Anticipation!

I am finished and ready to ride out. I have been out at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Lafbs for 3 days. Funny, I felt like the Village Idiot at the NIF. I was surrounded by brilliant engineers and scientists, some of the most brilliant in the USA. I have always said it is projects like this are led by ordinary people do extraordinary things. Well, it couldn't be more real than at NIF...yeah, I know that they are brilliant...but they are parents, and grandparents, backpackers, sailors, bicyclists, motorcyclists, coaches, husbands and wives....and yet they come together to accomplish an incredible task...building potentially the first full scale Fusion Energy Reactor...and potentially revolutionalizing the production of electricity, safely, and without the use of any carbon fuels. And they are not seeking any big recognition. Everyone I met just can't get enough of the challenge. Sheesh! And me, the village idiot, gets to learn from them and see a miracle happen. How grateful I am.

I meet a great friend tomorrow to ride for the first two days of the ride home. Joe and wife Rebecca are from Medord, Oregon. (http://www.ci.medford.or.us/) They are wonderful people; I have known Joe since 1995, and worked with him when I was at CSI. He was a board mentor, and a muse to some extent. He stimulated my thinking on leadership as a strategic competency for associations...and the creatioin of a universtiy without walls to develop the leadership. Oh, and did I say friend?

He and Rebecca spent the Millenium New Year together, and the following year, Joe and I and 4 others backpacked the week of September 11, 2001. We were together on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, on the Pacific Crest Trail, on Mount Hood. The 6 of us were forever bound together for the week while we wrestled together with what it meant. 10 year anniversary coming up...amazing.

I miss home, esecially Frances. I miss her very much...but still excited about the trip. We will meet up in Northern Ontario and spend a few days off the grid, with Linda and Paul, our friends....we met through PMI.

I am blessed to be the village idiot...in a village filled with brilliant, ordinary people, doing extraordinary things....like my wife.

More later.