with the significant reduction in housing cost) I've had in a long time.

So, change is good, I typically find.

Plus, the neighborhood here is about 10 times friendlier.  More middle class and less upscale.  Already, our kids have more friends in three days then they did in 5 years in the old development.

All makes me wonder why I didn't do this earlier.

Concluding my year with the Center for America-China Partnership

Set this up with John Milligan-Whyte and Dai Min of the center last year while I was in Beijing with them selling the "grand bargain" term sheet that I've discussed plenty of times over the months since. It was a fascinating collaboration and I enjoyed fulfilling my one-year "adjunct" stint at the Center.

I wish John and Dai Min the best in their continuing efforts to improve US-China relations. Unfortunately, my increased participation in, and workload at, Wikistrat simply doesn't allow me to sign up for another year.

Then again, having Wikistrat take off is a very good thing.

Gone to MetLife, hopefully to see Packer's 12th win

I hate playing a desperate team at their home, but brother had ticket (upper level, first row, midfield, Packers' side!) and Wikistrat had business meetings in Manhattan the following day.  So flying into Newark in the ayem to meet up with bro and hopefully notch the 12th win.

Should be good game.  Hoping it's not too cold!

POSTSCRIPT:

Got into my hotel in midtown around 1pm and then ran about 15 blocks to pick up some antibiotics for a sinus infection I realized just this morning that I had.  Nice doc in Indy called it into local CVS.  Just got it at end of virus my kids gave me over Turkey Day weekend.  Caught it early enough so don't feel too bad.  Anyway, to meet my sked I ran about 20 blocks to Penn.

Met my brother at the station and took Amtrak to Secacus, and then a special train to Meadowlands. Then short walk to stadium, which is pretty cool throughout.

Loved our seat in top realm - but first row, above 45 yard line, Packer side, so we saw the game just like on TV (always weird to view DVR later at different angle).

Food pretty good, but beer way expensive: 11:50 for Bass or Stella.

Plenty of Packer fans, but what was great was the game itself. Very exciting right to the end. Talked with my son Jerome by cell about 20 times during the game as he watched at home.  His judgments: Finley drops too many balls, Rodgers holds onto the ball in the pocket too long, and our inside linebackers need to cover passes over the middle better.

Pretty much sums it up, but 12-0 is otay. Actually we're now 18-0, the second longest streak in NFL history (mark shared with handful of teams).  Only left to surpass: Patriots at 21-0.  We'd do that, theoretically, on New Years against the Lions.

I have seen one-third of this streak to date: Falcons and Bears last season in playoffs, then Broncos, Bucs, Lions and Giants this year.

What i will say about MetLife: more urinals in a men's bathroom than I've ever seen, so I didn't miss a single play.

Same trains back to island afterward and I'm feeling awfully beat.