I am constantly amazed by the generosity, talent and work ethic of the people I meet

The NDAC is launching a portfolio program. Next. It's targeted at young guns. Copywriters and art directors who want to improve their book and their network. Jennifer Hohn and I volunteered to brand the program. We went through concepts. Laughed a lot. Wrote some scripts. When Brian asked me if I could guarantee that I could get the stuff produced, I said yes. But I was totally lying. I mean, who was going to make our ideas come to life?

I should have had more faith.

Soon Jim Elkin of Roshambo Films was producing and directing our videos for the club's YouTube page. (The first will be posted Monday.) Radical was getting us three great actors and Idolum was donating editing time. (And incidentally, Tom also offered to help out.)

David Mejias was shooting the poster campaign, with XYZ doing the retouching and Tewell Warren printing.

Justin McCammon and Taylor Beseda got all digital on the idea, with elements like the @nextcreatives smackdowns, nextcreatives.com, and a collaboration with Burns on a soon-to-be-released Facebook app.

And Gregg Bergan, Norm Shearer, Mike Sukle and Jonathan Schoenberg offered to donate their time to mold the next generation of Denver creatives.

Every single person I just mentioned has a crazy-stressful job and a loving family and who knows what else might be going on in their lives. But every single one of them believes that Next will help the career of a young creative who is just burning to be great. Every single one of them wants to make Denver a better market. Every single one of them deserves a giant round of applause. This is a good business we're in. And it's filled with good people. Believe it.

Gypsies do not like to stay. They only come to go away.

Advertising can take you to some pretty amazing places. Cocoa Beach. Manhattan. Santa Monica. It can also take you to Tulsa or Reno or Boise or Omaha or Louisville. Places that are, in a less obvious way, also pretty amazing.

It can take you to just outside of Tampa, where you spend your weekend shooting film because there's a tree there that looks like maybe it could be a tree anywhere in America, and that's just the sort of tree you need.

You visit these amazing places with equally amazing people. Smart, talented people who say funny things at odd times.

• "I'm all about making ads that make people feel like hugging people."

• "You know how every party ends up in the kitchen? Every shoot ends up at the craft service table."

• "Drinking is part of your job. It's time for you to be good at your job."

• "It's not a moral victory. It's a victory victory."

And when you're done shooting film at that tree in Tampa, the dozens of amazing people you have spent the last four days with pack up their cameras and their telescoping arms and their laptops and they disappear back to wherever it was that they came from. And you miss them all so much. But if they were the type that stayed, they wouldn't be advertising people and maybe you wouldn't miss them at all.

This is a good business we're in. Yes it is.

[Ed. - The title of this post comes from Madeline and the Gypsies by Ludwig Bemelmans. See photos of the trip on Flickr.]

McDonald's shoot with Jay Cutler

I grew up in Colorado. Which means I grew up wanting to be the quarterback of the Denver Broncos. But I didn't grow up as big or as fast as maybe I'd have liked. So instead, I'm a copywriter at Karsh\Hagan. And the Broncos are led by Jay Cutler.

I spent most of today at Invesco Field at Mile High, shooting a TV spot with Cutler. He is cool and humble and surprisingly funny. The spot was directed by Jordan Brady. Who is cool and humble and extremely funny.

Over the past few months, there have been a lot of frustrations and late nights. But spending the occasional Tuesday like this, in the company of the most talented group of people you'd ever want to meet, reminds me that this is a good business we're in.

"This is a good business we're in."

That's something Monty said to me once. And I remembered his words on this sunrise shoot in the middle of the Nevada desert.

Sure I'd gotten up at 4 a.m. and was freezing my butt off. But so what? Just look at that sky.