Small World and Other Cool Connections

Okay, Rachel. I am definitely outing myself.

Rachel wasn't technically my student but she was in the class right across the hall and her teacher and I were (and still are) best friends. What's more bizarre was it was just the two-year window when I was teaching in TESSERA, the district's gifted program. So that's the only time she and I were at the same school at the same time!

This is such a great question. I always have a hard time tracking down former students, especially the girls who marry and change last names. What a delight it was to connect with Rachel in such a surprising way!

I, too, am interested in others' stories.

Rachel, great subject.

Dirk Farrell is a brand new Biznik member who attended my Happy Hour event this past week. As soon as I saw him there was something remotely familiar about him and when I introduced myself to him it turned out that he is from the same small town in Missouri as my college boyfriend. On top of that he also rode bicycles competitively like my boyfriend and spent summers at the same pool where my boyfriend was lifeguard for 6 summers. I am certain that we crossed paths 20 years ago. Very small world.

This isn't a cool one... But I witnessed a car accident and had to attend court twice with the victim of the crash [as a witness].

I ran into him weeks later when I leaving my dentist appointment [my first time at that clinic]. LOL, I also found out that both of us were losing our jobs; I was quiting and he got laid off.

-Andrey

At last year's BizJam after-party, it turned out one of the people who helps out @ LRS was this girl I had a crush on 13 years ago, but had never met. I saw this girl and kept thinking "Man that looks like.. nah it couldn't be, she lives in California I thought..." That was a rather awesome conversation.

I had a a really unusual experience with Jennifer Mobley (who is now my hairstylist) at a Biznik event this past summer.

A Turkish friend of mine, who is now back in Turkey, was dating a girl named Jen while he and I were hanging out during his stay in Seattle. He talked about her all the time but I never got to meet her.

About 3-4 months after he moved back to Turkey, Jen and I meet at an event and she said something like, "I used to date a Turkish guy who went back to Turkey to do his military service...". I was like, "Oh my God, you're that Jennifer he had been talking about!". From there on we became friends and as a bonus I got to find an amazing hair stylist I can completely trust with my hair.

It IS a small world indeed!

And I love it! :)

OMG, Banu,

I love that story! I just wonder how many times someone has been talking to someone and there's a connection there, but they don't know it. I like thinking about this stuff.

I grew up in Coos Bay Oregon. I had a best friend who was a pastors son. We lost touch about 40 years ago and even though I tried several times to find him, I was unsuccessful. Recently my pastor and I were discussing our childhoods. I mentioned about Roger to him. He said that he know a person with that same name who was a pastor in Southern California. It turned out that it was the same guy.

Not a "long lost" connection, but rather a new one. In attending one of my first Biznik events, I was chatting with the host (Blake Harnick) and learned that he had recently relocated into the area. We narrowed in on where we are both currently living and it turns our we're right down the street from one another. Coincidentally, years ago, we also lived down the street from one another in Los Angeles. Small World.

Four years ago when my first book, "The Savvy Designer's Guide to Success," was published a local writer interviewed me for a newspaper article. I lost touch with Susan Rich, and then "bumped" into her on biznik last week. We're having a coffee date next week.

"Small world" things seem to happen to me quite often. Once, while in the Bay Area, I went to brunch at a restaurant on the water in Tiburon. The waitress was seating a friend and I, and as we walked across the deck to our table three different friends, from different times and cities in my life, all called out my name. It was weird.

I was once on the island of Saba and was the only visitor at a little two-room museum. I heard two other people walk in and go into the other room. A woman came walking through the door into the room I was visiting and asked "Aren't you Jeff Fisher?" I said I was and she told me her husband was in the other room and had recognized me from being my waiter numerous times at a Seattle restaurant.

Most recently, I was in Florence Italy and had just come out of the Duomo. As I walked along looking in shop windows I heard two immediately recognizable voices. I turned around and almost ran into two of my fraternity brothers from college (nearly 30 years ago). They were in Florence for just a few hours on their way to Rome for a business meeting.

There's been many more....

It's crazy Rachel. You know, we had this house in St Louis to sell after my husband moved to Seattle and realized he had to stay here.

I posted a blurb about the house in my Needs section of my profile, and Zam, several folks from my Biznik network popped up to say, "Hey, I'm from St Louis, let me tell my people there about your house for sale."

I don't think I knew anyone from St Louis before I met my husband, and now "EVERYone" is from St Louis, but I wouldn't have known that without my post on Biznik.