I'll be at DBM for most of the day, reviewing the fundamental of job searching. In the overnight mail, I received a couple of leads from colleagues. I'm not really keen on giving up two days, but I can't say that what I've been doing has worked really well.

We've had plenty of rain this month, a record. With the warm sunshine, the leaves are showing up early. We may have full cover by early next week in some places.

Sandra asked me if I was paying more attention to the news of the world these days. Truth be told, I'm not, at least not much. Previously I would listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered on NPR while commuting. At home, I play music. I might spend a bit more time on the newspaper web sites and I did listen to some of the 9/11 hearings. I also get to watch The News Hour with Jim Lehrer more than before. So, overall I'm getting a bit more news, but not enough to make a difference to my understanding.

So how do we unravel this collection of wet threads and make a fishing net? (My grandfather wove his own fishing net. The net is hanging at the camp.) Where do the big ideas come from? It comes when we're the right distance from a problem, close enough to understand the details, but back enough to see patterns that are either there or need to be there. More on this in the coming days.