It's that time of year again. While growing up with all of my friends getting presents on Christmas, and meeting my fellow Jews (and my Chinese friends) for a Chinatown meal and a movie, 8 days of presents during Hanukkah was my revenge. So what if they weren't huge gifts - THERE WERE 8 OF THEM! I'm over that now, but every year during Hanukkah I think of this Adam Sandler song, which he wrote back when he was funny (sorry dude, but the schticks that worked on a Saturday Night Live sketch don't work for 90 minutes).
I'm bad with dates. Not all dates, but birthdays have always been a bit of a problem. Strange, because I can still remember the home phone numbers of a lot of my childhood friends (no, they don't live at home anymore), Dave's city and state times in the 100 back, and countless other useless digits.
So what is it about birthdays? Who knows, but I need to start writing these things down!
Saw an old friend last week at a meeting in San Diego. 'Young Jay' and I overlapped in the lab in London for my first year, before heading off to Yale for his postdoc. Before moving to the States I asked Jay if he would get a driver's license, since he hadn't bothered to get one while a University student in London. After over 4 years in New Haven, Jay still doesn't have a driver's license. He is, however, getting plenty of driving practice...
One of the nicest things about this career path is although you wind up living far away from friends you've made in grad school or during a postdoc, you're likely to run into them at meetings (in nice locations). Young J (who isn't as young as he used to be) overlapped with me in London before heading to Yale for his postdoc. Tomorrow he's giving a talk... my how he's grown...
Sitting in JFK waiting for my flight to San Diego, and my first time on Jet Blue, a low-cost airline that was founded in early 2000, but really became popular while I was living in London.
That's what the passengers of an American Airline flight were wondering Monday morning, and that was enough to force the pilot to make an emergency landing in Nashville. Turns out something was burning - the matches a lady struck to try to conceal the smell of her 'flatulence'.
Question is, what would have happened if the lady had NOT lit the matches?
