:mattLandia:

Big news mattLandia readers! Although in the works for a while now, I didn't want to speak prematurely about a new development on the career front. Mr. mattLandia Himself has left the consription of global-uber-consultative-overlords and associate overlords! I've gone and joined forces with a band of merry techno-predictive-mathematic uber geeks led by our neighborhood-friendly-start-up-overlord in an effort to carve a profit-rich space in the quasi-sexy predictive analytic market place. Yee-Exponential Smoothing-Haw! (I can't wait to see what random statistics junkies end up at my site after Googling forecast modeling techniques...)

Today was spent, on the ground floor so to speak, roughing out blue prints for how we lay the corner stones in our offering. Passionate discussion with colleagues that I admire and respect, trading ideas that have merit, setting the bar high, setting aggresive timelines, etc. For anyone who's ever worked at a large company, or worked at a company that was already in business for years before you filled out your first W-4, having a seat at the table (figuratively and literally) in the infancy of a new company is extraordinary. Even more remarkable is how in-step we seem to be regarding the direction we need to move to achieve greatness. Small; Nimble; Smart; Willing -- A dangerously effective combination if there ever was one.

Normally I might temper my enthusiasm with some disclaimers on the 'reality of business' or the darwinian pragmatism of capitalism or some such; but not tonight. I'll save that for a day when I get my ass handed to me on a plate after some inevitable misstep or short-term failure. Not tonight though. Tonight I will turn out the lights, and with what mental capacity I have fully engaged and what career experience I have fully indexed, I will commence roughing out my piece of the puzzle.

Who knew preparing for free-market battle could be so good?

PS - Dry socket still sucks.