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.
Panama–California Exposition
Admission for adults was $0.50 ($ today) and $0.25 ($ today) for children. Based on varying sources, the opening day's attendance was between 31,836 and 42,486. By the end of the first month, daily attendance decreased, with an average number of guests at 4,783 a day, which decreased to 4,360 by February. However, in April 1915 it was announced that the expo had already resulted in a $40,000 ($ today) profit for the first three months. By May, the average daily attendance had increased to 5,800 and in July the total attendance had reached a million visitors.
Notable guests of the event include Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Secretary of the Navy, former presidents William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, inventor Thomas Edison, and automobile businessman Henry Ford. The attempt to "put San Diego on the map" with national attention was successful. Even Pennsylvania's Liberty Bell made a brief three-day appearance in November 1915. At the end of 1915, total visitors reached over two million and the expo had turned a small profit of $56,570 ($ today).