Haven't I seen you on E! ?

I think I may be one of the few correspondents here without a family, college, or other long-term connection (so thank you for the invite Teresa), but we did spend half a lifetime together a couple of years ago working on a particularly challenging and emotionally draining project at Cisco - a unique bonding-in-adversity experience that I like to think forged the basis a lasting friendship. You certainly helped get me through it with some much needed camaraderie, incisive second opinion and black humor, and I hope I managed to recoprocate a little with your ongoing head-debate about “what to do” (hey don't blame me, I warned you but did you listen noooo..)

Of course this also means that I don’t have a fund of embarrassing photographs or informed experience regarding your body hair, although I did come up with something eerily equivalent along the thread of “Who does Sam remind me of?”. This may be a Brit-only thing, but see if you agree:




Surely not a bad likeness to have, considering Mr. Williams is officially the most successful performer in Brit-pop history, and now lives in LA on his $20M fortune with various addictions and idiosyncrasies..


Anyway I would like to offer my sincere sympathies and congratulations on your reaching the ripe old age of 40, and hope you achieve all that you wish for in the next 40 (whatever that finally turns out to be :-). You are one of the most erudite, intelligent, witty and candid people I know (“too many notes, Mozart!”), and I hope we can swap war stories for the foreseeable future. Oh, and I’ll be tapping you for a favorable review comment when I finally write that book :-)

Best wishes
PL