If you read the comments on my page you probably caught the one on the post about Mike and I heading to Interbike and the comment from Arleigh saying she was headed there too. I sent Arleigh an email with my cell phone number after checking out her website at 650b. I warned her that i’m not much of a bike geek anymore (there was a few years back in ’87-’88 that i knew about every part and manufacturer of freestyle bikes) but that Mike and i would be around and to send me a text when she wanted to meet up.
I did some more web snooping and found her online persona on Flickr and then on to a few other blogs that she writes for.
Arleigh sent me a text while Mike and i were winding down from a day of riding bikes and wandering exhibits. We bounced messages back and forth but didn’t commit to anything. Just that Mike and i were going to get some food and drinks and that I’d keep her posted. After the dirt demo i was back in the hotel room for a shower and to cool off and rinse the dust from my throat. I uploaded a few photos that i took earlier in the day and saw that Arleigh had also uploaded some. I browsed through them, commented on one, and we soon took off to find some food.
Mike was in the mood for Mexican but we ended up leaning toward a Brazilian style steak house by the time we were in the cab. We changed our minds 3 times before settling on a Gordon Biersch. I told Mike that i had eaten at one in Seattle a few times and the one in D.C. before. When we arrived i realized that i also had been in this one.
Sidebar: a few years ago Cena had a trade show to attend and i walked to a Kinkos or MailBoxesEtc. or something to mail something out that needed to be sent via FedEx. We can’t mail FedEx from Petersburg. I walked in the 100 degree weather until finding it, mailed the package, walked back into the scorching weather. I glanced up and saw this Gordon Biersch across the street – slogged over and went right to the bar. The place was almost empty. The bartender slid a menu in front of me and said she saw me walking across the parking lot and could tell i needed a cold drink. Anyway – back to the original story…
We sat down at a table near the bar, ordered samplers and food. After an hour or so i thought i saw someone from some of Arleigh’s pictures from the outdoor demo walk by. I brushed it off. Then moments later someone that looked like Arleigh walked by. She stood and talked to someone at a table 25 feet away for a while. I sent her a text: “We settled on gordon biersch.” And i watched to see if she’d pull her phone out. Nothing. Oh well. She sat down with some people and after five minutes i got a reply “We’re there!” Now things were kind of strange. Out of the 23,000 attendees at a show like Interbike what are the chances that she’d post a comment on my blog? Certainly a good number of bloggers are cyclists. Technorati finds over 2,500 posts that mention Interbike. There must be thousands of places to eat in Vegas. What are the chances that we’d end up at the same place?
I didn’t know what to say. I sure didn’t want to come across as a stalker. Mike and i laughed about it and i kind of decided to just ignore it. A few minutes later she called. I told her to turn around and then waved at her. She came over, intoduced herself and we were able to clear up that she was the one stalking me. Just kidding.
Unfortunately, my big luck was used up by ending up at the same restaurant as someone that i only knew from a few pictures on Flickr and a couple of text messages. Despite best intentions, we didn’t end up socializing with Arleigh any further – partially because i lost her phone number in the Great Cell Phone Switch of ’08.
