Flights of Fancy

I meant to post this yesterday, but a bit of alcohol and all I wanted to think about was sleep.

I went to Cornell to do some recruiting. As usual, any university that's notable constantly builds new buildings. They built "Duffield" Hall, which sits in front of Phillips, which is the electrical engineering building. It effectively merges the building with other parts.

The result is that there is a wide open area at the bottom, and you can stare four or five floors up. This seems like a common theme for buildings. I was at the University of Illinois and the University of Washington, Seattle, and both computer science buildings create this open interior space.

The weather was perfectly miserable too. I can blame Hurricane Wilma, I suppose, but really, it's just typical Ithaca weather. Rainy and cold. All day long.

However, one plus was staying at the Statler Hotel. They should work out a deal where you get one day to stay at the hotel when you're a student. You might use this to arrange a special date, or something. In any case, it's a nice hotel, despite the fact that they forgot to return my on-flight pillow, which I spent way too much on. I need to call them about that.

Let me fast forward, past the cancelled flight to Philly, past the flight in a small noisy turboprop to Laguardia, and onto a huge plane to DC National. This plane should seat maybe 100 people. We had all of 15 on the flight. This one Latina girl was being particularly friendly, talking to people around her.

She insisted on finding out the middle name of a guy seated near her. He said she'd never find out. She said she'd tell him her middle name. Her first name was Alejandra, at least, I'm guessing that's how it's spelled. She asked him to guess her middle name. She only told him it was a male name and it started with "J". He wasn't able to guess, and so she told him, which means she told the entire plane.

Jorge. That's Hor-Hay. Her dad's name was Jorge, and so her middle name was Jorge.

Now she wanted to know his middle name. He said he wasn't going to tell. But she said hers, she pouted. OK, here's a hint: it's Scandanavian. So she guessed something like Bjornstromson or something atrociously long, and he said it was close. She made another guess that sounded more German than Scandanavian. He said it started with an "S" but was a last name.

Of course, I'm having fun, so I guess "Sven". He said, close, but it's a last name, so I guessed "Svensson", and he said that was right. So, eventually, she did find out his middle name. Michael Svensson.

He fit the look of some American with Scandanavian heritage. Tall and blond. He was there with a female companion that looked part Asian.

As it turned out, we got on the Metro, me, the guy I went to Cornell with, Michael Svensson and his female companion.

Normally, you don't get wacky (yet harmless) behavior on a plane. But when a plane is 70% empty, it seems the thing to do.

And naturally, my thought was---I need to blog this.

So Alejandra Jorge and Michael Svensson, you've been blogged.