Gold Nuggets

I work with the public for the majority of my work week. Like anything else, it's a mixed bag of great people with a few rotten apples. I meet people with all the resources at their fingertips and those with no access to resources at all. I interact with the very very old and the very very young and everyone in between every day. I meet some crazy loons and some brilliant minds (and sometimes they're the same people).  And what I've started taking away from all this is that when I meet great people I should try to actually be around them from time to time.

Last night as I was driving home from work, I saw my neighbor in his driveway and so I stopped and rolled down the window. We chatted for a bit and I told him I was all excited about this Can record, Ege Bamyasi (1972), that I'd finally broken through with, so I played him a bit of a track. He said, "Hey want to check out these speakers I just built?" Well, yeah!

So I went inside and he played me three songs in this acoustically perfect arrangement, with an armchair at the center and these warm, clarion speakers. I heard "Walk on the Wild Side", Johnny Cash's version of U2's "One", and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" as if the bands were playing right in that room.

Great Experience.

Then this morning on my way out to my trail run, I saw a different neighbor that I'd talked bikes with last night when I was at work, and he invited me to try riding around on this fat tire, Salsa Mukluk which was a blast, and then he showed me this sweet fixie he'd built up.

Not his Mukluk, but very similar.  HUGE tires

These little 10 minute experiences were nuggets of personal gold where cool, smart people that live in my neighborhood decided to open their craft up to me for a spell, both times because I saw them outside, so I rolled down my window and stopped to actually say hello. As much as I love my alone time running and riding in the woods, it partially helps me appreciate the people time too.