Saturday morning and it's the usual running around. Ellie is at the Atlanta Ballet with her Mom (Kate teaches for the Atlanta Ballet Company - she's a Brit, remember?). Afterwards she attends "Applause for Kids", a local drama school for children where she is rehearsing for "The Wizard of Oz". I'm at a local Karate school where Joe is enrolled in a black-belt program. He has a Gold Belt and will be testing for his Green Belt at the end of October. He takes two classes during the school week and then a private lesson early on Saturday morning coupled with another class just after lunch. It's our quality time and we get to talk about all sort of things......it is amazing what a 10 year old knows and what he wants to know! Joe was on a school camping trip on Thursday evening and I picked him up yesterday afternoon at the school. One of the Mom's came over to tell me how great a kid Joe had been on the trip and he had helped with the chores and such. This morning after the private lesson Joe and I were have breakfast at our favorite Diner and a Dad who was on the trip came over to tell me the same thing. Now, if only we could manage to get that great, helpful kid to come to our house. Oh well, I guess I should be delighted that he is such a wonderful person when he's away even if he is a little bugger when he's home.
Karate is a great confidence booster. Joe is not much for team sports, but loves individual competition, especially Karate and Chess. An interesting combination when you come to think about it, but all that odd given the amount of concentration required for both. I got my confidence later through Paris Island and years of being a Marine Non-Commissioned Officer, but I think I would have responded well to a Karate program had I been given the opportunity earlier in life.
Kate and I had a date last night. We managed a quick dinner at the local mall and a movie, which was supposed to be a comedy, but it was a tad slow and I was ready for it to be over about 30 minutes before it ended. Still, it was nice to go see something that wasn't rated "G" for a change.
Okay, everyone have a great day and enjoy the beautiful weather.

Okay, so here I am back in the saddle after about 4 hours of sleep. Isn't jet lag a wonderful experience? I finally managed to drag myself to bed about 3:30 this morning and was in the shower at half seven. I spent most of those quiet hours searching through all the interesting blogs that Seth Godin references in his new book, "Small is the New Big". If you haven't read it and you think it is just another business book, then you really need to reconsider that position. It is filled with "remarkable" ideas and insights and truly cranks up one's creative thinking genes. I finished it on the plane coming back from Lisbon and have already used several of his ideas with our marketing teams. You see, we sell internet solutions, everything from mom and pop consumer web sites to highly complex managed hosting solutions. It is a wide range and means that we deal with customers that have varied needs. We have MS developers that just want the kit and they do the rest without much help from us. We also have small business owners that require a lot of assistance and are very demanding in the level of support that they expect. It makes for interesting days, especially when you know that sometimes the amount of revenue being generated doesn't truly warrant the level of support being provided. I guess I'm a tad old fashioned because I think that all our customers are important. Most business books will tell you that in a transactional business it is the automation that is important, not the individual customer. I understand it from a operational perspective, but I also like the fact that a designer in Deleware feels comfortable calling me personally when things are not being sorted to her satisfaction because it helps me keep my fingers on the real pulse of this business; i.e.: the customers who pay our salaries. Have a wonderday folks. By the way, Ellie was absolutely chuffed to find out that I named this blog after her and said to say hello to everyone. Of course now, she wants her own blog!

Just got back from Lisbon, Portugal this morning where I attended our annual MD's conference. The bad news was that traveling long distances has become a real nightmare. I flew Delta to Paris and then hung around Charles DeGaulle for several hours before connecting to an Air France flight to Lisbon. I guess it was about 17 hours door to door and I'm absolutely convinced that Delta squeezed more passengers into the mail cabin than the designers of that plane ever imagined possible. Yes, I fly economy even though I'm the Managing Director of my firm. Call it good financial sense given the difference in price was about $6,000 and when you run a P&L center you watch the bucks everyday. The good news was that we got a lot done in two days of very long meetings and I got to hang out with the other MD's, all of whom are based in Europe. Our firm is headquartered in London and it's nice to get back there from time to time, especially since my wife is British. Ellie was born in Holland by the way. Did I tell you that she landed the roll of Toto in the Wizard of Oz? Not a real speaking part mind you, but lots of work nevertheless. She's very proud because she was determined not to be a muchkin this year. Anyway, a really good conference..........A couple of very nice dinners couple with some excellent wine and port. Got back last evening about 6 p.m. and took MARTA back into the city to avoid the traffic. (Tell me, why don't more folks take MARTA given the traffic on I85?) Up early this morning and back to the office for a conference call on the Georgia Technology Summit (I'm the committee chair for the Feb '07 event) and a meeting with sales. Good day so far................Hope yours is going as well.