Not that unusual?

Was chatting with my seatmate on the flight to Atlanta Sunday. Friendly fellow (it's always easier with an empty seat between), born and raised in North Dakota but now living in Seattle. The interesting thing was that he said he frequently runs into folks from North Dakota -- if I remember correctly, he said there are little things that identify them.

I didn't mention Midland but just filed that little tidbit away. Perhaps if one has one's antennae up one would have similar experiences; perhaps mine is not so unusual.

Two Midlands

Flying home from a four-day conference in Washington D.C., I expected to fly over Midland because my flight connection was in New York, and most flights to or from Newark pass close to Midland. Last night, though, we took a bit more northerly route.

Now I've been on Delta enough lately that their movie and CD selection is no longer interesting, so I just put up "Moving Map" and do something else, like reading a book.

But as we approached Midland I saw something "interesting" (well, not really) -- another Midland, on the other side of Lake Huron. There are many "Midlands" in the U.S., but I'd never heard of this one in Canada. (Sorry for the poor picture quality; it was taken with a cellphone camera that I was struggling to keep still despite turbulence.)

A Midland classmate connection?

I'm in Washington D.C. attending a conference, with a sizable contingent of corporate co-workers most of whom I've never met; I work for a wide-flung corporation.

Chatting with one (she's actually contract PR to our corporation, but...) I met yesterday, I learned that her mother grew up in Midland and she thinks her mother possibly went to Midland High, though it's possible she went to Dow High with something about her being in the first class to attend Dow. That would put her mother one year behind me.

Her mother's maiden name sounds familiar, but I've not turned up anything online. Maybe in the short time I'm home before the next flight out.

Not much more to say

I think this will bring the blog to a close, at least for now. I know somebody or two still visits, because the hit counter continues to rise -- ever so slowly. But I have no new material to add, at least until we start planning a return visit.

That's not likely to happen next year, as it works out. Next year I'm looking at a trip to London for a speaking engagement -- my European manufacturers association wants to have their only native English-speaker (and vice-president) right up front, to the Ruhr valley (location not scenic, according to Kathy) for a technical event and then Rome in September.

The big question was on which trip Kathy would accompany me, London or Rome, but she wants so much for me to see Rome that's where we're gong to take a vacation. It doesn't hurt that she speaks Italian -- and when one of the Italians announced the Rome meeting, he wanted to be certain that I would bring Kathy. (She speaks every one of their languages save only Finnish and SuisseDeutsch or Swiss-German.)

So it looks like we'll be off to Rome and Italy and that will eat up what little time I can spare for a vacation, leaving the rest for the Christmas holidays. (More vacation than I could take this year, though I expect the intensity of the Smart Grid design effort to be backing off by next summer -- after all, the White House wants us to deliver "it" by the end of this year, but that's just not possible. Hopefully we'll roll out "Phase 1," the base elements, next year.)

Midland? Maybe in 2012. I do want to go back, with more time available, and to show Kathy more of Michigan. I got a little reminder today when, going through receipts to file the last two of seven expense reports, I found one from Midland. Though I don't remember eating at that place.

[flashback] We did have breakfast at Big Boy's, probably near the site of an old hotel restaurant I remember from the 60s (both hotel and restaurant gone now) and that's where Kathy remarked on the innate friendliness of Midlanders/Michiganders. [end flashback]

So, though I still think fondly on the old town from time to time, and definitely every time I fly from Seattle to Newark and pass overhead, I really don't have much more to say on this blog for the foreseeable future.

It is said you can't go home again, and I know now just how very true that is. But I had a good visit, 42+ years after I left, and it's my hope to visit again sometime soon, well before the MHS 50th reunion!

So, dear reader(s), I bid you good-bye, adieu, adios, auf weiderbyebye (;^), slàn leibh, ha det and more. At least for now.

I'll be back, sometime. In both senses.

Six degrees of separation?

Wikipedia has an entry for Six degrees of separation. I am beginning to believe that maybe there is something in this.

Earlier this week I flew into Las Vegas to speak at a conference, and the evening before the conference opened I attended a reception for the sponsoring organization's members. Not many were there, maybe 30 or so -- probably because of the thunderstorms that delayed my flight as well as others.

But in short order, chatting with one of the guys I hadn't known before, I soon learned he's from (and still is near) Lansing -- and that he had an uncle who ran a shop in Midland sometime around the time I lived there! What kind of shop, I've forgotten. Not shoe repair, but something with tools...? The conversation went off in other directions and I was pretty tired by then, so I guess I'll never know.