So very, very busy this these last few weeks.  There’s a sense of urgency to the effort, with a clock ticking down right in your face.  In the manufacturing sector (my area of expertise), it is difficult to describe.  I know most people don’t work in this sector, so let me try to provide some insight through a few examples.

The erosion in business has been steep and full of surprises.  Customers commit to an amount they will order on Tuesday, announce they are closing their plant for a period of time, then cancel their orders on the next Tuesday.  Layoffs are planned, announced, processed, then new numbers come in that mean the cuts weren’t steep enough.  Sales declines are 20-40% year over year in some companies.  The costs for that level of decline are often beyond a company’s ability to manage.  The spike in commodity prices in 2008 and subsequent decline at the end of the year has left companies and customers stuck with inventory that is now devalued.

Inventory devaluation is a huge problem for manufacturers, one that the banking crisis isn’t helping.  Banks have loans, lines of credit, and other financial instruments backed by inventory value as part of the collateral.  For example, a company has $1,000,000 of inventory that is based on a price of $1.00/pound on average.  Let’s say that the value of the inventory is now $0.70/pound.  A bank has given a company a line of credit worth 50% of the value of the inventory, so an original line of credit of $500,000.  This inventory is now worth $700,000, so their line of credit has dropped to $350,000.  The complication to this is that business has slowed significantly, so now they need less inventory.  If they cut the amount of inventory, it reduces their line of credit even more.

I haven’t explained it very well I’m sure (hopefully someone can explain it better or point us in a good direction).  I’d like to say that part of the TARP funding for banks is now being used to work with manufacturers to work through issues like this.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be the case.

I wrote a year ago a post, What to Do in a Recession, that was my most trafficked post for 2008.  Part II was written a few months later.  Both are probably worth reading again, just to be sure we’re doing everything we can.  One recommendation I feel even more strongly about today is finding one-three incremental revenue streams.  Some of these may be a combined household idea, some may be individual for one spouse or another.  Some may be for children even, a way to reduce costs like allowances or spending money while simultaneously having children contributing.  This is important regardless of your financial situation currently, I believe.

I’m closing on a quite significant new venture that I’m extremely excited about, one that may take me and our family in an entirely new direction.  It will be a new revenue stream for us, an opportunity for my wife and I to work closely together, and a chance to get in front of a big opportunity.  It could eventually become our primary source of income.  In 2009, it will become a key part of our lives.  Look for a launch post early next week.

The dawn is now here, and my boys and wife are emerging.  Good morning all.

I must say I miss rushing to my blog, checking out all my comments, working daily on a post.  Alot has happened to me over these last few weeks.

First off, I’ve fallen even more deeply in love with my wife.  That is hard for me to fathom as I’ve always loved her deeply.  It’s just that I’ve focused more on her with each day, and she’s come alive again and again.  It’s hard to explain, but I’d suggest just stepping back and really focusing on your spouse or significant other in a new way.  Give more of yourself, put more of your own life on hold, start to look at them from a different point of view.  Tactically, touch them with new hands, with new sniffs, with fresh eyes.  I don’t know if any of that makes sense, to be honest.

Next, I’ve gotten much more productive over the last couple months.  I’m still not at 110%, but I’m liking it all much more.  I think a big reason for this has been my experience launching the new soccer club.  I was consumed with something that ate a ton of my time, but I was able to see some great value from it.  It was purposeful, to take my discretionary time and do some good with it.  I think I’m doing good with it, and I think I’ve been changed for the good.

I am very thankful to the Wife, Fuel, Carmen, the good Doctor, Otis, Iggy, BadBlood, Al, and many, many others for emailing me, popping up on Facebook, or stumbling here from time to time.  I’ve pushed through using this site as a crutch, as a place to vent, as a place to capture the turmoil that is me.  I’m hoping the best days are ahead for me.  And for you, too.

Oh, and one quick addition.  I didn’t pack any drawers, so heading to buy new boxers.

I’ve dragged my feet with the redesign of my company’s website, as well as the launch of a new blog.  With so much going on, I just couldn’t make things and didn’t really have a burning platform to knock it out.  The past month, I’ve had some horrific problems with email from the hosting company we use (they were black listed from a ton of places, so my email was blocked for several weeks).

Anyways, I’ve launched a new blog, Craig on Growth.  My posting here has dropped off a great deal over the last few months, and I’m trying to increase my productivity while also funneling my efforts more fruitfully.  With Bloglines and Google Reader, the dialogue that was this blog has really dried up.  I still have great friends here and many devoted readers, but I want to have better expectations of myself of how frequently I’ll post here vs other work I’m doing.

Craig on Growth brings hopefully a concise and fresh look to driving profitable growth in business.  This is absolutely the worst time to launch a new blog on growth, as all eyes and mindshare are on slashing budgets and headcount.  I actually think that will be a good thing, as I’ll have more time to create a unique voice.

I hope you will stop by on occasion, check it out, pimp it, and chime in with your own thoughts on any of the subjects.

I’m not finished with it, but anyone interested in how we got into this financial mess has to read The End of Wall Street’s Boom by Michael Lewis (author of Liar’s Poker).  Absolutely brilliant, and absolutely revolting.

Three weeks of no posts, a first since I started my daily writing several years ago.  This used to be more than a daily ritual.  Pouring myself out for public consumption was part catharsis, part addiction, part self-loathing.  Halting wasn’t a premeditated gap, but I’d just gotten busy with life.  I also had lost any good connection to readers, so I just stopped.

The coming weeks should result in an aggressive life redirection.  For the last three years, I’ve used a series of avocations and distractions to point me away from my career and livelihood.  In the midst of it all, I’ve still kept our income and lifestyle at a comfortable level.  With where the US economy is, I think it’s too dangerous not to aggressively pursue significant, stable revenue streams.

I had a conversation with my wife yesterday about all of this, and it was a long time coming.  Most of the time, these types of halts are preceeded by some big event (often catastrophic in nature).  My event was fairly tame in the grand scheme of things, a very public spat with a club volunteer for the new soccer club we launched this Fall.  The details aren’t relevant, but it pointed out to me that there was way too much of my life invested in a pursuit that was purely volunteer and that was not in my control.  Conservatively, I’ve put 500 hours of my time into this new venture since the end of May (excluding coaching).

The bigger problem for me is that this isn’t even about soccer.  This blog, writing about poker, playing poker, soccer; three plus years of life distraction.  This has been personally very satisfying, although financially it has been free.  Some of the other pursuits were somewhat rewarding financially or stroked other areas of my psyche that I needed.

I haven’t damaged my marriage, haven’t damaged my children in the process.  One could argue that this soccer experience has helped me come out of my shell more than anything.  It’s definitely brought a new set of negative incidents that I haven’t had in my life in I can’t remember how long.  I don’t get yelled at professionally, don’t receive personal attacks, don’t have grudges held against me.  I really don’t interact with others very much in my daily life, so these have been very new times for me.

I’ll work hard to document things here as it will help me.  If anyone is out there and wants to chime in, that’s good as well.  Weight loss is at 54 pounds after a 4.5-pound gain last week.

I’ve had a monstrous seven days of work with quick hops up to Pittsburgh twice (sorry I couldn’t reach out, Gene).  Very good stuff with lots of folks at my client taking notice.  Consulting can be a frustrating job, and it has been with this client.  My frustration lies in doing something with the work I’ve done.  Execution.  It is the downside of working outside of a company, that I can’t make anything happen to drive results.

Such a riotous week to be this busy.  Here in the ATL, gasoline is the challenge facing everyone (or the lack thereof).  It seems at times like we’re some sort of lab rats in a strange experiment–cut the fuel flow in half and see what Americans do.  Some head toward panic, some withdraw and stop all discretionary travel, some drink the Kool-Ade and drive their tank toward empty rather than topping off continually, some slow down to below the speed limit.  It is absolutely the worst thing for the local economy as all the service industries take a big hit.

I picked up an iPhone yesterday (the starter 8GB version).  Haven’t gotten too into it yet, but I need the internet access and email capabilitiy as it looks like my travel will pick up a bit.  There’s a good chance that I’ll be gone from mid-November to the end of the year/beginning of January.  Destinations (if I can close the deal this week) include China, Japan, Korea, (possibly a couple other places in Asia), UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Holland, Saudi Arabia, possibly Venezuela and Brazil.  Plus a couple weeks in the US.

Any soccer fans and/or Seattlites should head to World Soccer Daily podcast (on iTunes, head to Podcasts/Sports to find it).  23 September has a great hour with Drew Carey, the new minority owner of the MLS Seattle franchise.  I still listen daily to World Soccer Daily.  I have an ESPN Soccernet fantasy team this year (not in a league, just doing it).  Anyone who might be interested in starting a league, ping me with a comment or an email at csquard@gmail.com.

I’m hoping I’m back, but let’s see if the posts flow before we get too excited.

For my parents, it was when JFK was shot.  I thought it would be when the space shuttle Challenger exploded, I thought that would be the point in time that would be forever burnished on my generation, the “Where were you?” question that could always spark a solemn memory.

I drove out of my subdivision this morning and saw flags at half-mast.  There had been a bitter debate within our Home Owners Association on where the flagpoles would stand (they were moved from near the main road back to our clubhouse/tennis courts).  I was a bit puzzled about the flags at half-mast and headed on to my appointment.  He was late (standard), and I wondered to a USA Today stand outside of the Starbucks that was our meeting point.  The article about seven years having past brought it all back.

The economy was much like it is now back then; not exactly, but it was slowing down.  I’d finished a phone call with an executive at Raytheon who I used to work with (his office was in Washington, DC).  My home office was outside of our living room seven years ago, and I wondered out of the room and glanced at the television for some reason.  I don’t even remember why it was on nor what our morning ritual was then.  Smoke was billowing from the World Trade Center, and no one knew that the world had changed.  Then the second plane hit and the tears streamed down my stunned face.

It wasn’t even like it was yesterday.  It was just a moment ago.

Most people like to have some connection to a famous or tragic event (how many people were there when Joe Namath won Super Bowl III?).  The father of the husband of a friend of my wife died that day, which is to say I had no personal connection to the people who lost their lives.  I worked in Manhattan but never ventured to that neck of the woods, spending my time in the Garment District or Queens or dare I say the South Bronx or Junior’s in Brooklyn.

It was just a moment ago.

The New York Times audio-visual tour of Hangar 17, containing fallen infrastructure and vehicles from the debris of the World Trade Center.

It was just a moment.

For over three years, I started most every day pouring my thoughts, torments, and emotions on some blog.  The locale has shifted, but the ritual remained.  Jumping away for I’m not sure how long (maybe two week?) has had its own interesting twists.  The first day, I felt almost panicky, although I’d probably typed for a day or three before I finally stopped.  After three or four days, I started to consciously avoid this admin panel, feeling a different kind of anxiety.  I didn’t want to document much of anything inside of me.

I’ve gradually driven away my fans, my lurkers, those whom I revolted (I doubt there were many).  Now, I have a few deep friends and those who accidentally stumble upon the site.  For many months, I was consumed by poker while trying to live a normal life and work a normal day.  The last ten weeks, it’s been launching a youth soccer club that took the place of poker.  I’d felt I needed to do something constructive with all of that discretionary time and energy, so I focused it all in a new direction.

I haven’t enjoyed getting yelled at by parents who feel their daughter or son has been wronged or should be playing professionally by now.  I haven’t enjoyed being told I was clueless or incompetent by other parent-coaches.  I haven’t enjoyed feeling the weight of the eyes of 150 parents and 75 boys and girls, trying to control things that aren’t in my control.  I haven’t liked being called a control freak as I had to do 150 things to get this where it is today.

The bigger challenge for me is figuring out why I have to have some huge avocation that saps every ounce of energy and attention from me when I can’t do the same for my business and career.  This summer has been quite similar to my WSOP summer in that I was consumed.

I’ve lost alot of traction and energy for this site along the way.  I had a new vision when I redesigned the site to broaden my content, to share more of myself in a wider array of topics.  Maybe I’ll get it back.  Maybe this has been the final part of a cathartic process to relaunch my blog.  We’ll see.

For those of you who have occasionally peaked to see if there is anyone here, I appreciate that.  For those who have continued to encourage me, thanks as well.  I hope I am back soon, and I hope others are as well.  I hope so.

It’s been strange to post here so infrequently.  I think I’ve been a daily poster for a couple years, so two posts over a span of a couple weeks is very different.  Sometimes, different is OK.

These last few weeks have been terrific for me.  I’ve put my heart and soul into something that now has a life, and we’re in the nurturing and foundation-building stage.  I feel healthier mentally and emotionally than I’ve felt in several years.  Much less time goofing around, although I still have to ramp up my efforts on the business side.  I have a couple projects, but as always I need a big surge on the business development side.

I’ve finally found the benefit of the lifestyle that I’ve created.  If I can keep my travel down yet add value to a core of key clients, then I can pour myself into kids and soccer.  I’ve been fortunate enough to have a great few weeks to get things started, but the real key will be to transition this in the Fall.

Thanks to any of you still following here for your patience and support.

It’s been terrific to be so busy and doing such good stuff that I can’t update this site, can’t do flickr, just have to keep cranking away.  In the last ten weeks, I’ve stumbled upon an entrepreneurial spirit that I never fully understood that I had.  I’ve always had creativity and other components of entrepreneurism, but I’ve been more comfortable telling others how to do things rather than running with them myself.

I don’t expect what I’ve been working on to be some huge moneymaker, although there could be future business opportunity in there.  I’m really just thrilled that I’m doing really great stuff again, it’s hitting the mark, and I’m getting great feedback.

I’m also restarting my tennis journey tonight.  My knee has held up for the last year or so, and this will be my first real venture to hit since I had knee surgery I think three years ago (may be four, I’m actually unsure).  I really hope I’m able to move around a bit and that it holds up as I’d love to get back into it.

We’ve had neighbors who now live in London with us since Friday (grandmother, mother, daughter, and three sons).  My wife is great, just rolling with the punches.  I have as well for the most part, not sweating much except for the large number of flies now living with us.

I hope everyone else is loving life like I am.  I’ll take it, that’s for sure!