Nikel for Your Thoughts

One day in late July, I was halfway through a morning workout at the gym, feeling guilty about all the editing I should be doing and the phone calls I should be making. My thighs burning from the churning of a ridiculously medieval torture machine, I flipped a page in the copy of Business Week I was reading.

Time stood still. Space tilted.

Before me was a full page advertisement for Norilsk Nickel. Aimed at the American stock trading crowd, it was a bright, sky-blue ad that touted – in that understated way typical of such ads – the company’s absolute dominance of its market sector.