Visiting Stan Weston in his magnificent  Santa Monica condo overlooking the Pacific Ocean.   
 

I have been searching for Stan Weston, the creator of G.I. Joe, for years. He was our client at HWH PR starting around 1989. He had a licensing company called Leisure Concepts at 1414 Avenue of the Americas. In fact, he was one of the reasons we also moved into that office building and stayed 21 years.  Stan meant a lot to me. He was one of those clients who inspired us to do great work. He remained our cheerleader for a number of years before he decided to make Cap Ferrat in the South of France his new home.  

Eliot and I were lucky to visit him twice while we were on a tour. It was always fun to see Stan in his new environment.Then we lost touch. This summer we visited other friends in the Cap Ferrat area and decided to reconnect with Stan. We were stunned to learn that he was no longer there. 

When I got back home I started to hunt for him. I didn’t really get far, when Leslie Mark Alter, a long time friend, spotted a story about Stan in the New York Daily News. The article covered the fact that Stan never received the proper financial rewards and attribution for the G.I. Joe idea. Hasbro Brothers (then The Hassenfeld Company) bought the idea from Stan for  $100,000 and went on to make billions. 

Stan wants to re-examine the case. I want to help him. I am working on a  high profile campaign right now. This is going to be fun.

The view of the Pacific Ocean from Stan’s apartment.

My camera roll is becoming my go-to source, after Google. I have close to 10,000 photos of stuff I like to reference. Some of them are even pictures of people. However, the biggest growth area are things I question or I want to know more about. For example: 

I keep getting this notice on my laptop. I took a picture of it so I could email it to the tech guy I work with. He told me to check the little box in the corner and the notice would go away forever. It did.

I freaked out a few weeks ago because Maybelline decided to discontinue #60, my 14-hour stay-on lipstick color. I had several friends check their local drugstores. The inventory was depleted. I told my close friends Bonnie and Sara about my dilemma, and they both jumped into action. They found old inventory on several sites including Amazon. I am now a proud hoarder. Thank you, Ladies.

I photo bombed my nephew and nieces’ wedding picture. My cousin Hanna just pointed it out to me. Happy Anniversary Mara and Sam.

The only time I beat Ed. I had to capture it.

A text conversation. I wanted to easily access the information.

My Yizkor list.

Keeping track of what we read.

27 stitches in my leg because of pre–cancerous cells.

20 photos of jewelry.

 
I know, I know. The cloud now knows everything about me. I thought it always did.