Dawn Is Me

And I used to be able to say that … but no more.

She breaks the blog silence to boast of Major Professional Triumph …

Last week, I took my first trip across the Atlantic to give the conference keynote address at the Escala Mikros Congress in Bilbao, Spain. I talked to them about ‘current realities and future trends’ of microbusinesses in the U.S. and in the global economy.

They paid my airfare and put me up in a four-star hotel, they provided me with a luscious twenty-something year old college student named Mikal to be my personal guide and interpreter, and it seemed to bother them that they didn’t have to pay for too much food for me.

And I got to see something of a region of Spain that I’ve always wanted to visit.

Darling little Spanish villages

Wanna-live-there beach communities on the Bay of Biscay

Incredible scenery

(Sorry, no pictures of the luscious twenty-something college student.)

Further random observations: in Spain, there are no clocks. I couldn’t find one in the hotel lobby or in the convention center or in the lecture hall in the convention center or in the restaurant where they served me lunch. I did manage to locate a whole two clocks at the airport. Evidently, they have a very different attitude toward time there.

Travel note: the airport in Frankfort is very large and orderly.

Travel note: the airport in Paris is very large.

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Politicians: It’s nice when they listen.

Sue Zimet is running on the Democratic ticket in the NY State Senate, 42nd District. There’s a lot about Sue that I like (in addition to the fact that she’s a Democrat) and, the first time I met her back in March, we had a very nice but too brief conversation about economic development in the district. I even gave her a copy of my economic development plan for Sidney, NY.

Fast forward to June — in response to a recent NYT article lamenting the flight of young people from upstate villages, towns and small cities, Sue is quoted in a press statement as follows:

“I believe it makes more sense to encourage the development of hundreds of small and vibrant businesses, rather than to rely on one or two large corporations without regional ties to solve our economic problems. The key is to identify and build on the particular strengths of each community.”

That’s almost word-for-word what we said to each other during that conversation last March. I probably shouldn’t take it personally, Sue was thinking along those lines anyway, but I find it gratifying.

Maybe, if she gets elected, we’ll have somebody in Albany who will actually do something helpful.

As for me …

This week, I was elected to chair our town’s Democratic Committee. I have a feeling that a lot of people wouldn’t want the job because (a) it involves a lot of herding cats and (b) in an area that is perceived as heavily Republican, there are a bunch of folks up here who lean progressive but are afraid to admit it.

We’re about 50/50 up here, but our local Republicans are just noisy. I figure I can make some noise, too.

More than that, my real agenda is to make a real push for economic development up here. Nobody is doing anything about that in this community and we’ve been watching the village die a slow and painful death ever since we got here. I’m not interested in running for office but I can work to light a fire under the people who do. And maybe I can help to implement policies that will return some prosperity to the area and give the kids who grow up here a reason to stay here.

Hey, I can dream.