First time in a Caribou Coffee, and I get what everyone had told me. Impressive! I caught up with my friend, Bob, who works at NASA. If you've ever ordered a photo from NASA, chances are Bob is the guy who got it for you. He is responsible for scanning and compiling all of the shots that come in from satellites, the Hubble Telescope, Mars landers - you name it. I went down and had lunch with him a while ago, and he took me on a personal tour. It was a few years ago, and the still had a room full of Cray supercomputers. It was pretty wild seeing them! He also showed me the vault, where all of the archived film is kept. It was pretty amazing to be able to touch the film canisters that held the movies from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space missions. I was right there, in a small way, with history. Bob is a guy that's been in my life since 2000, and he went out of his way - in every way - to be a friend to me and my family. He set me up with my first Mac, and iBook G3, and stuck his neck waaaaaay out to back my plays when I was trying some risky stuff to connect with the community that a lot of other people weren't seeing the value of doing. He moved to southern Delaware a few years ago - I tried to selfishly (I admit it!) talk him out of it, but it definitely ended up being a great move for him, and he plugged in right away and started backing another guy who was taking risks down there. He has a killer commute from there to Greenbelt where NASA is, and he's pared it down so he doesn't have to come over every day. He made the trip Wednesday all the way over here to catch lunch and have coffee with me! You know how you hear about people who have people in their lives that they would literally trust with their lives, and the lives of their family members? Here's one of the very few of mine. I hope you have a Bob in your life - and that you're a Bob for someone else, too. Cheers, with my Dragonfire green tea! Caribou Coffee, Rt 3, The Village at Waugh Chapel near Crofton, Maryland

enjoying a post-race coffee at Caribou Coffee with my sisters (one was acting poopy that day...); my favorite part: the bear ottoman