DATELINE: fancy old hotel, but in the modern, adjunct section, in Williamsburg VA, 25 May 2006

Getting through the day, far enough along am I on the road to recovery. The flight in last night was unpleasant, ear-wise, but I survive.

Today I am up early and over to the CIA headquarters, where I go about two hours with a handful of mid-level analysts getting mid-career sort of training. I give them a sort of director's commentary version of the brief, getting a good response and fine dialogue.

The big surprise of the session was how much we end up talking about the blogosphere. That was somewhat by design, as my host wanted me to push how much I use alternative media as source venues for both new ideas and shaping them over time. So I threw up a bunch of screen captures from blogs listed to the right and explained the nature of the interactions and how it shaped my work. It was, by their own admission, a whole new world to this rather secretive crowd (all roughly my age), but the willingnessness to explore the concept was encouraging. As usual, I kept citing the NIC's interactions with the outside world as a useful example to follow.

I'll be spending some time with an old friend there soon (the National Intelligence Council) and look forward to those interactions with great anticipation. Much of my best work in the past has been associated with the NIC, so being back at Langley put me in a similar, contemplative mindset as those early days at the Naval War College.

After the time there, I drive down to Williamsburg. It's 80 here today. A flashback to those many hot summers up in Springfield, where training for a marathon was a near-death experience in the heat of the day, so I often had to run before sunrise.

Tonight it's a defense industry conference of CEOs and other senior execs--a prime audience. I will be sticking to non-diuretics at the cocktail hour beforehand. Hate having to wait all the way through dinner, but there you have it.