“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain
I’m not the biggest fan of starting off a written piece with a quote but the one above is so fitting I can’t help but lead with it. My name is Sohail Shahrasebi. I am 26 years old and I am about to embark on the journey of a lifetime. For the past 8 years I’ve worked my way through college and Wall Street. As a student at NYU, I lived blocks away from ground zero during the events of 9/11 and I worked as an intern at UBS on the Mortgage Backed Securities/Structured Products desk when those products were all the rage and banks and investors couldn’t gorge on enough of them. After graduating, I was an investment banking analyst and later a private equity associate, working during one of the frothiest M&A and credit bubbles in the world’s history.
While those experiences were amazing and eye opening, I’ve always felt there was a much bigger world out there that I was missing out on. Sure I’ve been to Europe, Asia and the Middle East - but I was never really there. I was always shuttling between my hotel room to get to a boardroom, dataroom or classroom. I was always in a room, sheltered from the people, culture and economies of the regions I was visiting. Well that’s about to change!
For the next half year I’m going to be out there in the big wide world, brushing off all the filter’s I have had in place for the past 8 years and learning from the world - Ansel Adams style. I’ll be updating this blog sporadically with posts, pictures and video.
I was going to post the details of my trip on this blog too, but the dictator of this blog Andy, thought it might be too long so I’ll probably have to post another blog with those details.
As this is my first post I want to thank Red Ledge for sponsoring my gear and trip. If it weren’t for the Company’s support I’m not sure I’d be able to take this step. Wish me luck!
“Where in the world is …?” has officially been changed to “Where in the world is SOHAIL?” We found this guy hanging around at a charity event and he was talking about life changes, something about lessons and helping people and also about wanting to travel the world.
So, Red Ledge is all about that stuff (thus us hanging around at the charity event) so we told him we’d hook him up with some gear and he could tell us all about his travels through pictures and as a guest blogger on our site. You might have noticed him up on the top of our blog author list recently (Sohail the Nomad) so expect to see some exciting things coming from him in the days (possibly months depending on how often he gets held up in customs) to come. The team at Red Ledge is definitely excited about his travels and wishes him the best of luck and the safest of trips.
Hootie and the Blowfish released Cracked Rear View in 1994. It was the highest-selling album of 1995, with 10.5 million shipments that year alone, eventually shipping 16 million copies to retailers by March 31st 1999. It is currently tied with several other albums, all certified 16x platinum, for the 15th best selling album of all time in the United States. (RIAA Top 100)
There are 12 songs on Cracked Rear View. One of the songs is only instrumental. That leaves 11 lyrical songs. Of those 11 songs, 8 of them use some form of “cry” in the lyrics. One more song, Drowning, does not use the term “cry” but rather “tears”. So if we include Drowning with the other 8 songs, we have a total of 9 out of 11. That’s roughly 82% of the album.
I have no idea what any of this means. Maybe it’s like the Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz thing but instead it’s to couple with Fievel Goes West, the disappointing sequel to the cinematic masterpiece, American Tail. Take this useless information and whatever unfounded conclusions that you may draw from it, keep in mind are absolutely correct and should be defended militantly if ever challenged.
Keep an eye out for more frivolity packed information in the future.
Someone sent me this SNL clip today and in more ways than one it seems eerily familiar (if you know our Western sales team, you’ll know what I mean)
Seems our industry is reaching more and more for any real innovation these days. I’m almost pretty certain that most of these ideas featured in this skit have come up before in product development meetings, and I’m also pretty sure that I’ve seen some of these features in the market already. Though the whole double hood thing is pretty revolutionary and sweet.
Being the nerd that I am, I used to love playing the game, “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?” on my sweet Apple IIGS computer (well I didn’t have one, the school did though and I definitely put those tax dollars to good use).
Deciding to use my power to help me re-live my youth (to this day I still can’t say “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego” without singing it, and if you know what I’m talking about then obviously you were as nerdy as I was), Red Ledge has decided to sponsor a soon to be world traveler in his quest to travel the already explored and take lots of pictures for our blog explore the unexplored.
In the coming days you will be introduced to this world traveler and become more acquainted in his quest and his unquenchable thirst for world knowledge. This explorer (who may or may not have been found yet) will become a guest blogger on our site and will enrich us with his travels so that those of us who are stuck behind a desk, reading blogs trying to pass the time, can live vicariously through him.
Hopefully we’ll get some good pictures and entries as a result of this, and holding true to the Carmen Sandiego way, we’ll also be posting up useful (and useless) facts about wherever his travels may bring him. So stay tuned as we reveal Red Ledge’s World Traveler.
