Seeing an old friend.

This weekend I had the opportunity to host an old college friend that I have not seen since sometime during my senior year twelve long years ago. He and his brother-in-law flew in from St. Paul, Minnesota on a recon mission. The brother-in-law studied computer animation and is looking to find work in California. Neither knows much about the housing, the jobs or anything else about the West Coast. All they knew was a sister that they had not seen in sometime and one friend who lived in a burb called San Mateo that was very willing to put them up for a few days.

It's quite amazing to catch up with someone you haven't seen in so long. So much is the same, yet so much is different. He's the same guy, but the touch of gray in his beard is a little shocking. The daughter he talks about all the time is wonderful, but it's nothing like the music and records that we used to talk about over gallons of beer. It's good to see that he's doing well. He's the systems administrator for a charter school out in St. Paul. And we tried to help his mission as much as we could. We hooked him up with a computer animator guy who works in video games. We took them out to sample our cuisine. We talked to them about living expenses, public transportation, and anything else we could think of that might be useful. But they only gave themselves 5 days in California to find a place and try and get settled. They flew into San Francisco, but they're already on their LA leg of this trip. I wish them the best of luck on their journey.