Road Trip

Road Trip

Who doesn’t remember the thrill in college of sitting around in the dorm or fraternity and discussing some distant spot (usually somewhere warm like Florida) and hearing someone yell, “Road trip!”).  It was immortalized in the movie Animal House and very specifically in the 2000 classic, Road Trip.  In Animal House it was only a trip to a nearby women’s college (Wells College?), but in Road Trip it was the “full Monty” from Ithaca to Austin.  Strangely enough, both movies were set at colleges more than vaguely reminiscent of Cornell, where I attended.  So, I have my own special affinity to road trips.

I have written of my general sense of wanderlust, but his is a bit different, this is about a mission or quest.  Road trips are usually for a specifically designed purpose, whether to get girls, find girls, keep girls or maybe even entertain girls. I guess that defines it as a more male phenomenon.  As I have gotten older and more serious, my road trips usually involve business.  That too has a mission aspect to it, to get business, save business or generally develop business.

The road trip I am embarking on today is about developing business.  We have a vendor who we both rely on and respect for their expertise.  They are located outside Boston, so it is about a four hour road trip to get there and flying or training are simply not as convenient as driving, given the suburban location of their offices.  It can be done as a day trip, but that’s a lot of driving for one day and is better handled as a simple single overnight excursion.

We have recently made an investment in this vendor, which makes them a particularly valued partner, who, if all goes well on both sides, we expect to acquire majority control of at a future date.  That means I am going on this road trip to do several things.  I am going to get an update on their progress as a company.  I am going to hold discussions of our ongoing engineering work they do for us.  And I am going up to hear a lecture/presentation from a scientist on a related technology that pertains to a likely future project of ours.  I was asked to go up by one of our leading scientists, who was keen that I hear the presentation.  He thought I could fill in around it with reasons 1 and 2.

The funny thing is that I have learned that the scientist who invited me is not going to be there for the presentation, but is off at our labs in Scotland for the week.  That struck me as funny, but when asked about it he had no idea why I thought that.  Well, regardless, I am going and I am looking forward to the drive.

It’s hard to like the drive in and out of NYC too much, but once I get up into Connecticut and Massachusetts, it’s all pleasant highway driving.  I have a comfortable car and I have good books on tape and MSNBC to listen to. The book I am looking forward to previewing is called The Second Mountain by David Brooks.  It is a book about the quest for a moral life.  That seems like heady stuff to me and it is in keeping with my aging state of mind where my focus is far more on such topics than on success and other youthfully-oriented goals.

I find I do some of my best thinking on the road.  I think about old friends and about life at large.  I often use my phone to call and catch up with people who I miss and with whom I feel I need to stay in touch.  That list grows longer every day.  When you write every day and cleanse your mind of random thoughts as I do with this writing, it frees you to think about the good things in your life and that most often leads me to think about people I know but haven’t spoken to lately.  I don’t like any friends past or present to every think “you never call, you never write…”  I call and I write and I drive, which helps with the calling and generates ideas for the writing.

I used to drive once a week up to Ithaca to teach.  I did that for ten straight years, nine months of the year.  I miss the road time most of all.  It’s funny, people often ask if I’m happy not to have to make that drive every week.  My feeling is that I miss making that drive every week.  Road trips are good for my soul.

I have more on my mind than normal these days, so a few road trips should do me good.  I don’t think I have more on my mind than most other people, but I probably wear it on my sleeve more and that doing so is just part of my way of coping with it.  Mostly what I have on my mind is thoughts of what to do next in my life.

I have a project on my plate that I have to determine whether I can add more value to it or not.  It is a complex issue because it is a young company that is not yet to the Promised Land, but it is a scientifically-based company and I am constantly wondering if my lack of technical expertise is a help or a hindrance to the process.  For now I feel that what it needs to do most can be determined by common sense and good business practice.  The question has more to do about where it goes next and what its needs are in the next phase.  I think constantly thinking about such things is what a good leader ought to do.  It is not for lack of belief or lack of personal interest, but it is about optimization and I always feel the need to do that for the companies I lead.

While that is the biggest part of the equation, there are the added thoughts about what I want to do with what’s left of my life.  That is a funny way to put it, but I think a very honest way to put it.  I am not planning on going anywhere soon, but I have one friend in hospice waiting to die and another fighting for his life in an oncology ward.  Neither of them expected to be where they are at this moment and both of them thought they had more time to sort out what they wanted to do next.

We are obligated to assess and examine our lives all the time.  This needn’t be minute-by-minute, but it should be a regular check-up and should be highly reflective.  I am getting that itchy feeling that tells me I need to assess and I feel this road trip is well-times to give me time for reflection.  As Willie Nelson would say, “On the Road Again…. I just can’t wait to get on the road again…..”