The sequential trip--ended
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 9:55PM 
Took off Sunday morning, flew to DC, just getting to Dupont Circle hotel before big, nasty, thousands-lose-power summer storm hits. First leg of trip for USG sponsor of conference at Center for Strategic and International Studies, where I gave closing brief to better than half-day mini-conference on creating resilience in communities (maybe 60 or so in audience). Saw some old friends from the Rumsfeld days in the Pentagon. Gave a pretty good speech, which CSIS taped, but the tape was bad, so no posting. It wasn't a great room for doing that, but the audience was good even as I struggled in a couple of spots (my struggles tend to be a second or two in length, but they seem like hours to me) as I hadn't done the brief in almost five weeks--an eternity to moi.
After that, a follow-on meeting with relevant parties, then first leg of trip done and I lose the rental. So on foot and subway the rest of the way, for the middle segment--pure Enterra. Slew of meetings in various locals and one nice meal with two new friends from Israel. Get shifted over to one night at the Mandarin, but no chance to swim in their fabulous pool. Yoga instead this entire trip. Spend a usual bare minimum of time in my room--mainly to sleep. But get to walk around perimeter of White House a bunch of times at various points one day (just seemed to crisscross the area repeatedly between meets), which was nice. Very touristy time, but I always liked that when I lived in the region.
Wed then I fly out of Reagan to Albany, then driven up by shuttle to Saratoga resort (pic above) on Lake George in Adirondack Park (6m acres!). Nice boat ride and dinner that night with participants at investors conference hosted by Morgan Keegan (firm). Up in ayem to finalize brief, then speak 0800-0900 to about 80. About an hour of follow-up Q&A offline with various people. Investors tends to be hugely inquisitive people with a lot of knowledge of history, so a lot of fun. Then driven back to Albany and fly through Charlotte home.
Did just about every mode of travel on this one, and now have to file three separate expense reports. But I'm used to segmented trips like that, and will make another one in late August to DC area, where one segment will have me giving my annual brief to the classes of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (National Defense U) and the Marine Corps University.
