Where have I been that I haven’t been able to write?

This is almost a travelog today. I just realized that since I last took some time to write, I have been very busy.

Actually spent a fair amount of time in my office on Wednesday cleaning up a number of business issues in order to be ready to catch a plane from YYF (Penticton) to YVR (Vancouver). While there I had some delicious soup and some acceptable white wine and picked up a couple of newspapers. Then I boarded the “red eye” to YYZ (Toronto), during which I read some news, slept some as well, and then ate just before landing. After catching the Union Station/Pearson Express (a handy way to get downtown from the airport now) I then spent a bit of time at Union Station before catching a train to Kingston and Queen’s University (I’m becoming a passenger train fan once again).

I had some excellent conversations with my editor. A former grad student of mine (ethics and public health leadership) she is now on faculty at Queen’s; being younger and somewhat more contemporary, she sees my book in a somewhat more immediate perspective. Aside from the rather prefunctionary roles of grammar, spelling and presentation, she is actually intrigued with how the book might help people such as herself. She has given me a number of things to think about including significantly enhancing the years dealing with my consulting firm activities by including more about how and why I did things and not focusing only on what I did.

This was a bit of a “eureka” moment for me. I hadn’t actually realized how much I had concentrated on the tasks I undertook during the thirty years I ran my consulting firm (g.w. sinclair & associates, ltd.). Almost from the moment she raised the question about why and how did I do those things, I began to reflect on how much fun it was inventing or at least significantly reforming ideas related to leadership and how it all connected with my thoughts on ethical reasoning. Moreover, I didn’t recognize how little attention I was paying to how I addressed the “moments of critical choice” during those very energetic and creative years. It will be interesting, over the next few weeks, how this impacts the actual flow of the manuscript and whether it truly does enhance the message I am trying to convey.

I returned to YYZ in time to catch an early flight to DFW (Dallas-Ft. Worth) this morning — Air Canada Express, a very good crew with excellent service and good food even. By the time I got out of the airport though and then down to my hotel, a sense of needing some sleep crept over me. Acknowledging that, gave me a bit of renewal, and upon waking I decided a healthy walk would be in order. So off I went, wandering through the streets of downtown Dallas for over ninety minutes. There are a great many interesting buildings, not unlike downtown Calgary; the aside here is that there are almost as many F-150’s, Rams, Silverados and GMC’s as there are cars… Anyway, as I walked along I discovered the Majestic Theatre built in the 20’s (seemingly now only used for special live shows), First Baptist Church which takes up two city blocks including a mammoth parkade, lots of construction (both buildings and infrastructure), the square where JFK was killed, First Presbyterian Church which also takes up a couple of blocks, including a very large social services building and a parkade, and as dusk fell many buildings are outlined in lights and/or lighting — very impressive. What was even more amazing, as I neared my hotel, what to my surprise was in my path but an Irish Pub… it served me great food, had great service and offered me a Magnolia brand beer that uses pecans rather than wheat in the brewing process. It was very good.

And that is about it for now…perhaps more tomorrow, from Austin…

g.w.