The Land of Oz

Most of you know that I went to college (or 'university' for the folks from outside of the States) at the State University of New York – College at Oswego. It was in upstate New York, so you can guarantee that it was cold, windy and snowy for most of the school year unlike where Marc went to college – University of California at Santa Barbara – where sun was the prevailing weather influence. I graduated back in 1993, and this past weekend, a few of us from our group of friends had a mini-reunion of sorts on Long Island while I was visiting the clan.

Now considering that of the 4 of us who saw each other on Saturday that 1 person lives in Ireland, 1 person lives in North Carolina, 1 person actually still lives in Long Island and I live in Seattle, this is quite a feat. Karen (North Carolina) and her husband, Mart, just had a beautiful baby girl named Gianna; they had the christening on Long Island this past weekend since that is where Karen and Mart are from. Theresa (Ireland) was in the NY area because her family was celebrating her grandmother's 90^th birthday – very cool. Michele (Long Island) was in attendance and it was great to see her since she and her husband are expecting their first child in late summer – see picture to the right. So the stars were aligning based on my previously scheduled trip into town. All good.

I saw Michele and Bernie (her husband) back in February, but had not seen Karen or Theresa since 2000. Long time. Everyone pretty much looked the same, and Theresa now has 2 kids (Alex and Harry) with her husband Tom – pictured to the left I was able to see Karen and Mart, and chat with them for a bit. Karen's dad still wanted to talk about the financial markets after all of these years. Whenever I would stop by to pick up Karen before we would head out to some "classy establishment" such as "The Park Bench" in Stony Brook (now closed down), he would always want to talk about the markets since I was working at Morgan Stanley at the time.

One note – Theresa and I were roommates for a bit back in college (see right for a picture of the two of us). She is still the same as when I talked to her over the phone for the first time back in 1991. Theresa still has all of that of exuberance and charm. Karen always said that Theresa could sell someone the Brooklyn Bridge and I have no doubt that is still the case. Seems like she still moves at 1000 miles/hour. Her kids are great and seem to smile all of the time (except maybe on 7 hour plane rides from Europe).

It was good to see everyone but unfortunately it was only for a couple of hours so no true reminiscing happened while I was in attendance. That, of course, may have changed once I left. J One of the gents took a nice picture of the 4 of us – see below.