Eat Here, Not There

Working on an Interview With This Guy

His name is Dan Pink, a former speech writer for Al Gore and now a leading business writer.  He is going to speak at an upcoming conference and the interview opportunity has come as part of that.

 

Rich's latest addition

Hey everybody,  I wanted to introduce Rich's latest addition to his menagerie of plants.  This fine speciman takes the place of a tempermental snow bush which, like the girl in the poem, was completely beautiful when in the mood but could be really ugly when fickle.

He bought it and had it put in the pot (since he had little experience with potting caciti [not a bad band name, that, "potting cacti"]) and it really seems to fit the space well.  

He got it at Merrifield Garden Center's latest store - which is really more of a gardening compound out in Manassas, Virginia.  It was really impressive with great big greenhouses filled with beautiful plants that were all wonderfully displayed, even on a day with sheeting down rain.   

Rich to see the Prez in person

OK, neither Rich nor I are necessarily Obama fans, but when the President delivers his address on long-term budget strategy at 1:00 PM today, he will do it from an auditorium in Rich's office building.  Rich is going to be able to go and the venue only holds, at most, about 300 so it will be a fairly up close.

As a life-long Washingtonian, these kinds of things have lost their wow factor for me.  But Rich has never see an American President in person and I am really happy at his opportunity.  

Deep Conversations Can Happen Anywhere

Sometimes the deepest conversations happen in the damnedest places.

So I am sitting at a  round 12 or 14 seat table in a hotel conference room, at breakfast.  All around me, people circulate from their chairs at the round tables to linear tables that hold coffee urns, different hot trays with warm breakfast food and cold trays heaped with sliced fruit, berries and muffins.  The sounds of conversation, clicking cutlery and the occasional flipping newspaper fill the air.

The CEO of a $300 million credit union sits next to me.  I know him somewhat and have interviewed him on different topics several times.  We are friendly, but not friends and certainly haven't talked about anything "deep" in the past.  We haven't even intended to eat at the same table.  Coincidence alone has brought us together.

We started talking about the conference and speakers we have heard  and then just as we had just touched a bit on industry issues he suddenly blurted out: "You know, I always did like CAB, she was a real smart cookie. What happened was such a tragedy."

Thankfully I had just begun to raise my coffee cup to my mouth when he shared this opinion so I could flash him a signal of agreement with my eyes rather than have to respond verbally, at least for a few seconds.  It had been almost a year since I had said a word about CAB so I was a little taken aback.

Morning everybody

Sorry I haven't posted anythng in a few days. I was travelling on business this week.  Some business trips are the sort where you might have only 60% work or 75% work and the rest fun.  But others you might have 90% or 98% work and really not enough time for any fun at all. This was one of those trips.  But I am back and I promise to have more to post later.

BTW, the next cake that seems to have appeared on the horizon, probably for Easter, is a coconut layer cake.  I will keep you posted as that shapes up, or not.

Man, just stepped out on the balcony. Brrrrrrr.   This is April?  That settles it, chicken and dumplings in the pot tonight.

Interview with the author

Mr. Morrison.  Glad to see you. I had almost given up on you showing up.

I'm here.

I am a little surprised though. I mean, another blog? I would have thought you might have learned something from the previous ones.

I did.

What did you learn?

Narrow the scope of the blog, make it less about me and more about things I enjoy, drop the chip off my shoulder and have more fun.

A blog only about the things you enjoy?  Isn't that a little.....

indulgent?

I wasn't going to say...but yes, if you want to use indulgent, that's a good word.

Sure. It's indulgent.  But I hope it could be useful too. If I persist and lift up some of the people I discover doing good work and help them get the recognition they deserve, where's the harm?

Ok then.  So eat in the title means more than just eating, right?

Sure it does. Consuming but not just buying, reading, getting out to see a something in a theater, visiting an art gallery, broadening one's horizons a little bit. Not being a punk.

Last question. Does Eat Here, Not There have a philosophy or creed?

Nah, unless you can fashion one out of a collection of aphorisms, sort of like building a mansion out of matchsticks.

Like which ones?

So far I have life's too short, gather your rosebuds, youth is wasted on the young, carpe diem, in God we trust - all others pay cash and will the last one to leave the room, please turn out the lights.  That last one is not really an aphorism, more like common courtesy, but I included it because its my mansion and I get to pick the matchsticks I want.

Well, good luck. We might check in with you every once in a while to see how construction is going.

Please do, but remember, its BYOB.