Some Blasts from the Past

with Jamie and Eric

with Rob and Marlene (& Eric & Jamie's baby Lillie)

It's been an interesting week of people activity. I got an e-mail from my friend Eric down in California to inform me that he's now the CFO for Banana Republic and they've moved to San Francisco! Eric and Jamie had been in the L.A.-area a few years as Eric was CFO of Tickets.com. Before that they were in the D.C.-area as Eric was CFO of Choice Hotels. My, that guy gets around. It was great to see both he and Rob last year -- it was a total surprise to see Rob, I had no idea where he was living. When I rang Eric's doorbell, I was shocked beyond belief to see them both standing there! It had been more than 10 years since we'd all been together, and so much has changed since then.

I wrote about the visit on a page in my Geocities site, which I don't really keep up anymore. I've copied the story and pasted it here:

How I met Rob and Eric:

At the end of 1990 I was a Kermit-green 18 years of age and working at Banff Rocky Mountain Resort's sports facilities when I met these two nutters from California, Eric and Rob. In the middle of what was soon to become one of the harshest winters in Banff's history, Eric from L.A. and Rob from Sacramento showed up and settled into a house on the main strip that had no central heating and a landlady named Suki who regaled me with stories from her stint as a bathroom attendant in Italy. Believe me, it was still an upgrade from living in staff accommodation, so I moved in, too! There was also later another housemate, Noel, from Nova Scotia, who thought nothing of answering the door in his underwear and was obviously unfazed by temperatures of -50C (with or without the wind chill factor, it's enough to crack ski boots). That winter for Rob and Eric was legendary. It is just like a fishing story -- the recalled temperatures keep dropping as the years go by. What I can remember distinctly is that Rob and Eric bought space heaters for their rooms, while I toughed it out and slept under the weight of no less than 7 wool blankets. (As a footnote, the house was condemned by the Health Authority and we had to move, but it turned out the town wanted the land to build a clinic. When I visited Banff in September 2000, the lot was still empty. [I was there again November 2002 and February 2003, and it was still empty.])

Fast forward from that crazy winter to the next time I see Rob and Eric together, less than one year later, at the end of 1991, as I am about to head off to Australia with a freshly-purchased airline ticket but no itinerary past the next day. Eric and Rob are living in a house in Redondo Beach, along with an aspiring actor named Craig who is Axel Rose's personal assistant, regaling to their then-girlfriends Jamie and Marlene -- and all other captive audiences -- stories of braving the relentless Arctic Canadian winter...

Fast forward more than 10 years to January 2002: 3 weddings and 4 kids later, Eric, Jamie, Rob (and, later, Marlene) and I are sitting around Eric and Jamie's kitchen, eating brunch and marvelling at the flight of time. Rob and Marlene's two kids are already in primary school, and Eric and Jamie also have a couple of wee ones. Those Banff days seem like lightyears in the past, but that Sunday when I rang Eric's doorbell and the two nutters answered the door, it was like entering a time warp -- they looked exactly the same! Eric and Rob turn 40 this year and say they will write their memoirs. I'm going to read the chapter on "the winter in Banff" with great interest to see how cold it *really* was.

Fedor in Brussels, April 25

I also finally heard from my friend Fedor, a Dutch guy I've known for nearly as long as Rob and Eric but have seen a lot more often on various trips over the years. I saw Fedor briefly in Brussels at the end of April, where he was on a contract for the European Union. I was only in Brussels for the day, since I went to Amsterdam to visit some other friends, and was on my way to Bergamo, Italy, to meet up with the other Chickens -- Iris and Christa, and also my best friend Lucy, her fiance John and her son Joe, who were flying in from England. So we only had time for a beer and some conversation before I had to head off, but it's ALWAYS good to do this, even when the time is short, because you just never know when you're going to see people again.

Now Fedor's on another contract, this time for Mastercard, and he tells me his Thai wife is finally getting her visa to come and stay with him, after being in Thailand for more than a year. Fedor and Da were married in Thailand probably less than two years ago, but because of the visa restrictions and her mother's health, it's difficult for them to be together.

I met Fedor on May 4, 1992, in Australia. I remember that day very clearly. I'd seen a note at the youth hostel in Melbourne that this Scottish guy was going to Sydney in a van and was looking for paying passengers. So I rang this guy, Lachlan, and told him that I wanted to go to Sydney to pick up some stuff and look for work, and we agreed to meet the next day at the youth hostel where he'd left the note. I'd waited and waited and waited, then finally went to the front desk to see if they knew anything about someone waiting for me. Well, Fedor and Lachlan were standing right there, and apparently they were expecting a "Canadian girl," and obviously in their minds that wasn't me!

Fedor had answered Lachlan's ad, too, so the three of us embarked on a journey from Melbourne to Sydney that would normally take 12 hours. We took two weeks.

It was an adventure that sparked even more adventures, which led to other events in my life that would never have happened if I hadn't answered that little ad on a Post-It note square. Some good, some not so good. But never a dull moment.