The Colonel's Forum

I've decided to throw my support (for the moment) behind an Edwards/McCain ticket for the upcoming. There are several reasons for this. 1) I saw Edwards on 60 minutes with his wife and the guy really impresses me. He's charismatic, genuine, and I can relate to him better than any of the other candidates, especially because he's young. 2) I like McCain because of his straight-talk approach. I know some people think it's just a gimmick, and he's waffled on a few issues, but I believe he understands the true spirit of bi-partisanship and that will be key. 3) An Edwards/McCain ticket would appeal to an enormous amount of voters. There's no rule that says you can't have a two-party ticket. In fact, there's no law that says the electoral college has to elect two people who were running mates in the general election. They could've elected John Kerry to serve as Bush's VP (though I'd hate to see where that'd put us today). 4) All the ...

on my old Kentucky home. I've been on the bench for a couple weeks now and am enjoying some time at home with Ella and Tobi. Last week I got into researching my ancestry and actually found out that I'm related to quite a few famous people. I highly recommend taking the free trial over at Ancestry.com and if you'd like, I'm happy to send you a link to my family tree. Yesterday I took a field trip to Frankfort to visit our state capitol. It's a beautiful building and I was fortunate enough to be able to sit in on a session of the Kentucky House of Representatives. They were talking about coal mining legislation which (sadly) still affects a lot of people in Kentucky. On the up side, the session was opened by a live bluegrass band playing in the House Chamber. What a hoot, and only in Kentucky do you get to experience these things. We got our tickets for Keeneland in the mail this week so of course I'm starting to think about the spring racing meets. I...

Jeff talked us into going to the FiskeKrogern tonight. That roughly translates to "fish restaurant" but boy is that an understatement. Here is what I had: a glass of fine Australian shiraz to start seared Ahi Tuna with a mango chutney (a complimentary starter) a selection of fresh bread north sea shrimp with cocktail and garlic sauce accompanied with aged cheeses oyster soup served with scallops wrapped in pancetta baked cod stuffed with smoked eel in a lemon herb sauce with a side of potato croquettes French Chablis to accompany the meal Pedro Jimenez 1971 Sherry for dessert It was the best meal we've had. Exceptional service, great atmosphere, perfect portion sizes so you don't have to waddle home (as is the case in the US). I also found a bit of office humor at work today. They have 3 coffee machines at work, each one with a different type of coffee in it. There's FranksRosting (French Roast), ItalysRosting (Italian Roast), and MellanRostning (Medium Roas...

Well, I'm back in Sweden. No hurricane landings this time, though I was disappointed to experience "boarding by bus" at the Amsterdam airport. I hate to think that this practice is spreading due to the broad influence that the French have across Europe... It's much colder than it was when I left, so we're always looking for new restaurants that are close to the hotel. Tonight the bartender recommended Skallgarden, and it was a great restaurant, as Jeff and Frank can also attest. I had: A slice of aged sausage with cabbage and herbs. This was a sort of pre-appetizer that was sent out compliments of the chef. An appetizer of White Roe (caviar) served with toasted bread, sour cream, and red onions. This was some special caviar that they get from some special fish in the north of Sweden and the waiter tried to explain how the cold weather slows the fish's reproductive processes so this particular variety of caviar is a real delicacy because it can develop so...

It's good to be home. Ella and Tobi picked me up at the airport, and I enjoyed a few days of down time upon my return. Friday I went to my 2nd poker night - this time it was a Parrothead guys-night. We had a blast, and I even won some money. Ella sold two houses while I was away in Sweden, which means a great start to the year for her. My Dad is now teaching a course at Purdue's Morgan center for Entrepreneurship, and he's really enjoying that. We've got a good crowd coming to Keeneland this spring, and I got our seats this week. So overall life is really good here in the Bluegrass. I booked a hotel for this April in New Orleans when my buddy John is getting married. John is an opera singer, and a really good one at that. He's marrying Lisa, an opera singer he met while living with me in New Orleans. I'm always excited for a return trip to the Crescent City, and this one is no exception. We've blocked off a week so we can catch up with friends d...

  Well, another day, another successful excursion. This time I went back to the islands and took the ferry to Vrango. It's a 1 hour ferry ride but it was worth it. As you can see, the view is fantastic. They have a nature park that takes up the whole south end of the island. I did some hiking, saw some deer, and got some great pictures. We enjoyed sunshine almost all day today, which is so rare that everyone was in a great mood. Had dinner with Teddy from Dallas again, and we had some baked halibut topped with fresh grated horseradish that couldn't be beat. I'll be sleeping in tomorrow, that's for sure. 

That's my advice to you this weekend, amigos. "The road goes on forever, and the party never ends." I'm sitting here listening to "Blues for Inga-Maj" as sung by its original artist, Cornelis Vreeswijk . He was born Dutch, but his Swedish is impeccable and he was (may he rest in peace) the unofficial troubadour of Sweden. I got his two disc "Basta" (greatest hits) for just over $15. It's already one of my favorite CDs, and I can't understand a word of it. It's unmistakably Swedish though, and that's what makes it so cool. So far I have learned two things from listening to Cornelis: 1) The Blues truly are universal 2) The Swedes love to sing songs about the sea Cornelis really is a legend in terms of traditional Swedish music. He gets a whole row of CDs in the folk section at the music stores here, so he must be popular, right? I barely got out the first syllable of his first name today at lunch when the two receptionists ...

  Well, today we made our trip to the islands. It was really cool. We took the tram to the ferry terminal and then out to the Goteborg archipelago. People have been living on these islands for over 4000 years now. They're not that big, and they're not very far apart. The ferry ride took about 20 minutes. That included 2 stops and the boat wasn't going very fast at all. Our destination? The isle of Brann(o) , of course. There are no cars on these islands. The residents take the ferries into town, and many of them keep cars at the ferry port. The exception to this is the Branno Taxi, which greets the ferry at the dock to take the old folks to and from the boat. On the islands at the ferry dock, there are about 50 bicycles and a collection of modified mo-peds that people use to get any goods they bought on shore to and from their homes. Mostly, the locals just walk wherever they need to go. Yes, even in the Swedish winter. The weather was pretty good today, for S...

 Let's talk for a moment about my job. Basically what we do at EDS is help companies meet their business objectives by making sure they have the best IT solutions for their needs. This is a fairly intangible product we offer. Often, we have to travel to a client's facilities to provide our services, which can mean spending extended periods away from our friends and families. In my case, this trip to Sweden is 19 days (domestic trips are generally 4 days). One of the perks we enjoy is that the company pays for our meals while we are travelling. This is nice. Occasionally, this means room service. In light of the brewing blizzard outside and my lack of knowledge of close local restaurants, I decided to eat-in for lunch today. Most times we're staying at a holiday inn or something and room service is nothing to write home about. This Radisson SAS here in Goteburg is an exception though. The Radissons here in Sandanavia are several steps up from any Radisson I've ...

  Well I finally got a chance to get out and around town. Unfortunately, it was also the first snow of the year here. Not a real heavy snow, but enough to make it a nuisance to walk around and take pictures. Then again it's winter in Sweden, so I figure why not take some pictures of the snow. This is a picture of the Goteborg cathedral. The choir was rehearsing their winter concert for tomorrow evening and I got to listen in - very nice. The stunning thing to me about this cathedral is how simple it is, especially as compared with the ornate cathedrals of mainland Europe. These Swedes don't even have anything painted on the ceiling. They have some ornamental gold trim in the sanctuary and a gold sculpture at the head of the cathedral, but that's it. It's beautiful on the inside - don't get me wrong - but much more simple than other cathedrals I've seen. Now off to the tram station to see if Jeff and I feel like braving the weather to check out the islan...

Not the Swedes, that's for certain. After a week on the ground here I am thoroughly impressed with this town. Only 400,000 people here, and the sun sets about 4pm each day, but this is really a very active town. Tons of bars and restaurants, an opera, several good museums. They don't let the cold and the dark stop them from having a good time. I've had nothing but excellent meals here. I'm staying at the Radisson which is also where our idiot in chief stayed when he was in town last summer. They have an outstanding breakfast for us every morning - fresh fish, cheeses, breads, fuits, plus the traditional English and American breakfast items. They serve a lunch at the office, which varies from meat and potato dishes to an Indian buffet they brought in today. Great stuff. Dinners have included grilled salmon, black marlin, veal with lingonberry gravy, and last night a spectacular diced sausage and potato dish topped with a fried egg. Alcohol is very expensive he...

If you've ever wondered what it's like to be in one of those "hurricane hunter" aircraft that NOAA flies, give me a call sometime and I'll tell you all about it. Yesterday, I was in a 737 that flew through a hurricane. The winds on the bridge to Oslo yesterday were clocked at just over 98 miles per hour (85 knots) - a category two hurricane. It's very rare for the storms up here to bring that much wind, so I guess we were just lucky. Our pilot tried to land in Goteburg (I've seen 4 different spellings for the name of this city and I still don't know which one is right). About 1000 feet up, he aborted the landing. We were all being tossed around in the plane like popcorn, so we were just fine with the idea of finding another airport. The pilot did not know the conditions on the ground at the airport (GOT) because the winds were so strong they destroyed the weather equipment at the airport (and also caused a blackout). So we landed in Oslo in con...

I know it's been on my list of links for some time now, but I must take a moment to commend the Daily Show on its exceptionally witty political commentary. To start with, there is no good news on TV anymore. By "good" I am not only referring to the fact that most networks only cover the death and destruction stories anymore, but also to the fact that the caliber of TV journalism has deteriorated so far since the days of Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, it is almost beyond recognition. I can't even watch the NBC nightly news anymore. They spend so much time talking about their other shows, their "feature segments" and they don't cover international news at all. CNN was McNews to start with, and they've gone completely downhill since AOL bought them (big shock there). I've found that I can get all the news I care for at news.google.com, where I also have my choice of providers (reuters and bbc are my favorites). No flashy graphics or ca...

The new year has brought with it a number of changes. Ella was voted onto the board for the Parrothead Club (Bluegrass Chapter). This is a big deal. For those of you unfamiliar with the Parrothead clubs, check out the link. In short, it's a Jimmy Buffet fan club, social club, and charity organization all in one, but that really doesn't do it justice. Mostly it's a great group of people who "party with a purpose" (their motto), and they all understand the value of taking an occasional diversion from the rat race of life to spend some time in Margaritaville. After being voted onto the board by the general club membership, Ella was appointed by her peers on the board to serve as President of the club this year. That makes me the First Monkey, or something. Whatever it is I'm proud of her. There are also a number of other young members on the board, so I'm looking forward to an even more exciting set of events this year. We've made a lot of go...

I'm on the road again, this time in Dallas, Texas. I'm attending a training class this week for my new job with EDS . As is generally the case with training, we started the 1st day with introductions. The room is full of experienced consultants from diverse backgrounds, and it's really exciting to be working with top-shelf talent. Additionally, I am thrilled to see the level of "organizational maturity" or whatever you'd like to call it. These guys really have it together when it comes to how to approach engagements. This new job is going to allow me to focus in a specific area of technology consulting, namely IT strategy. We help companies look at their current IT architecture and identify gaps, places they can save money, and areas where they should consider adopting new technologies. The purpose of these assessments is to make sure that our clients are running the most efficient and effective IT shop they can in support of their business objectives....

I'm happy to say that I am typing this entry as I await the final leg of my trip home. I will never again return to Clermont-Ferrand. In fact, if I didn't see France again for another few years that would be ok too. I'd like to go back to Nice sometime, and also to Bordeaux. There are a lot of great things about France, I'll just have to re-read some of my own blog entries to remember them. Right now all I can think about is that I'm sick of "boarding by bus" at Charles DeGaulle, and things that don't work properly. I'm told that if you want to go somewhere in Europe where things work properly, you must go to Germany. Sounds good to me. One last note about events this month - Strother H. Brann II turns 60. That's right, my old man is reaching a big milestone in his life next week, and I'm excited that Ella and I will be celebrating with him and mom. We're all heading to Nashville for a nice relaxing weekend. Just a few short w...

... was quite a character. He was also my great-grandfather, though unfortunately I never got the chance to meet him. Earlier this year upon the occasion of my marriage to Ella, dad passed along to me a family heirloom - Leroy's pocketwatch. It's a really, really nice one, and it's still working in top shape. I have decided that one of the best ways to honor the memory of Leroy is to bring the watch with me on special occasions. I don't have specific criteria for this yet, but in general it's going to be events that I think he'd enjoy, and/or events where I think I could use his support. On October 7th of this year, P. Leroy came to Keeneland with me. I have to say I'm pretty sure he had a good time, and he definitely brought me good luck. Ella is continuing to take ove the real estate world in Lexington. She's got a great mentor/boss at the office who is one of Lexington's top agents. The two of them work well together, and Ella is really ...

On the up side of life, it's been a wonderful racing season at Keeneland. We've had great weather, and some really close races. We've brought several first timers out to the track, which is always fun. Because Keeneland is a non-profit and they have to put all the money they make back into their operations, they've made some major upgrades to the track this fall. There are new fences and rails (which is an understatement), there are 5 new high-definition video screens in the center of the track to replace the old scoreboard. I was sad to see the old scoreboard go, becauase it reminded you of the good old days, but at the same time these new screens are truly amazing, and they really improve the experience for the fans. Keeneland has also pioneered a new artificial track surface for horse racing. This is a highly involved system of layers of various artificial materials that look and act like dirt/clay/sand. It's really impressive. It's got the drainage ...

Air travel has really reached some new lows for me. 12 flights over the past 2 weeks, and right now, Delta has got a 59% on-time rate. Not bad, but not good. None of my delayed flights were due to weather. One single delay on my first trip turned a 13 hour trip into a 21 hour trip. Neat. Upon my arrival this week in Paris, I learned that all flights to Clermont were cancelled due to a strike by the baggage workers at the airport there. I guess 5 weeks vacation and a 35 hour work week aren't good enough - they want more money and contracts to ensure their job security. I know everything is relative, but these guys need a reality check. So I got to take the 4 hour train ride from Paris to Clermont. Neat. To add insult to injury, when I called Delta to ask what they would do to compensate me for this, their answer was that "we can't confirm that flight was cancelled." When I was consulting at McDonald's once I was astounded to learn that they have no idea...

The Carmes HQ for Michelin is an interesting place to work. You might think that the HQ of the world's #1 tire maker would be a nice compound of buildings. It's not. Half the buildings are falling down, many are former factory buildings. It's like Lexmark's HQ in Lexington but much older, and without air conditioning. And anyone who has been there knows that Lexmark's HQ is a nasty place to work - no windows, it's converted factory buildings, no sky lights, hallways are too small, conveniently located between the juvenile detention center and the strip clubs... really charming. We got to see some of the other buildings at Michelin over the past two weeks while we conducted some training labs. The conference rooms are all small, hot, and have broken presentation equipment. Their strict security often prevents you from being able to get to your meeting room. The chairs in all the meeting rooms are not the normal "conference room" or "execu...