Great Day Today

I had an absolutely fantastic day today.

Some highlights (most of which were enhanced by the fact that it was a drop-dead gorgeous spring day here in NYC).

Waking up at home rather than in MunichStockholmBermudaHoustonGalveston.

7+ mile run in Central Park at a pace of just under 8:30 per mile.

Breakfast and a leisurely walk to school with the kids followed by time in both of their classrooms.

Met another dad from our school who I really liked. He's a the NYC bureau reporter for an international newspaper who writes about business and culture; needless to say we instantly found lots to talk about.

Impromptu coffee at Le Pain Quotidien with Katherine. At a time when everything feels busy and highly scheduled, it was great fun to have some one-on-one time at the spur of the moment.

Nice walk to work listening to my new favorite song: David Cook singing Mariah Carey's Always Be My Baby from American Idol. I'm not afraid to admit I've become a fan of the show. David became my favorite a few weeks ago when he did a rockin' cover of Michael Jackson's Billy Jean. I bought his Mariah Carey cover on iTunes last night and have listened to it 15 times today... For those of you who use iTunes, here's a link to the song: Always Be My Baby. If you aren't an iTunes user, or if you want to see a video of the show peformance, here it is on YouTube:



After talking about Idol with a colleague, she sent me a story about David Cook's brother which aired on Good Morning America. Cook's brother is sick with brain cancer and the town he lives in raised money to send him to LA to watch this week's performance. While the story is admittedly a bit hoky, it speaks to me to the power of people and communities to do incredibly kind and meaningful things. The segment is short and worth watching; you can find it here.

Had a nice lunch with a member of my management group. She and I have worked together for 12+ years now and it was the first lunch we've had together in a while - so it was great to catch up.

Received a compliment from someone whom I've not yet met who passed on something she'd been told about me by a mutual acquaintance/colleague. I felt in one sentence she very accurately captured the things I'm committed to at work.

Had an meeting with another member of my management team and got an update on how we're making progress on some of our digital initiatives, including some very exciting news about an investment we're likely to make in a startup company I'm a big fan of and an expansion of a project to offer personalized editions of our books (you can check out the first product - personalized Poky Little Puppy).

Got pointed to some absolutely AMAZING bird photos on this photography forum; I'd love to develop my photography skills to the point that I can take pictures like these.

Had a meeting with a couple of people from another publishing company who had come in to learn about the technology we've developed to support our title development and marketing processes. It was gratifying that they left very impressed with what we've accomplished and fun to have discussion about the challenges which lie ahead for book publishers.

Spent an impromptu 45 minutes with yet another member of my team. We had a wide-ranging conversation about online marketing, projects, personal effectiveness at work, websites, and technology. I left with a sense of confidence that we're starting to have some real momentum in our efforts to help usher publishing into the digital era.

Capped off the day with a long walk from 55th up to 88th street (picking up Katherine at 79th) for dinner with some friends in the neighborhood.

If you're still with me at this point, you may wonder why I've shared all of these details with you. I suppose in the end it's because so much of what made it a great day was the interactions I had with family, friends, and colleagues, and I want to express my gratitude in general, and in particular to those who were involved. I also wanted to share with you some of the things I experienced....which I can do thanks to the power of the web via the links above.

Comments

Chatham Gardens said…
sounds like a very satisfying day, but exhausting for this retiree to think about.

welcome to the AI watchers - I am totally into the show and I am a Cook fan as well.

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