Tim Jarrett

The last time I saw Tim, I called him collect from a gas station outside of Boston because I’d locked my keys in my car. I never do lock my keys in my car. I was a bit distraught. Tim rolled quickly to my rescue and waited with me till the highway patrol guy with the sense of humor popped my lock…all before my coffee (also locked inside my car) had a chance to get cold. Tim is the definitive good brother.

The same day I met Katie Couric we were taking a break from the shooting of the Today show, and a few Glee Club guys headed to the bathroom under the southeast terrace. I was standing, I am sorry to say, at a urinal when I looked up and realized that I was peeing next to Willard Scott. He was very cordial—”how you doing, guys?”—but it was a very brief encounter.

I’ve met Ms. Couric twice, both in UVA contexts. The first time, I was with the Virginia Glee Club at Monticello, helping with the celebration of Thomas Jefferson’s 250th Birthday in 1993—there was a special Today Show taping there. Afterwards we met Katie, who was very friendly (unlike Bryant Gumbel), accepted the gift of a Glee Club hat, and posed for a photo with some members.

The second time was at a UVA fundraiser, the kickoff of the University’s capital campaign in 2005. She was very funny and very pregnant at the time. A great person and I wish her the best.

We were in Florence, in 1998, on our honeymoon, waiting in line at the Duomo (the main cathedral in town). There were a few other Americans, including one in a baseball cap and shades who looked awfully familiar. I looked twice, nudged my wife, and said, “I think that’s Calista Flockhart, you know, Ally McBeal.”

“No it’s not,” she said.

But we bumped into her inside and though she didn’t say much other than “Sorry, it’s not a great time for me to talk,” it was definitely her. I think she was filming “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Boyd was playing a small acoustic set in 1993 in Charlottesville in a small, quickly defunct cafe—if memory serves, he was playing with either Greg Howard or Tim Reynolds. He came in the second half of the set, and I met him in between sets when he walked into the men’s room as I was leaving.

I met Neko’s voice on KEXP and met her in person after a show in Boston. Very gracious.

I met Scoble when we both worked at Microsoft. He involved me in a few blog-related initiatives around the company.

Gave a pitch to him as part of a team while I worked at Microsoft. It went nowhere, thank goodness.

I’ve met Doc Weinberger a few times—once at Microsoft when he gave a brilliant and funny Cluetrain-inspired pitch about the death of marketing; once at a Harvard conference; once at a Berkeley bloggers meeting (where he actually gave me a lift in his car)...