I finished the executive program last Friday and sleepily hopped on a plane for Michigan. I had a wonderful weekend that included everything that I needed for real refreshment except the aforereferenced sleep, but who cares? You can do that anywhere. I was able to extend the weekend into Monday, returning to St. Louis for several days of long meetings.
This morning I had the very cool (VERY cool) experience of touring the assembly plant where Eff-18 (forgive the misspellings, but I'm trying to discourage random Googlers from landing on this site) naval fighters are manufactured. We were fortunate enough to have a very adept tour guide who was able to translate into language we could understand his expertise about what the planes can do, how they're designed, what it's like to fly them, on and on. I even understand a little bit about how St__lth technology works now. Dave would have been absolutely thrilled by it all - I was pretty excited myself.
This afternoon, it's finally back to real work. I'm planning some meetings and trips so I can learn the business better, I'll be Head Coach for the first-level and middle-manager training going on next week, and then it's back into Executive Program 2 for another 2 weeks. Remember Alice and the Red Queen running faster and faster to stay in the same place? Well, I'm running faster and faster, but I do feel like I'm getting places by leaps and bounds. There are many wonderful things going on in my life, and I'm appreciating each of them to the hilt.
I haven't forgotten any of you, although I'm doing a pretty poor job of keeping in touch. Please be patient with me and keep me in your thoughts and prayers as you're in mine.
