I am home, safe and secure after visiting Boston, New York City, Bucharest,
Warsaw, and Krakow. After so many years of travel in pursuit of a vague,
unstated goal of somehow converting the world to what could
arguably be called a "new religion," I have once again made the journey,
metaphorically and otherwise, and returned in peace to my place of abode;
home, hearth, spouse and garden. To say I missed my wife would be a
stunning understatement even for me. The new new world order, it seems, makes
home much the sweeter, than even once it was with such abundance.
I am home.
Travel is more difficult now. I wear combat gear when I move, and remain
awake and alert and aware of my immediate surroundings and those with whom
I share sacred spaces. Secruity has bloomed in every world airport, including
those I saw during this sojourn. Soldiers with automatic weapons are
ubiquitous now...young soldiers...volunteers. Once it was only Frankfurt.
And then Heathrow. And of course, Tel Aviv. Now it's everywhere...
Denver, Boston, Reno...
The vast majority of humanity reveres life. Never forget that. Hope is the
essential and presumptive
meme.
As such, the odds of meeting
up with a band of Jihadis is maybe close to that of winning the New York
State Lottery. Or getting hit by lightening, or killed by a shark, or
something equally unlikely. The same odds apply to getting iced by
anthrax. But alas, the truth is also ironic...the non-normative wisdom of
Tony Robbins must be heard:
"the past does not equal the future." Odds change. And our world,
clearly, has too.
The first Sun Tech Days of
the year (Sun's fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30) FY02 was held
in Warsaw, Poland on Oct. 29-30. It was among the coolest events of its
kind in my memory, despite the fact that Sun is also among those companies
so seriously squeezed by unsavory economic decline that it must lose
head count. We shed 9% of our staff worldwide...the names would be known
the day following that first show, which gave it an even richer flow of
passion, I think. Perhaps to honor those that fell on 9/11, and the impact
on all that would fall later, metaphorically and otherwise...as a consequence
of that day.
While at our Boston campus I had the privilege to attend a memorial
service honoring
Phil Rosenzweig
, a Sun executive who was on AA11, the first hijacked into the WTC. I knew
of Phil, knew him from teleconference calls discussing projects between teams
he led and those of my management in Colorado Springs when I was there,
knew of his work and successes; his products were models for actual market
success in a company that was great at systems and platforms but spotty with
products otherwise. Phil had moxie and his people were loyal; generally signs
of a damn good manager. Phil was the only Sun employee lost on that one
day, despite the fact that Sun had two floors of the first tower...
The "flexible field offices" at the WTC were of little interest to me when
we lived in Manhattan, as I'd come to rely on a web-based interface to
my Sun work after leaving Colorado Springs in August, 1997; returning
to New York City, scene of my misspent youth. I had a terribly cool
cube at One New York Plaza on the 26th floor with a view that overlooked
the Staten Island Ferry building and the Statue of Liberty. The Sun
Sales offices in Manhattan had extra space when I made the move - my
actual group was located in Silicon Valley, but given the charter of the
then nascent Technology Evangelism team, a Manhattan office was of
some geographical benefit. Besides, I was rarely actually in the
office. By the time the sales team moved into the WTC, I didn't
need office space at all...not really. And by then Liz and I married
and I frankly much preferred the benefits of working at home...as did
and does my bride. So I never even chanced to visit the place when
I lived there, thinking I'd catch up with former office mates at some
future juncture. And then the towers fell.
Avel works in the mail room for Sun in New York. At least, that's what
he did when I went into that very cool cube when I did that. I saw him
at the East 53rd Street offices, the CitiCorp Building, where Sun has
offices post 9/11. I saw him on this last trip, when I stopped in Manhattan.
I'd heard Avel had been kind of a hero - running around
the WTC cubes, ensuring everyone got out. I'd heard that about him,
and kind of knew it had to be true because of the very caring guy I
remembered from that office. When I saw him, I was moved and hugged
him there by the elevator. Avel, the receptionist told me later, had done
exactly as I'd heard through the proverbial grapevine (ain't email
great?). Avel was a hero that day...
Speaking of heroes, I saw my best friend in Manhattan as well. My good and
best friend Jer who himself is a hero. He and I have been friends since we
met in 1976 in an acting class at H.B. Studios in Manhattan - 25 years
*(you should know that I have another good and best friend Liz, who also
happens to be my wife, but I think she's in a different category of good and
best friends. As is my son, Dustin Whitney, who is also a good and best friend,
but again, in a different category. I believe there are a number of good and
best friend categories...). My good and best friend Jer is plays a hero and
has done for most of those 25 years and is himself a hero.
Jer is the definitive Spider-man.
It was probably 1977 but it may have been
1978 when I first spotted the ad in Back Stage that had been posted by
Marvel Comics. They were looking for actors to portray some of their
characters at promotional events in shopping malls all over America.
Spider-man and the Incredible Hulk were the two big draws - Marvel
must have had 20 or more actors on the roster, meeting Spider-man personal
appearance demands alone. I became one of those actors for a couple of
years in my youthful thespian phase in Hell's Kitchen, as did my good and best
friend Jer, also of thespian persuasion and actor's ghetto ranks. It was
a paying job that was performance at its core - something rare in a career
field that promises a consistent 95% unemployment rate even during the best
of times. As such, it was hard work to turn down.
But the job description for playing Spider-man has certain implicit
minimum requirements that are clearly difficult to dodge: it's a spandex
thing. Hence, the need to at least appear to be in top physical condition
is boiler plate, with Jer's substance supporting the image more than a bonus
in the long term. Jer has managed, year after year, to both entertain
and inspire, as the best Spider-man ever - from Manhattan - Spidey's actual
home town and the place where the very best actors are made. My good and
best friend Jer is going to retire the webs next week in Portland, Maine,
the state from whence the young man hails; like Liz and yours truly, Jer too
is from a small town in a small state, in a small country, on a small planet.
He grew up dreaming of urban accomplishment and I have seen him accomplish so
very much in the twenty-five years I've known him.
When I brag about my good and best friend Jer, I always mention that he's
met every president since Carter, been to the White House more times
than he can remember, set foot on every continent but one, seen most every
state, served in every shopping mall of significance and has performed live
with mayors, governors, beauty queens and sporting gods. He's given
Spidey a voice against child abuse in many venues, filmed commercials
featuring Spidey in locale's across the globe, and hobnobbed with icons
of industry and myth. And of course, there have been children...thousands
of children, of all ages, races, cultures, religions, languages and styles.
He's probably witnessed every shape and flavor of child our much vibrant species
has yet born and he's loved much of it. And next week, he retires. I hope
next week, when Spidey accepts the key to the city of Portland, Maine, from
its much esteemed mayor, I hope at that moment Spidey deigns to take off
the mask and expose the actor who for so many years has served, heroically
anonymous, defining the role as no other actor.
As a group, the engineers we met in Romania, Warsaw and Krakow were
very bright, young and intellectually hungry...fertile ground for
seeds of belief. Spreading God's word, as it were, was more profound
an experience that it had once been, due in no small part to the
events of 9/11. If there's hope for humanity, it's still in software...
the more software developers I meet, the more I believe that vision,
the more hope I have. Perhaps this too can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If
there's hope for humanity it's in software