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The airport was open. Unfortunately, Colorado Springs’ airport was closed. An incredibly thick fog had moved in and when we got to Denver we found that all flights onward were cancelled. After about an hour of annoying delays, we set off in buses and eventually I got to bed at the resort here at 11:45 local (1:45 am Toronto time). So my resolution to get more sleep has suffered another night’s neglect.

Our class today has covered a quick overview of the Seven Habits and we’re now in a Personal Mission Statement activity. So far, I’ve come up with a bunch of goals and principles, but haven’t found many common themes or ways to condense the list. But here are a few of my most brilliant ideas: (tongue firmly in cheek)

• Don’t confuse having an opinion for being educated.
• Always look on the bright side of life, and remember there’s always ways to make it brighter.
• Don’t confuse money with success.
• I am truly happy when I am singing music that is important to me with people I love.

Ok. Life got busy in a hurry last week and over the weekend.

The course ended up very well. Thursday night we went for dinner at 302 West in Geneva, IL, which was excellent although quite expensive: US $65 per person. Friday the course teams presented their final results to the “steering committee” (their peers) and the course ended on a high point.

On the weekend I went up to the Snymans’ cottage and had a wonderful time. They’ve recently bought a snowmobile, which fits into the category of things that I disapprove of in principle, but enjoy in practice. We went zipping across the lakes (frozen at the time, mostly) and other than one rather scary moment where Christine and I almost rolled the thing (we hit an ice block with one ski as the other one went into a depression) we did fine. I hadn’t realized how fast those things go — 90 km/h — and how much ground you can cover in the open. I can see why the northern communities in Canada use them all the time. Still, they’re smelly and loud and somewhat dangerous, and I think I’ll stick to cross country skis (better exercise and ability to enjoy the environment) for my own winter excursions.

Today I rebranded my stored documents at work, which for 75% of them meant the circular file. We have sheets of Accenture stickers around the office to paste over the Andersen Consulting logos on anything that’s worth keeping. Seems excessive, but we’re under a deadline to no longer even refer to the old name after March 31. Which reminds me that the superbowl was last weekend and the Accenture ads were quite prominent (not that I watched the superbowl). They did, however, get a mixed reception. It wasn’t clear what message the bacteria forming a chip was supposed to convey, for example. Branding is a complicated subject, and I’m glad I’m not in the marketing department which must be coming under some fire.

Well, the class starts tomorrow and I’m psyched. We spent a large chunk of the day reviewing coaching techniques, which are often fun and rewarding to use (really). Here’s the basics from the Cleese video (see if I can remember them all):

1) Set the goals — the task, and the meeting.
2) Promote discovery (self-directed learning) through:
— active listening (listen quietly, paraphrase and summarize the points, confirm you understood them)
— draw out the consequences (let the team member figure out the implications and understand them)
— share your experience (help them learn what you’ve learned, good or bad)
3) Set the parameters (ensure the team member has a realistic scope of activities that won’t get them in trouble)
4) Authorize and empower (ensure everyone else knows what the team member is doing and won’t block it)
5) Recap (make sure everything is in agreement).

Class starts tomorrow morning at 8am. I figured out where Andy (the other faculty member) and I know each other from, and it astonishes me that we worked it out. Andy was one of the faculty members for my first Andersen Consulting course six years ago. It was a very memorable course, with (as a highlight) a very successful class party at the home of the other faculty member, Mike Plamondon, who lives here in St. Charles. Mike has a collection of hot pepper sauces, which was quite deadly.

Back in the airport in Toronto. Seems like just yesterday I was here last. Oh yes… It was just yesterday. D’oh!

So I’ve started Thirty Nothing and it is indeed just like High Fidelity, except written by a woman instead of a man. In the genre of angst-riddled 30-something relationship novels, this distinction is important both for the things that are different as a result — clearer-headed analysis of messed-up teenaged muddles from the girl’s side of the picture, of course — as well as for the things that are the same. In both novels the central thesis is that we 30-somethings are just about getting old enough to figure out ourselves and behave sensibly towards one another, for the first time in our lives, even though we’re (of course) incurably messed up inside. Everybody’s incurably messed up inside, so we’re ok.

I don’t know if this thesis holds up to stringent analysis, and I certainly know a few very happily married 30-somethings who’ve never seemed messed up at all to me, but I do know that reading these books, while entertaining, is hard on me personally as a 31-year-old single man with no current prospects. Are the authors trying to make me feel bad, or was that just a lucky side effect? Yes, I know, I’m avoiding the issue day to day by travelling across the continent for work and not looking for any relationships anywhere in particular. But I was taught (by my peers and my own experience) that the best relationships are those which are not planned, that just happen through good chemistry and lucky circumstances, and I’m not sure that my recent run of no circumstances at all puts the validity of the overall strategy in doubt. (It definitely puts the wisdom of my short-term tactics in doubt, but that’s another question entirely.)

Anyway, this rather rambling post is dedicated to any single romantically inclined 30-something women who should, by some bizarre chance of fate, ever come to read it.

Back to Thirty Nothing. I sure hope the author is single, because if someone wants to point out the pain of single life to me, I’d rather they were in the same boat. No offence, mom.

Oh my GOD my schedule is getting busy. Here’s a quick overview: