Yesterday I saw my friend Nick for the first time in years. We used to work together in Mountain View, but I moved to New York and he moved to Washington State, and since then we've only been sporadically in contact. He's by far the funniest person I've ever known; and even including professional comedians he's one of the funniest people I've ever seen. His humor is largely sarcastic, and involves an ongoing series of invented scenarios that play off of whatever is happening in front of him. He also laughs at his own jokes, which some of our coworkers found annoying, but which I find endearing and infectious. His laugh reminds me of the Mozart character in the film 'Amadeus'.
He's also one of the freakishly intelligent people that were all over the place at Google when I was there, and from whom I learned a lot of humility. As a child in Michigan, his teachers quickly realized that he was beyond anything they'd seen before or were likely to see again, and arranged special curricula for him that allowed him to thrive.
It was great seeing him again. Apparently we had a conversation way back in 2007 in which I convinced him to try vegetarianism, and he's been vegetarian ever since. It must have been one of the last times we hung out, because I moved to New York in 2007, and never really experienced him eating vegetarian food. So it was really weird to meet up with him and learn that we'd need to find a vegetarian restaurant - and that I was responsible for that situation! Not that I minded. I love Herbivore in San Francisco, and we had a fun adventure trying to get there after both of us had spent so much time out of the city. We missed many turns, and got off on strange San Franciscan byways before we finally hit Valencia Street.
He also brought some of his favorite tea to share, and before we left Kar and James's house we brewed some up. He insisted on letting the water drop to 210 degrees before pouring into the tea; and then he brewed it for three and a half minutes; and afterwards he remarked that it had been over brewed. I think it was my first experience with someone taking such care over a cup of tea. Usually I drop my Earl Grey tea bag into water that is still boiling, or that's even been superheated in the microwave; and steep it until the water is black and bitter. Yum!
We caught up on a lot of old times, though not in nearly enough detail. I heard some news about his wife Laura and their five kids, and the pets and the house.
Eventually we got onto politics, and that became the topic for about two hours, until he finally had to leave at around 11:00. Kar and James had long since gone to bed. During the discussion I tried to put forward the idea that instead of innovation coming dubiously from the motivation of corporate greed, it should come from the institutions of education. At one point I remarked that education should be the focus of society, while everything else - short of basic comforts and survival - should be secondary. It was the first time I'd really formulated the idea in my head, that education should be the focus of society, rather than just a right of citizens. but it's true.
He didn't disagree, though he played devil's advocate a bit. Nick and I are fairly aligned in our political beliefs. It was a fun conversation. Much more fun than the times I have to try to convince libertarians that yes, in fact people other than themselves do matter, and that massive death is not a very good market correction.
It's really lucky he's in town at the same time I am. When I told him I was going to be in SF, he said something like, "maybe I should make a special visit down there." I figured he was kidding, but here he is! We're scheduled to hang out again on Tuesday, and I hope that pans out. I've missed him a lot.
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