Colin Hall - Taking Time Off

Many people took time off from their busy lives to help us complete this book. To begin with, we would like to give a special thanks to Joel Zemans. When we came to him in the fall of 1993, our enthusiasm for this book was our only collateral. Joel gave us a loan anyway, and his generosity enabled us to travel around the country to conduct our interviews.

Early on, Elisa Tamarkin and Kim Townsend convinced us that a book proposal was not the same thing as a five-paragraph essay. Ben Lieber and Susan Little dispensed excellent advice on what a book like this should include. Mary Berger and Norman Newell gave us valuable advice on self-publishing. We must also thank Michael Lee Cohen, Ted Conover, and Chris Ogden, who convinced us that we needed an agent and helped us find one.

We owe appreciation to Mike DeBeer, whose computer expertise enabled us to flood the Internet with our request for stories from people who had taken time off. When we hit the road to start tracking people down in person, a number of people put us up or put up with us. Thanks to David Korduner and Joan Krimston, Josh and Celine Krimston, Fran and Monte Krimston, the Quezadas and the Steeles, and Christina Hall and Peter Wald. We are also grateful to the people at Jenner & Block, especially Sharon Webb and Joan Gill, who helped us in innumerable ways while we were completing the manuscript. Carrie Bader, Mandy Field, Erin Kaufman, Jennifer Mattson, Sarah Nasonchuk, and Ilya Somin all noticed mistakes in the manuscript that had eluded us. When our General Resources section needed a third set of eyes, Barbara Messing stepped in and brought it to a whole new level.

Colin: I would especially like to thank my mother, Joan Hall, who provides me with constant support and encouragement in everything that I do. Her parents, Warren and Delia McClurg, always kept a map of the world tacked to the wall in their home. They would stick colored pins in one country after another every time they received a postcard or phone call from one of their children or grandchildren who were working or traveling or studying abroad. I cant send my grandparents postcards anymore, but I hope they know what a great impact they have had on everyone in our family.

George Cotsirilos and his family have brought my mother and the rest of our family many years of love and happiness and Greek food for which we are all very grateful. I am glad Christina Hall and Peter Wald will have a chance to share a new and improved version of this book with Gideon, Elias, and Cassidy. Along with Lynn Hall, they have made San Francisco feel like home. Jim and Lori McClurg make Nebraska feel like home and always give me the best advice. My brother Justin is the real writer in the family, and I am so proud of the person he has become. I also feel lucky to have such good friends from my time at Francis W. Parker, Amherst, Morgan Stanley, Rhne, and Stanford.

Ron: A special tip of the cap to Terry Allen, who opened the pages of Amherst magazine to me. Im also grateful to Ann Jones, who encouraged me to take my work to an even wider audience, and to Stan Moulton and Debra Scherban, who gave me some terrific opportunities at the Daily Hampshire Gazette. I wouldnt be where I am today without the help of some of the world-class editors Ive met since, at Lawyers Weekly USA, Fortune, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal. Thanks especially to Edward Felsenthal and Eben Shapiro at The Journal, who saw through my haphazard thicket of journalistic interests (like this one) and gave me a shot on the Personal Journal team.

Neither of us would be where we are today without our teachers at the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago. During our fourteen years there, they promoted a vision of an education that extended beyond the four walls of the classroom. We hope the spirit behind Parkers progressive education is reflected in the stories we have collected for this book. In particular, we owe appreciation to Harriett Cholden, John Cotton, Barnaby Dinges, Joel Dure, Bill Duffy, Diane Fitzgerald, Dan Frank, Dren Geer, Karen Harrison, Andy Kaplan, Connie Kelly, Bernard Markwell, Pat McHale, Bob Merrick, Bonnie Seebold, Marie Stone, and Roger Wallenstein.

We have many friends in common whose support and encouragement we would like to recognize. Kate Alberg, Josh Anderson, Christine Bader, Matt Brown, the Buchanan family, Steve Burwell, Megan Carr, Derek Coppoletti, Katerina Christopoulos, Al Decker, Phil Dur, Jim Feldman, Rachel Gordon, Tom Goundrey, Doug Guthrie, Kim Kamin, Eric Klinenberg, Seoni Llanes, Melanie Nutter, Mike Ogden, Agnieszka Pfeiffer, Audrey Prins-Patt, Jeff Posternak, Marc Saiontz, Meghan Searl, Matt Siegel, Owen Steams, Andrew Sweet, Graham Weaver, Deborah Wexler, Eric Wilmes, Charlie Yoon, and Nick Zerbib have all given us immeasurable support throughout this project.

When we first called Anne Edelstein, she had recently become a mother for the first time. We asked her to adopt us, she agreed, and having her as our agent was invaluable. This never would have happened without her. Thanks also to the gang at Farrar, Straus & Giroux for giving a couple of unknown kids their first crack at the book world. We were thrilled to meet John Katzman in 1996, for we had a hunch that his brand of iconoclasm would mesh well with our punk approach to the college matriculation process. He kept his word to publish our book anytime anywhere, and seven years later here we are. Thanks for giving us a new home, John. The pirates on Johns ship at The Princeton Review, Rob Franek and Erik Olson, have been smart, savvy, and thankfully forgiving with deadlines. Plus, they were kind enough to match us up with the amazing Nathan Firer, who did great things with a hopelessly out-of-date General Resources section. Well save him from law school yet. Thanks to the shrewd, sincere, and enthusiastic Random House duo of Tom Russell and Jeanne Krier for spearheading our publicity efforts. Were thrilled to be in such able hands. Also, thanks be to Christy Fletcher, Rons new agent, who was a rock throughout a truly unbelievable 2001.