On taking my advice

This afternoon my colleague from the Nordic Heritage Museum (in Seattle) had a few hours before his flight back to Seattle, so we met up for coffee and for me to show him the museum. He was impressed with it, of course! But I was more anxious to hear how things were going for him. I have been consulting with the Nordic Heritage Museum for 3 years now, wow, maybe 4, ever since I applied to be the director there. They offered me the job, which was of course very nice and probably would have been a lot of fun. But I told the board that 1) they really should try to find someone more experienced in multimillion dollar fund raising campaigns (they are building a new museum) and 2) that I wanted to go to Iceland and finish my dissertation. Anyhow, they took my advice (did not have much choice, since I turned the down!), kept looking, and found Eric. And I was mighty impressed with him--he has fund raised about 20 million dollars for the Nordic Heritage Museum since starting as the director there. So that is good, makes it ever so clear that they got the right man for the job. He gave me an update on their current exhibition plans, and 2 of their 4 major ideas were ones I gave them, so it is nice to see my ideas have staying power there also (the use of personal narratives and also the division of space into a North American and Scandinavian story). Now, if the ideas I germinate here in Iceland grow as well as the seeds I planted in Seattle have, it will all be gúdígúdí.

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