"No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." This quote, taken from 17th Century poet, John Donne's, "Devotion Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII," implies that regardless of how things might look or seem on the surface, all of us are members of a team in some way shape or form...
Each month, I do my part for our magazine from Southern California, while the rest of the 5.0 Mustang and Super Fords operation gets it done in Tampa, Florida. While I truly relish my independent setup (I like to say that I "work well without supervision"), one of the things that really keeps me going every day (especially on those days when things aren't going too well for whatever reason) is knowing that I actually don't work "by myself" at all; there are editors (Big Steve and Associate Editor Mike Johnson) production staff (Rebecca, Angie, Ship and others), sales people (Glen Castle, Rob Spina, Wendy Turner) and publishers (Don Parrish and Joe Galloway) back at our Florida headquarters who are on my team, and together--as the "continent" John speaks of--we put together a Mustang enthusiasts' magazine that I think is second to none! In trying to further establish a routine of posting "lighter-side" Blogs at least once each week, I'm posting a few images that give you a look at "my space" at 5.0, literally. Contrary to what you might think, I don't have a corner office with an assistant who takes my messages and brings me fresh Starbuck's drinks or anything like that. I have a small cube space on the 8th Floor of Source Interlink Media's Los Angeles office, which is located a block East of ultra-swank Beverly Hills. I share the floor with editors from Hot Rod, Car Craft and Brand-X (Chevy) High Performance magazines, and a bunch of sales people who support almost all of the different mags in our company's Performance Automotive Group. Every once in a while when I arrive on the 8th floor and enter my little cube to start writing a story or making calls to manufacturers and such, I oftentimes hear cats from other magazines or the sales crew interacting and working together. When your teammates are only available at the other end of a phone or by e-mail, hearing this type of interaction really can make you feel like you really are on some sort of island sometimes. But, like I said earlier, even though I go it alone here in Cali, my efforts are combined with those of the folks in Tampa and together we achieve the greater good...another killer issue of the magazine that I hope all of you fellow 'Stangbangers enjoy reading every month! So, while I give you this little look at my world here with these pictures, I also want to say "thanks" to my teammates in Sunny Florida, for all your help. It really does make being alone a lot easier. The September '08 issue should be reaching your mailboxes in the next few days (if it hasn't already). Time for you to log off the computer and start reading the real mag!
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