Let Us Celebrate a Season

It’s cold and wet outside. Acorns have browned my yard. It looks like someone dumped a box of marbles beneath every tree on the property. I can skate to the mailbox on a river of organic ball bearings.

 The leaves on the trees are beginning to glow around the edges with color, and now they fall with more urgency, in a hurry to be somewhere, preparing for something. The sun is starting to hang lower in the sky, and disappears a tick earlier each night. 

My house has taken on the smell of pumpkin spice. Touches of yellow, red, and burnt orange have appeared on end tables and around the fireplace. Soon, there will be hot biscuits and white chicken chili.

Long sleeves have made an appearance. I find myself searching the closets and drawers for thicker, warmer clothes. There’s a chill in the air every morning. Friday nights bring the distant rumble of Godwin’s marching band.

College GameDay. Cars and trucks begin sprouting tattered flags that flap in the breeze at stoplights. Virginia Tech, Virginia, and an occasional stubborn, weary Penn State.

 Meteorologists begin to speak darkly about the patterns or wind currents that might portend a harsh winter. We put such talk out of our minds. Winter will come soon enough. But now we have autumn, and that’s enough.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

The House of Blues and Coming Home

The House of Blues was more like the House of Bluefish. Apparently, every other year at these things, the meeting is intentionally located in a Midwestern city so that on the final night’s extravaganza, throngs of home office folks can be bussed in for the big night. Therefore, a facility that can comfortably accommodate 500 revelers was packed sardine-like with 700. The buffet line took 30 minutes, and by the time I reached the food, the large dinner plates were gone replaced with cocktail plates the size of a 1966 Volkswagon Beetle hubcap. Demonstrating Olympian fine motor skills, I managed to balance three such hubcaps on my left forearm, making my way up to the Horizon suite overlooking the huge dance floor. From there it was a great view if one wanted to merely observe the proceedings. But tonight I was feeling especially claustrophobic. I decided to wander the building all night.

This place was an anthropologist’s dream. An open bar, combined with 700 people hundreds of miles away from home on the last night of a 4 day getaway is must see TV. Many of the home office folks helpfully wore yellow golf shirts and bright cheerful name tags. This came in handy at the end since these marks of identification made it much easier for the authorities to heard them all up. I exaggerate slightly of course, but suffice it to say they were not in Iowa anymore. The most hilariously uninhibited dancers?…the yellow shirts. The loudest screamers when the band exhorted the crowd to sing along to “ You Make Me Wanna Shout!”?…yellow shirts. The most appreciative of the open bar?…well, you get the picture.

The band was awesome. They were a party band called “Big Fun” and they lived up to their name. Four black vocalists and a rocking tight band, sort of like a cross between the Temptations, the Supremes, and Earth Wind and Fire. I had fun, but must admit to an odd ambivalence I always feel at such events when I am without my wife. I am of the opinion that there are places in this world where one should not be without one’s spouse. It was no sin to be there without her, but it felt like it was in the neighborhood. It’s probably just me.

So, this morning, I sit in the Marriott hotel café eating my $11 dollar bagel and killing time before my flight home. Nobody from Cambridge informed any of us that the Chicago marathon was being run today, with all 48,000 runners streaming down Michigan Avenue until 11 o’clock, blocking our exit from the hotel. On the street in front of me almost every runner I see is white, but as I glance up at the TV monitor at the live coverage, the camera is focused on a breakaway pack of 8 Kenyans. Where is Jesse Jackson lecturing us about the need for affirmative action when you need him? Oh, did I mention that it’s 39 degrees out?

All in all my four days in Chicago were nice. But, I am ready to be home, ready to see Pam, ready to sleep in my own bed. Actually, I was ready two days ago.

Day Three. Jeff Baxter and a Godfather Reference

By 9:35 of Day three, my purpose for being in Chicago ended. I attended my fourth and final required firm element presentation. In a rational world, I would have then grabbed a snack in the lobby just before hailing a cab for the airport. I would have gotten home around 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon in time to take in a movie with my wife. But no, I don’t live in a rational world. You see, in my world, my Broker-Dealer, as a reward for my production, has graciously agreed to pay for three of the four nights I am in Chicago. In addition they have generously promised a daily stipend to help me with the cost of living in this fabulous city for four days and nights. Unfortunately, there’s a catch, and for you young people in my reading audience…there’s ALWAYS a catch. In order for me to actually collect these generous offerings from my fine Broker-Dealer, I must stay for the entire conference, all four nights. So if I leave a day early, I would save the $200 bill from the hotel, but give up roughly $750 in subsidies.

Now when I first learned of this arrangement, I figured there must have been a vitally important function on Saturday night that the big brass wanted to make sure everybody attended, thus the odd early departure penalty. Perhaps they would be announcing some grand new initiative that will transform the business. Maybe something darker was planned. Maybe they were planning to announce the sale of the Broker-Dealer to Solyndra or MySpace, achieving the ultimate synergy of combining irrelevant business models. But, it turned out that I had nothing to worry about. The crucial event planned for Saturday was a night at……The House Of Blues. Apparently, Cambridge has exclusive use of the facility. There will be dinner and I assume a headliner act to entertain us through the night. But, knowing these people like I do, a part of me is still worried. The headquarters of Cambridge is after all, in Fairfield, Iowa. Although possessed of bedrock values and impossibly friendly people, Fairfield isn’t exactly known for it’s cutting edge hipness. I still worry that what the brass have in mind is a lively evening of Karaoke.

So, after my 9:30 meeting yesterday I spent the day working out, walking the streets of Chicago and attending a spare presentation or two. Jeff, the skunk, Baxter redeemed the day. With his Stratocaster in tow, he gave a mind blowing talk about the similarities between the musical creative process, and the problem solving skills required of missile defense scientists…or something like that. He deftly mixed in smart jazz rifts of “My Old School” with vignettes of his work at the Pentagon working with four star generals and military intelligence officials struggling to write syllabuses for nuclear weapon protocols. Mind blown.

Last night we had dinner at an Italian restaurant that reminded me a little of the one in The Godfather where Michael murders Bazinni and McClousky. Great food, and nobody ended up sleeping with the fishes.

Chicago. Day Two. Joe Gibbs is cool.

Day two was beautiful. The fog lifted and the mist was gone. The sun was out all day bringing a light wind and a warm 70 degrees. Once the veil was lifted I saw the beautiful city I remembered from 10 years ago. Unfortunately, yesterday was the busiest day of the week, so I didn’t get to enjoy the weather much. I heard four different speakers/presentations. They varied from pedestrian business drivel to positively terrifying.

The terrifying one came from a guy who I see all the time on Squawk Box, CNBC and Fox Business News, I forget his name, Greg something or other. Anyway, he’s a very well connected financial guy with lots of friends at the Fed and elsewhere in Washington. He touched on quite a few heavy subjects like Monetary policy, the pending fiscal cliff coming January one, the impact of the election on the stock market and vice versa, and he ended with Geo-politics, specifically the Iran v. Israel battle upcoming over Iran’s pending nuclear capabilities. After listening to this guy I was ready to pack up the family, head to Montana and start working on that bomb shelter I’ve been putting off. Then Joe Gibbs walked in.

This 70 year old man, three-time Super Bowl winning coach, and then three-time Nascar championship car owner was a delight. He’s no professional speaker to be sure, his delivery was halting and at times repetitive. But, his sunny disposition and beaming smile was infectious. I could have listened to his Redskins stories all night, even though I truly loathe that franchise and always have. But I can’t not love Joe Gibbs. After his speech my partner Bland, a lifelong and truly obnoxious Redskin fan, the kind who is insufferable when they win and even more insufferable when they lose, insisted that I help him track down Joe through the throng of autograph seekers who had descended on him as he walked off the stage. Bland didn’t have a camera, you see, so my iPhone would do nicely. For several intensely embarrassing moments I felt like an evil combination of paparazzi and groupie, but Bland would not be denied. Once we cornered the poor guy, who couldn’t possibly have been nicer or more accommodating, even offering to let Bland wear his Super Bowl ring for the picture. I snapped the picture, posted it on Facebook and now Bland can die a happy man. He owes me…..BIG TIME.

Chicago. Day One

Giordano’s Pizza is famous in Chicago. I had some yesterday. Wow. Then I was forced to return to the hotel and hit the treadmill for 3 miles out of fear that had I not, I would have been dead by sundown. It’s the sort of food that you instinctively know is terribly bad for you, but it tastes so danged good, you can’t stop yourself. Our waiter reminded us that, “We deliver our pizza’s frozen anywhere in the world in 24 hours. Just pop it in the oven for an hour and it’s done.” I resisted the urge to join the “Pizza-A-Week” club.

So far I haven’t seen much of Chicago. I took a long walk down Michigan Avenue but the fog was so thick I could only see 10 stories or so of each 50 story building. The view from my 22^nd floor window is of the lovely air-conditioners on the roof of the Chicago Harley Davidson building. Last night at the welcome cocktail party/dinner I stood in various long lines for ten minutes each to be treated to tiny plates full of appetizers. There was a Greek salad station, an egg roll station, a pasta station, and a station that featured tiny, half dollar sized pizzas. Giordano’s need not worry about the competition.

Then it was off to watch the Presidential debate. I spent the entire time texting back and forth with my son, no Romney fan he. According to the Twitter chatter from his decidedly liberal buddies, Obama got schooled. The best part was watching the pundit class afterwards. From their expressions you would have thought that all of their children had been abducted at the same exact moment that they received word that their mothers had all passed away. Over on PBS poor David Brooks was positively pail at the shock of having just seen the man with the best pants crease in history get mauled by someone named Mitt. George Stephanopoulos looked as though he was ten seconds away from the first live vomit in the history of television news. Chris Matthews was reduced to blaming Obama’s dismal performance on the fact that he doesn’t watch enough MSNBC. Haven’t seen the news this morning but I’m sure at some point today some liberal will remind us that the near unanimous conclusion that Romney won the debate is more proof of how irredeemably racist America remains.

OK, now it’s time to get down to business. From 8:30 to 12:30 I will listen to the wise men at Cambridge tell me how great it is to be in Chicago at a hotel that charges me $14.95 per day for internet. Which explains why I am typing this at 6:30 in the bar of the lobby. Free WiFi. Are you kidding, I could buy half of a medium Giordano’s pepperoni and sausage for that. Psshht!

My Annual Compliance Meeting. Boredom On Stilts.

Early tomorrow morning I will fly to Chicago to attend the annual compliance meeting for my Broker-Dealer. Ahh, Chicago. The Windy City, Chi-Town, hog butcher for the world. Stormy, husky, brawling, city of the big shoulders, Frank Sinatra’s kind of town, Chicago is. The weather forecast seems straight out of central casting, windy with some rain, high temperature in the middle fifties by Friday.

The Cubs and the White Sox will have closed up shop by the time I arrive, another year without October baseball. There’s a big college football game at Soldier Field between Notre Dame and Miami Saturday, so maybe I’ll pick up a scalped ticket for that. There’s a dinner at the House of Blues one night. There’s the magnificent mile of Michigan Avenue and the incredible architecture along the Chicago River. But basically I’ll be there for four days and nights to punch my compliance ticket for 2012. I’ll sit through five or six mind-numbingly boring presentations by various BD functionaries, after which I will have my name tag swiped by some computer gizmo that proves to the FINRA crowd that I have completed my Firm Element. The fact that you can’t understand I word I just said, dear reader, tells you everything you need to know about what kind of trip this will be.

To pass the time and preserve my sanity, I will be aided immeasurably by the recently departed Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace. My iPhone will allow me to communicate to the outside world, and to record my quirky insights and pithy observations. I will then include them in a series of blog posts designed not only to make you laugh, but more importantly, to steer me away from the more dangerous outposts of my fevered imagination. I have found through the years that whenever I am forced to sit through long meetings, my mind tends to wander into the bad neighborhoods of the mind, the fever-swamps of boredom, where all of the residents are diseased and all of the buildings are government housing. Satire and sarcasm, for me, is a defense mechanism against boredom, and ladies and gentlemen, an annual compliance meeting with Cambridge Investment Resource is boredom on stilts.

So, tomorrow morning, wheels up at 8:05. You can read all about it right here, safely protected from the Chicago Marriot and speakers who use words like “new paradigm”.

My weekend in West Virginia

Pam and I spent the weekend in a cabin in West Virginia where the leaves were already bright orange and where the temperature forced us to wear long sleeves all day. Somebody else prepared all of our meals for us, and the entire three days didn’t cost us a penny. Oh, and we shared the cabin with 23 high school seniors from Burke Community Church, and Matt Watson was in charge.

Matt invited us to come along on his “senior retreat” weekend and to lead this group of kids in a Bible study. At first, I was hesitant. It’s been quite a while since I spent a weekend with teenagers. I’m so glad I agreed to go. A few observations:

I’m not sure what the cause is, whether it’s a result of so many of the students being from military families maybe, but these were 23 of the most well-mannered teenagers I have ever been around. I never heard one rude put down, never saw one example of the insensitivity that teenagers are so famous for. Indeed, there was almost an atmosphere of tenderness about these kids. Whatever the cause, it certainly speaks well of their parents, and for them as individual human beings. Very impressed. The Bible study went well. The kids seemed totally engaged with the topic ( grace ), and volunteered many amazing insights that had me half convinced that I could have learned a thing or two if one of them had taught the subject. Amazing.

The most gratifying aspect of the weekend was seeing Matt Watson interacting with his students. When Matt was part of the youth group here at Grove all those years ago, I could sense that there was something unique about him, that he was destined to do great things. Now, he’s the father of two little ones, and hip deep in teenagers at a vibrant church in northern Virginia. One would have to travel far and wide to find someone so happy in his work. Matt found his calling in youth ministry, and it radiates from his face. To see a young man so committed, so fulfilled in such vital work was an inexpressible blessing. He serves along side another equally impressive young man, Kenneth, who teaches the college kids at Burke, as well as an amazingly hard working volunteer, Doris, who was in charge of feeding us all. With that kind of quality help, even I could have pulled off such a weekend! To see one of my favorite kids of all time so happy, so effective, and so squarely in the center of God’s will was something to behold.

Thanks for the invite Matt!