Can I Drive This Thing? My move to a giant agency.

Here I am in my fifth month at the gargantuan agency Ogilvy. I swore to myself that I'd never step foot in another beast, opting to stay in the shallow marshes of agencies where I can be more "me". But a friend being my supervisor tempted me hard. As did the pitch. I was to come in early January to begin work on the pitch for IKEA NA. Dream assignment.

I worked through the pitch with unexpected unattachment - caring and thinking smartly, but no panic, no stress. It was amazing from the first day. The amazing amount of cash a giant agency throws behind your ideas was enough to put me in a candy shop. "You mean you want to produce these TV spots in the next two weeks? But I just wrote them yesterday." That kind of amazing.

The pitch was a step up process unlike anything I'd seen before. Start with developing a strategy. Meet again to pitch several strategies. Meet again to show work on those favored. Meet lastly to show how one of them can go to the moon and back.

It worked! We won. We won a huge account with my tag line. WE WON!

So I'm feeling amazing right about now. And really proud of my decision. Actually this was one of a long line a great decisions I've quietly made starting when I was 17. But that's a story for another time.

Costa Rica Tourism "Welcome to Planet Earth"

We think we live on Earth...but in these asphalt jungles and seas of minimalls, it's like we don't even know what Earth is. It's like Earth is a completely different planet. So to visit the most biodiverse place on Earth (Costa Rica) is like taking a spaceship, blasting off and landing on another world.

Costa Rica. Welcome to Planet Earth.