the rich and famous

With all the Olympics hub-bub I need to share my connection with Michael Phelps. Well, it's not like I ever met him or anything, but I do consider us "connected." He's from Maryland, as am I, and per my mom, who is super observant and always passes on great local gossip, he has a number of friends at Salisbury University, the university in my hometown (where I took swimming lessons for many years, in fact).

Anyway, one fine day a couple years ago, post-Athens, I believe, he was stopped/arrested/charged/I don't know what they call it for drunk driving in Salisbury. As part of his restitution, he had to go speak at the local high schools about driving responsibly. I don't think it's admirable that he was driving drunk per se (especially since he was only 19!!), but I am glad he was fully cooperative, took responsibility for his actions, and then used his fame and prominence to educate people.

There was a great op-ed in the Seattle Times yesterday about the whole John Edwards thing. It's like, people, the world is watching you. DON'T SCREW STUFF UP! If you want to be president, prove to America that you can put the needs and happiness of someone else (your wife who is battling cancer, your children) above your own, which would make us at least partially believe you could put America's needs and happiness above your own. But he didn't do that.

But that isn't what I wanted to blog about. I wanted to blog about my brushes with famous people. I have met a few famous people personally:

• Homer Hickam, the author of Rocket Boys, the book October Sky was based on, who was portrayed in the movie by the super hottie Jake Gyllenhall. He wrote another book and came to BYU on a publicity tour. Very very cool to meet him.
• Brett Scallions, the super hottie former lead singer for Fuel. I won backstage tickets to their concert in Salt Lake in 2002, and it was totally awesome.
• Eve 6, one of the coolest bands ever. I met Max and Jon, not Tony, after a gig in Salt Lake. Since I'm obssessed with them, it was most cool.
• Jimmy Shea, USA gold medalist. I volunteered at the 2002 Salt Lake games in a journalism/PR capacity. My claim to fame was when I covered the skeleton competition. After Jimmy Shea won the gold medal, I had to take a vanpool to another part of the park. It just happened to be the same vanpool as Jimmy Shea and his entire family. I think his mom was there. So me, another volunteer, and Jimmy Shea and a half-dozen of his family members just chilled after he won gold.
• Jon Heder, aka Napolean Dynamite. He took classes for his film/animation degree at BYU in the same building as my communications classes, the Harris Fine Arts Center (or HFAC, which Shane refers to as "Hamburger Flippers After College). I saw him in a few short films he did at BYU, and saw him the hallway all the time. Once I complimented him on one of the short films I saw, and he said thanks. Everyone at BYU is so friendly. No biggie to speak to the future Napolean Dynamite!

Those are the only famous people who I have met personally. Now, through one or two degrees of separation, here are some other famous people I'm connected to:

• Shanester served his mission for the Church in Ventura, California. Marie Osmond, a famous Mormon, was in one of the wards he served in. One day he was watching General Conference at someone's house and she came over. Very cool.
• I have a bunch of Seattle friends who have run into famous Northwesterners, namely Tom Skerrit, Dave Matthews (as in the band!; he lives in Wallingford!), and the late Layne Staley of Alice in Chains. I don't know anyone who knew Kurt Cobain, though.
• The COO of my company once sat by former President Gerald Ford in first class on an airplane.
• Once this developer in Chicago wanted to build the tallest building in the country. It looked like a huge birthday candle; they were calling it the Chicago Spire. Word on the street was Donald Trump was upset about it. One of my bosses at my job was Chairman of this international tall buildings organization (they dictate the standards of what makes the tallest building the tallest and they declare what the tallest building is), and he decided he wanted to talk to Donald Trump. So, I had to get The Donald on the phone. I called the Trump organization in New York, gave my story to three or four people, and finally got to Rhoda, from The Apprentice (which I acutally don't watch). She told me she'd interrupt Donald's meeting and get him on the phone. I felt pretty special. So yeah, my boss and Donald chatted it up for awhile. He said Donald talked very very fast.
• Also, work-related, my company does a lot of work with hot shot architects. Brad Pitt is totally into architecture and has met with a couple of the architects we work with. One of them came to our office once, and I shook his hand. I shook the hand of a man who shook the hand of Brad Pitt.

This is the image that was in People magazine. The guy right under the "oop," in the black shirt, I've shaken his hand.

I just realized I've been talking about Brad Pitt a lot lately. I haven't even seen that many of his movies.

OK that's all for now. If I think of more I'll do a new post. I've totally got stuff to do while baby is napping! Leave a comment if you have met anyone famous, or spyed them at the county fair or the zoo or what. I'd love to know!