One of my favorite comic strips (okay, so its my only comic strip) is Dilbert. As Dilbert readers will know during the week there is usually a continous theme to the strips. This last week (and apparently for the next week too) he's been doing the Dilbert equivalent of "Too Much Coffee Man" who is another comic hero that I briefly got into (I have a TMCM mug and used to have a T-shirt as well). I'm not a big comic or cartoon fan, but I knew a friend of the TMCM creator and as people who know me know, I have a strange ability to suck down too much coffee at all hours of the day. Mmmmm, coffee.

Some people see coincidences as more miraculous than they are. I say take 6 billion people, shake-em all up and let them rip for 70 years or so and they well see coincidences a plenty, more than there are constellations in the sky.

So today (well yesterday and today) I flew from San Francisco to Chicago and then to London and met up with some old friends in London tonight for dinner.

Coincidence number 1 - my seat neighbor from Chicago to London was a young woman on route to Beirut (that's Lebanon folks). She'd never been there but was meeting someone who was flying in from Saudi Arabi there. So guess what kind of restaurant my friends in London had arranged for us to go to? That's right, Lebanese - I've never been to a Lebanese restaurant but it was pretty tasty. As Ben would say "I'm only here for the burned meat" and really can't go wrong with burned lamb. Mmmm.

Coincidence number 2 - my Beirut bound seat neighbor happened to have started her journey in Madison Wisconsin where she lives, and Madison is also where my dos amigos Erin and Dave hail from. And of course they also just happen to have moved to Chicago which is where that leg of my flight started.

Coincidence number 3 - sitting at SFO the gate next to mine had a last boarding call for passenger Colin Smith which is the name of someone I once worked with at a former company. Mr Smith never showed up but at dinner with my friends who were also from that company his name came up randomly. I haven't seen Colin in years, I think he's at Google now - sure would be nice to hear from him.

Coincidence number 4 - traveling from SFO to Chicago my seat neighbor was a former Vietnam vet who spent his time taking photos hanging from helicopters, in observation planes etc. He is now a consultant specializing in teleprescence and autonomous systems, something me and my business partner are both interested in. After further discussion we turned out to have a lot of interests in common - when someone can list a bunch of pretty obscure books and you've read them all you know there has to be some commonality to explore.

Coincidence number 5 - okay this is kind of weak but as you may of noticed I managed to find out a bunch of stuff about my seat neighbors. I usually try to bury my head in a book or put on the 'phones and tune out the world. Probably the last time I ever talked much to a seat neighbor was a guy who noticed I was reading a book on religion and proceeded to try and proselytize about his particular religion for the next two hours, hence the headphones. However this time I feel I lucked out sitting next to not one but two interesting people with something to say, dare I say - "It sure made the time fly" ???

Yesterday and last night we had our first rain in a long time. I went and checked - not a drop has fallen since May 21st, that's pretty much four and a half months without rain. Even then it was less than a half an inch for all of may - you have to go back to April to find any real rain.

I must say it was quite refreshing, and I was out in San Francisco coming home as it really got started, the streets were pretty deserted and a lot of folks were scurrying around because they were completely unprepared. It doesn't rain here just long enough that you really get used to it and when it comes it is a surprise, even if they tell you before hand. This morning the sidewalks are cleaner, my car is cleaner (but you probably wouldn't notice) and the air is cleaner - big booming cumulus clouds indicate the skies are sucking moisture up into the sky everywhere.

I've heard there was snow abot 8,000 ft in the Sierras - time to start thinking about the snowboarding season....

Some of you may have read about the Boeing 737 that went down Sunday in Brazil with 155 lives lost. What was amazing was that the reason the plane went down was rapidly discovered - it had been in a mid-air collision with a diminutive executive jet, that sustained damage but managed to land with all seven on board safe and sound. Even more amazing was that a New York Times journalist was on board and his story is now online Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living. I have to admit a mid-air is not something I ever worry about when flying, at least not in commercial planes.

I'm sure if there was a guy alive today like the biblically portrayed character of Jesus then he would have a blog because you know he would have to speak the language of the people to get his message across (and maybe do a bit of spamming bulk mail too). On his blog he would probably relate every day things to some eternal after life to help everyday Homo erectus get a grasp on the concept. Apropos this and my experience of flying this weekend I feel sure that Jesus on his travels would surely one day blog something like this:

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a traveler to enter the airline security zone.