Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" was delivered on September 18, 2007, at Carnegie Mellon University's McConomy Auditorium. Over 450 Carnegie Mellon students, staff members, and friends of Pausch attended the lecture, leaving only standing room as this was more than the auditorium could hold. Pausch later commented about this in an interview, saying "A couple of hundred people in a room, looking and listening and laughing and applauding – hopefully at the appropriate times – that gives a lot of validation to my kids that a lot of people believe in this, and a lot of people who knew me believe that I did my best to try to live this way." The first introduction of the speech as well as the series of lectures was given by Indira Nair, the Vice Provost for Education at Carnegie Mellon. Nair first explained the university's aforementioned lecture series called "Journeys", in which eight more professors from Carnegie Mellon would share their insights on their professional and personal experiences over the years.
2020 Vision Quest
2020 Vision Quest is a non-profit organization founded by Randy Pierce of Nashua, New Hampshire, in the United States. Pierce is a totally blind man who planned to earn certification from the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) for climbing all 48 of the state's mountains over 4000 feet tall by the year 2020. Pierce completed his goal in August 2013, and was led on the trail by his guide dog Quinn, a yellow Labrador retriever, also called "The Mighty Quinn" by Pierce in appreciation of the dog's remarkable zest for mountaineering.