I’ve always been totally into Christmas, looking forward to it for weeks on end.  I was the bad kid who hounded parents into opening a present several days before Christmas, and I was down with Santa’s gifts way before the sun rose.  The last couple years, Christmas has been a time of stress.  The end of the year marks another year with my own business, without the security of a large company, often with a slowdown in consulting.  December has been a month I don’t much like anymore.

I feel like I’m in a better place this year.  There is more uncertainty about what the next twelve months will bring than any time in my life, no question.  Yet, I feel more at peace this holiday season.  I can’t answer why nor if it is justified.  But I will enjoy each moment of these next few days.

My prayers and best wishes go out to each and every one of you.  Cherish this time.

Not sure if you’ve read about today’s arrest of Ole Miss basketball Head Coach Andy Kennedy.  You can find a link with the police report there.

Let me preface this by saying I am no fan of Ole Miss, although I’m originally from Mississippi.  Having said that, all eyes of the sports world will be on the University as well as its fans in the aftermath of this situation.  You have a head coach who has been arrested for public intoxication and has allegedly used racial slurs toward the alleged victim.  The details of the story seem logical (five pedestrians trying to get into a cab, which is illegal in virtually any city in America, allegedly intoxicated individuals then becoming abusive at 1:00AM when cabs are scarce).

You have a University that hosted Presidential Debates, stating to America that they had left their dark past behind them when it comes to race relations, yet a leading representative of the University has been accused of using racial slurs.  I’ve never used racial slurs, although I grew up in the midst of the heart of small-town Southern culture.  It was a part of daily life.

Some would argue that we live in the day of political correctedness and hyper-sensitivity.  I agree, but I draw the line at racism and other forms of bigotry.  The Head Coach of Ole Miss is arguably the third most visible representative of the University behind NY Giants QB Eli Manning and Head Football Coach Houston Nutt.  You cannot ever allow yourself to return to your former Cincinnati stomping grounds, get even close to intoxicated, then allow yourself to lose control of your behavior and your language.

Anything short of an immediate termination of Kennedy will be a sign to America that this proud University and all of its Alumni are indeed not past their dark past.

Pathetic.

I was on LinkedIn the other day, a fast-growing business networking tool.  On one of their forums, there was a long rant from several folks about American Express and their decisions to cut credit limits without notifying customers.  I didn’t really investigate the details at all, but it would definitely be wise to stay on top of your credit cards.  Make a spreadsheet of every card you have, their interest rates, your credit limit, their transfer/cash advance policies, and any balances/min payments you have.  This is especially true if you have business cards which could suddenly be useless in the midst of travel or large expenses.

This also may be a great time to sign up for a new card if you have good credit, as well as to close cards to improve your credit rating.  I’m a big believer in using credit cards in lieu of checks, racking up miles and points and paying off balances.  Don’t jump in the water, though, if you don’t have a good handle on your finances and your control of them.

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’ve always loved Christmas and always loved giving gifts.  I’ve always loved giving gifts for any reason, to be honest.  When I traveled all the time, I’d store up inventory from my trips to Raffles Jewelry in Singapore.  I’d drop baubles of all kinds throughout the year to my wife.  Add Tiffany’s and Red Envelope to the mix, and I was every woman’s dream, every man’s nightmare.

My family has cut and cut gift giving to the point where we now don’t give gifts to one another.  There are great reasons for it, and I understand budgets and priorities etc.  I do miss it though.  Last Christmas, I got the boys together to paint coffee mugs so we could at least give something (that and framed photos).  I didn’t put up much of a fight when family members told me of this year’s plan.  I do think that part of gift giving is having to thoughtfully think about someone you love, think enough to search and find something that you think they would like.

Do we get it right?  Most of the time, that would be a no.  Some of the worst gifts, though, can be the most memorable.  My late grandfather, he of no means, gave me awful tube socks one Christmas.  I was a teen, and the tube socks from Wal-Mart were just dreadful to look at much less to wear.  I wish I had those tube socks.  I still have the clock he gave me sitting on my vanity to this day.  I haven’t put a new battery in it, but I don’t need to.

For my wife and boys, I’m free to grab whatever I like for gifts.  Add her parents and brother, and at least I do have a few presents I can get.  With the tough economy, we’ve decided to work hard to have a Christmas with no money spent on gifts.  One way of doing this is to give no gifts, while another way is to make things or give services.  We’ve decided to use miles and points to purchase gifts. I’m off to a very fast start.

I’m a horder when it comes to my miles and points.  I’ve long had a Business Platinum AMEX and rarely tap the points.  I think my only big previous splurge was for a week in Italy with my wife.  We stayed at the Danieli in Venice, then headed to Florence and San Gimignano (Relais Santa Chiara).

So poof, half of my AMEX Membership Rewards points are now gone, an equivalent of about $2k or so in purchases.  I don’t have much more to do, probably some gift cards with a few other cards.  Electronics are the worst value when buying using points, with gift cards for retailers being the best value.  Electronics cost 1.5-2.0x in points vs gift cards, but I was able to get a deal on something my wife wants plus a big surprise for the boys.  I was close to getting a Wii (they have no gaming system, just their computer), but I decided to put it off again.  They’re surviving, and I’d rather give them something super cool that they can have with them all the time.

I’m pretty sure we’ll spend less than $200 total on gifts, but I’ll have to do some more legwork over the next couple days to finalize it.  How ’bout you, how close can you get for $0 this Christmas?  If not this year, how much can you slice off your bill next Christmas through credit card points and miles?

My good buddy Nolan Dolla had a nice article about his favorite New Orleans restaurants.  Most are located in the French Quarter.  When I went to Tulane, we rarely ventured into the French Quarter.  Maybe if a visitor in town dragged us down there; otherwise, we stayed Uptown.

New Orleans is food, and my memories are of all the comfort food I loved while I was there.  Cheese fries at AT-II’s (Audubon Tavern is no longer across from Perlis).  Fat Harry’s.  Bruno’s, and some place right down from Bruno’s where we had $0.10 oysters and tipped the waiter $5 to keep the hush puppies and drinks flowing.  Popeye’s, quintessential New Orleans just as K&B’s littered the backdrop every few blocks.

My favorite place by far was the Camellia Grill.  They specialized in breakfast and burgers, and the tradition of waiting outside then waiting on the bench before taking the assigned stool was all about eager anticipation.  My roommate would get a chili cheese omelet, while I would alternate between a bacon cheeseburger and a ham and cheese omelet.  There was a Haagen-Dazs right around the corner, and the depths of depravity were reached when I’d chase the bacon cheese burger with an Elberta Peach milk shake after a late dinner.

I’ve been a bah-humbugger the last several years when it comes to what used to be my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It’s a combination of things, mostly work related (where I feel bad about not working or having work in front of me).

I missed my family dearly this Thanksgiving, as it used to be the holiday that the world revolved around my mother.  She always played the role of the matriarch-provider, giving and giving and giving of herself with her loving extended family surrounding her.  I spoke to her Tuesday evening, and she said that she and Dad would probably have a sandwich this Thanksgiving.  Post-Christmas has become the new tradition for us, just easier to leave Atlanta and head to Memphis with plenty of time afterwards.  But I do miss those times with my family and my Mom.

No, this time I just headed to the mountains north of Travelers Rest, South Carolina to join my family at my in-laws.  No wireless, no cell phone coverage, just alot of nothing but beautiful mountain peace.  My Thanksgiving began with me taking the three boys to the Cliffs for swimming indoors, shower, lunch, then some golf.  It was magical to walk on a temperate Autumn afternoon, the four of us (43, 13, 10, and 4) not keeping score, just whopping the ball, finding the ball, shanking a shot, shrugging our shoulders, then moving on.  I’d forgotten what it was like to have peace, and I’d forgotten how blessed I am to share this life with those boys.  I know the time is fleeting where they’ll still have a twinkle in their eyes when they look at me.  Wednesday was still one of those days.

Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws is more of a big meal than the typical Thanksgiving as they don’t have extended family there.  No sweat, good food, great nap, “Australia” with my wife as we snuck away for the evening.

Then today, we have a nice breakfast (scrambled eggs and bacon for me, I fried eggs for the rest of them).  My the five of us joined my father-in-law for a hike into the mountains, something we never, ever do.  There may have been trails fifty years ago, but they were pretty overgrown as we headed up the mountains.  What a beautiful day, with nowhere to go as we climbed the mountain.  Our youngest on a wild hunt for Indians, and we joined in as we snuck over fallen timbers and cleared paths with our walking sticks.  We found a special hideout next to a small stream.  No path laid out, no quest, just wandering in the woods with my wife and our boys, their grandfather as their guide.

I’m at Leopard Forest Coffee Company in TR, on my way to BadBlood’s for an early evening of poker.  I was encouragingly given approval by my wife to join in, and I’ll crash at her brother’s place this evening.

It’s plenty enough for me.  I’ll take it in a heartbeat, no doubt about it.

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 went out yesterday afternoon to vote for the next President of the United States, the first time I’ve had confidence that I was casting my ballot for the winner in quite awhile.  I’ve voted for the winner before, but the races were much tighter then.

I parked down the road from the library/polling station, this after passing dozens of cars littering the side of the road.  I went armed with supplies for the wait:  iPod, iPhone, Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, Business Week, and my Bose headphones.  2.5-3 hours was the estimate when I got to the library as the line of a couple hundred folks snaked around the building.  Expectations are a big part of dealing with a wait time like this.  Disney figured that out years ago at DisneyWorld, adding TV screens to entertain while giving wait times at different points of the queue.

I kept busy bouncing from Twitter and taking pictures with my iPhone, the background music shifting from John Legend’s new “Evolver,” Missy HIggins, Hillsong United, then finishing with the “World Soccer Daily” Podcast.  I’d used a tool on the AJC to look through the different races and their responses to questions posed by the League of Women Voters.  That and an occasional further visit to candidate websites gave me my list of individuals to vote for the Commissioner of this and the Sherriff and whatnot.

Every four years, we Americans vow how we’re now going to get involved in making a difference in America, in politics, etc.  As I used the touch screen to vote, I felt pretty depressed that I’d done so little to decide who I was voting for in all these races.  This is Democracy?  Most voters cast their ballot for president then just go down party lines to decide who to vote for.  Even the little research I did had me ultimately bouncing party to party when I voted.  It is an embarrassment, as especially these local decisions impact our lives so immediately and intimately.

And the next president?  I ultimately decided to vote for Obama.  I admire McCain greatly, but I could not get past how he demonstrted his analytical process to decide on his running mate along with other recent decisions (the bailout as one example).  Qualifications and capabilities are two entirely different things.  Just because the citizens of Alaska put Palin in office doesn’t automatically check off the box of either her qualifications or her capabilities.  We’ve lived through eight years of flippant, gut decisions finalized by a lack of analytical rigor.  That shouldn’t dictate a future choice, but it definitely heightens one’s awareness of who to choose presently.

I do think that the stature of the United States will get a lift from Obama’s election.  Europe will give the US a new chance, and it will be very important that Obama has a plan to capitalize on the good will that results.  I am not vehemently for Obama or against McCain, but I do feel this is the best choice.  My hope is that whichever of the two is elected will table every promise he made to get elected and get neck-deep into the mess that we’re in on all fronts.  What gets you elected is different than what you lead with, and McCain knows this more than anyone.  He tried to stay on the high road eight years ago.  Bush and his cronies slandered him with horrific messages, and the wonderful citizenry of South Carolina dutifully pushed our current President along his way.

My hope is that we finally have the burning platform to make real change in America, and here I’m not talking about chanting change ad nauseum.  What is real change in America?  First, make sure everyone understands this from Change Management 101:  change is painful.  No one wants change, and those that benefit from current state fight it the most.  Anyone proficient in driving change knows that it leaves carcasses all over the place and that getting to the finish line is neither predictable nor simple.

What are the particulars of real change in America?  Here are a few to consider:

• Infrastructure investment with high short-term cost and long-term payback
• Lowering the standard of living of almost all Americans from the easy-credit past 20+ years to one where smaller homes with smaller, fewer cars are filled with less stuff; the economic impact of doing this will be significant if it is achieved
• Reinventing our financial system and saving America fiscally
• Modifying the transformation of the US Armed Forces, ensuring that our Military leaders do not become deficient in waging war on the large-scale and in guerrilla theaters as they have become more proficient at managing occupation and nation-building
• Changing the culture of American families to produce a higher percentage of higher-performing students who achieve advanced education (>2 years of university), all while lowering the costs to achieve this while improving the means
• Lowering the costs to treat the massive 55+ year-old American population over the next twenty years
• Navigating dangerous international relations over the next ten years, including the following:  Iran, a China that needs to fuel its own growth and needs to continue to suck resources to do that, India, Russia
• Accelerating the move away from fossil fuel-based energy to sustainable energy; costs are becoming approachable finally as mass builds on many alternative sources (e.g., wind, solar, electric cars/transportation), and we should be relentless on this.  This will mean further job losses in current areas with job growth in others; again, disruptive in the short-term, but palatable as we’re in the midst of this (see Detroit).

So that’s that for me.  Call me a pragmatist, a pessimist, an old fart, whatever.  I don’t see Eutopia on the horizon, far from it.  I’d put it more like this.  You’re driving with your family to some vacation scam that you said yes to (the four-days, three nights at no cost if you look at their time share or something).  You’re not exactly sure what it will be like, but surely it’s better than chasing each other at your house for the week and everything that comes with that.  You can’t really afford to take off from work as you just had a negative performance review and your new boss has already fired half of your friends.  Oh, and you think your spouse could be cheating on you.  So you’re in the minivan four hours into the drive, your youngest son just threw up a few miles back.  Right in front of you is the biggest storm you’ve ever seen.  Brilliant lightning, sideways rain with some hail thrown in for good measure, horrible winds.  Cars off the road, pulled over, wrecking here and there.  And you’re about to drive head-long into it.

Welcome to America, 2009.  Good luck.