Creator living in SF & hailing from the East Coast.
Title says it all.
Appropriate since it will have been an astounding 525 days since the season 4 finale.
Oh and Don Draper himself, Jon Hamm, directs the first episode.
I can’t believe it’s been 10 years.
I remember I was in Spanish class when I heard the first rumblings that something had happened. Nobody really knew what was going on and the class continued despite pleas from students to turn on the TV. At this point I was under the impression that it was more of a freak accident than an attack. I ducked out to “go to the bathroom” finding another class with the T.V. on. I glanced in and saw smoke pouring out of the Towers but as I recall they had not collapsed yet.
When the period ended the students flooded the hallways and bits and pieces of information became patched together. There were rumours that the towers had collapsed and that planes had hit the pentagon and white house. There was also talk that there were many more planes in the air after they grounded all flights and that they were being shot down.
Feelings of uncertainty quickly turned to fear. We were under attack and the scope of the attacks were unknown. I don’t recall fearing for my life as Potomac was not a likely target however there was a panic among the students for the safety of the parents who worked in D.C.
They sent us home early. My parents were waiting for me in the kitchen and the T.V. was on. Sitting at the kitchen table I was surprised to see our family friend from New York whose house we had Thanksgiving at every year. It was really during these Thanksgivings that I learned to love New York and came to think of it as a second home. I could not recall him ever at our house before and don’t think he’s been back since.
We spent the rest of the day glued to the T.V. The people jumping from the burning towers was the most sobering footage. Ash covered survivors were interviewed. For some reason I specifically remember one of them being Ron Insana from CNBC. I think it’s because at this moment stocks and all the things that normally seemed so serious did not matter. As the rest of the week unfolded this became true of other things, particularly sports which seemed ridiculously trivial.
I couldn’t sleep well during the following weeks. I found this strange at the time as things had settled and day to day life returned to normal as we went back to school. Everything was the same on the surface but there was a pervading dread in the back of my mind. Before the attacks we had enjoyed such prosperity and peace that the idea of our nation having an army to protect us seemed dated. But now we were vulnerable and helpless against a nationless enemy. Terrorism was something that happened far away, not in our back yard. Deep down I knew that things would never be the same.
This decade has been a challenging one on a number of fronts. Here is to the hopes of a prosperous and peaceful ten years ahead.
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.
- Steve Jobs
How Clark Gable and It Happened One Night inspired Bugs Bunny
IMDb:
Friz Freleng’s unpublished memoirs mention that this was one of his favorite films, and that it contains at least three things upon which the character “Bugs Bunny” was based: - The character Oscar Shapely’s (Roscoe Karns) personality - The manner in which Peter Warne (Clark Gable) was eating carrots and talking quickly at the same time - An imaginary character mentioned once to frighten Oscar Shapely named “Bugs Dooley.” Other mentions of “Looney Tunes” characters from the film include Alexander Andrews (Walter Connolly) and King Westley (Jameson Thomas) being the inspirations for Yosemite Sam and Pepé LePew, respectively.
I think something else, something new — something that will require our kids not so much to find their next job as to invent their next job — is also influencing today’s job market more than people realize.
Thomas Friedman
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/opinion/13friedman.html?_r=2
People of this generation are 120% more likely to be business owners without previous workplace experience, according to the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute. And 21% of 1,000 college students and recent grads in a Young Entrepreneur Council survey started businesses as a result of unemployment. So for this generation, it’s becoming a create-your-own-job economy.
We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting,
When is comes to the state of our economy the US government is out of answers and out of time.
In his report yesterday Bernake, head of the Federal reserve, acknowledged that after hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts the economy is still in dire straits.And that the deep wounds the economy has suffered actually required more than billion dollar band aids
As growth has sputtered this year, economists have pointed to higher oil prices, the Japanese earthquake, bad weather, and a lack of confidence. The unifying theme was that spending and investment would surge as these temporary impediments subsided. The Fed’s latest forecast, however, reflects the surprising weight of deeper and more intractable problems, including unsustainable public and private debts, the wreckage of the housing market, and trade imbalances. Roughly 25 million Americans were unable to find full-time work in May, and the central bank projects that most of those people will remain unemployed for years.
It may be a bleak image, but it’s the one staring back at us in the mirror.
Fortunately, entrepreneurs have not been sitting idly by.
In 2007, as customers of Northern Rock in London made a panic fueled run on the bank, Mark Pincus was launching Zynga. In 2008, as Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and others consumed hundreds of billions in bailout money, yCombinator was helping to launch future billion dollar businesses like DropBox and AirBnB for tens of thousands of dollars. While upwards of 25 million of our fellow Americans are hopelessly out of work, our portfolio companies can’t fill seats fast enough. While the rest of the nation sinks deeper and deeper into the depths of the greatest depression in our history, entrepreneurs are debating the presence of a bubble and frothy funding environments.
The contrast is stark.
The economy we’ve constructed to support us in the past will not support our future. The insulation these institutions have relied on in the past will not protect them going forward. The same entrepreneurial energy that built this country will recreate it with, or without, the support of government leaders.
They had their chance to bail us out and they failed. It’s our turn to lead. We’ve done, with our hundreds of millions, what they couldn’t do with their hundreds of billions. From here on out we should work to build each of our company’s like the fate of our country depends on it.
Because, quite frankly, it does.
(via brycedotvc)
Learn by doing. Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience.
- Tony Hsieh
Picasso and his dachshund, Lump
Lump, he’s not a dog, he’s not a little man, he’s somebody else.
— Picasso
There’s a whole book about these two, and, of course, the print.
See also, this great NYTimes article, Picasso’s Other Muse, of the Dachshund Kind
Thx, @jndevereux!
Many films diminish us. They cheapen us, masturbate our senses, hammer us with shabby thrills, diminish the value of life. Some few films evoke the wonderment of life’s experience, and those I consider a form of prayer. Not prayer “to” anyone or anything, but prayer “about” everyone and everything. I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone, or do a good thing. Those prayers validate existence and snatch it away from meaningless routine.
Aaron has been in a wheelchair since he was 3. He landed his first backflip when he was 14 and his first double backflip when he was 18.
Accepting artificial limitations is for suckers.
You can do more than you think.
Stop making excuses.
These days, when someone says “You are doing it all wrong”, “That is not how it works” or “You can’t do that”, I immediately start paying attention. Not because I think they might be right but because more often than not it just means you are challenging the status quo and are becoming a threat to those running things.