What a fun day I had today.

I first went up to San Francisco for a small O'Reilly event at LinuxWorld, and in doing so I got to meet my book's editor, Andy Oram, in person for the first time in perhaps four years. I was so shocked at how good he looked, having trimmed down from the decidedly chubbier Andy I knew from before, that I almost didn't recognize him.

He has two musically-gifted children (aged 5 and 9 when I last met them, now aged 17 and 21). Although they got their gift from God, it would have never realized its potential without nurturing from their parents, so we talked about how to provide such opportunities to your kids. He and his wife have been so clearly successful that I wanted to absorb what I could.

I then started a short walk across downtown San Francisco to meet former Yahoo! Finance friends, and on the way, happened to run into another former Yahoo!, Parker Ranney.

There had always been a somewhat of a dark mood about Parker, and I'd always thought that was just who he was, but when I ran into him today, he was clearly a different person than I'd ever known. He had an aura of happiness that was wonderful to see. A network/IT guy and Yahoo! employee #27, Parker had been working 24/7 for a couple of years by the time I started in April 1997, and so was simply exhausted. By the time I became the same way, his image was already set in my mind. It was wonderful to see him, and we chatted a while with a promise to get together again later in the afternoon.

I continued on to Montgomery St to meet Wade Lagrone and Hill Ferguson, who are now at the US venture of Zopa, a UK peer-to-peer lending service. Unlike how Andy and Parker had changed, Wade and Hill were exactly as if I'd last seen them yesterday, and I had a wonderful time with them. They seemed to have some very good things in the works with their company, but I hope they pick a better name before they launch in the US, because “Zopa” sounds a bit dopey. Okay, a lot dopey.

After a few hours there, I headed back to meet Parker, now a network guy at AdBrite, an online ad marketplace. We talked for hours about the old days at Yahoo! and his current work at AdBrite. I really enjoyed myself in a technically satisfying way that I hadn't in a long time. (Well, last week I'd enjoyed myself in a similar way when I visited friends at Yahoo!, but it's been a long time otherwise.)