Touch points from a long, long day: the 5am cashier in Chicago O’Hare with a world weary ‘how are you today?’; cruising across a rush hour Potomac and working my way down from H to C; overlapping research interests with the good folk at the World Bank; a glimpse behind the curtain at the State Department; drinks in the company of entrepreneurs who could rest on their laurels but are too busy inventing the next.

People with stars in their eyes, stars on their shoulders, looking down from the stars.

The kindly Ethiopian taxi driver who let me catch forty winks on his front seat and, knowing my departure time chilled at the airport to save waking me up. Canceled flights, re-booked flights, last-minute standbys. And as I write – being gently serenaded by a passenger sawing his way through a rather sizable log – his chest rising and falling as the blade goes to and fro.

It shouldn’t be this way but somehow energised by back to back red-eyes.

Sometimes you just need to follow a hunch, take a punt on the future.