“Touch me.  Take me to that other place.” – U2 lyrics from “Beautiful Day”.

I don’t subscribe to the TGIF motto.  My father always worked 6 days a week and played golf on the 7th.  Fridays were never an extension of the weekend and he always told me that weekends are two days for the common man, 3 days for the lazy man and 1 day for the man who takes life seriously.  I’ve felt that people who said TGIF were coasting on Fridays.  Well now that I have a family the 1 day weekend is no longer in my repertoire but the 3 day weekend is not something I’ve ever longed for.  Fridays to me are always my most efficient days.

Yesterday Friday took on that TGIF feeling.  it was one of those warm mornings in San Francisco where you put the top down and turn up the music.  What played?  Yep, my CD Player happened to randomly select, U2’s Beautiful Day. Work started with an informal BizDev breakfast in San Francisco’s SouthPark .  I like going here in the mornings to have a casual coffee and chat about different ideas and network with other industry players.  South Park is modeled after an English neighborhood and was once the home to the first real neighborhood in San Francisco.  It then became what has been termed “ground zero” of the dot-com revolution and is now considered to be a leading player in the Web 2.0 movement.

I try to take one or two good ideas out of this gathering each time, but Friday it spurred some great ideas after some conversations with some attendees.  With these new light bulbs over my head I walked back to my office in the bright sunshine and got into work (still the first person into my office before 8am) with a bundle of energy and a load of caffeine in my body.  Before I new it I had already taken action with my new plan and was seeing results.  I love it when change can be affected just like that. The morning and the afternoon flew by and one of my conference calls turned into a great opportunity that I cannot wait to see implemented by one of our partners.  It isn’t often these days when two companies put money aside and focuse on proper execution and that is what we are doing.   Hopefully it will succeed and people will take notice by the results we achieve.

By the time 5:30 rolled around I was able to “blow out” of the office.  5:30 is early for me and I was still one of the last to leave.  These Fridays I am motivated by the chance to pick up my son from his late Friday baseball practice.  Especially on this beautiful Friday afternoon I laced up some tennis shoes and threw on my glove and walked into the middle of their practice.  I don’t care what anyone says, but meeting your son on a playground after work on a beautiful Spring evening and having him come running up to you and giving you a big hug just warms your heart and brings a smile to your face.  He just smiled his big smile and said, “hey dad, can we call mom and get a pizza for dinner?” (Sure, what the heck!).  We tossed the ball around practicing his fielding and working on his batting swing.  This is the American Dream, is it not?  We stayed a little longer after practice and talked about our days.  I don’t know if he thought my day was as exciting as his, but he pretended to be interested.  We picked up a pizza and had a nice family dinner full of smiling faces and lots of great kid stories.  My wife had helped out at our school fundraiser which includes a luncheon for the school moms.  It is one of the events she looks forward to every year at the school and although she didn’t say it, I think she was glad that cancer hadn’t interrupted her ability to attend.  The event includes a big plant and flower show and she picked up a plant for the other mom in our class who is recovering from her cancer surgery earlier this week. [As an aside, our thoughts were interrupted this week with the news and an email from another family friend who found out she has breast cancer and will be having surgery on Monday].  For our household, bedtime is easy.  Friday night was a funny one as we take time for our kids to read to us and we read something of our choice to our kids.  It is our way of bonding with them.  As my daughter read to me on this evening i fell asleep next to her on the bed.  The next thing I know, she’s poking me in the cheek, ‘Daddy, you going to kiss me or what?”  Oh boy, when she gets older, the boys are going to be in trouble (and so am I trying to keep up with her)!

So how do I end a “Beautiful Day”? A little 5 mile workout to clear my mind and an early bed time to rest it.  It was another great run with my body feeling relaxed on a warm night.  It was a great day to reflect on.  It might just be another day in the book of my life, but it will hopefully be a good chapter when all is said and done.