We got in touch with my friend Simon yesterday. I've known Simon since 1992 - almost 20 years now. It's been a great friendship because I can talk to him once or twice a year at times and then when we talk next it was like we just chatted yesterday. I was really sad because he had a falling out with the phone company a couple of months ago (ok, well, he kind of disagreed with their billing practices) and I never got his new number (after he swore off cell phones for a while and then got a new one). As Sarah pointed out, it would feel wrong to visit New Mexico and not see Simon. I couldn't agree more.
I only had an old email address and some hope that he'd be watching it. Fortunately, he was, and we talked to him yesterday for a while. It was like old times. He even tried to justify to me that his life was pretty normal. Yeah right.
Sarah pointed out that the very first time she met Simon, he - and the entire kitchen including the ceiling - was covered in hot chocolate from a blender explosion - which he was able to justify was because the hot chocolate he was making was not homogenous enough for his taste and he didn't anticipate thermal expansion when pouring hot fluids into a glass blender and that the O-rings and lid gave way - definitely not his fault!
I also reminded him of being chased by a fire truck and getting mugged in downtown Nashville and his protest of the US Mail system for a few months...and a few others.
In conclusion, I stated that statistically speaking, my data set was both large enough and over a broad enough period of time to justify a pattern of non-normality with very little doubt. Scientific Simon had to agree. We all had a good laugh.
We'll probably get a chance to meet up with him in about a week after we're done with Carlsbad Caverns. Not sure what we'll do - probably some food and some story swapping. We're looking forward to it.
EDIT: Simon called to say that he required a correction. We met in 1992, the year the International Science and Engineering Fair was in Nashville, TN. We both had robotic crane projects, and we met while discussing each other's projects. I've fixed this. Thank you Simon!
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