My Dinner with Evan

A couple of days ago I got an email from Stephan MacLeod, one of our Zap Your PRAM Fellows, inviting me to dinner with his boss, Evan Jones.

In general I’m not the kind of guy who people invite out to dinner. Unless you’re [[Catherine]], or one of my brothers, you’ve probably never said “hey, I should invite Peter out to dinner.” So I have little experience in this realm. But I’m always game for adventure and, heck, Evan’s bio billed him as a “two-time Emmy award winner,” so he had to be at least somewhat interesting, didn’t he?

Yesterday morning I got an email from Evan’s assistant Natalie.

In general I’m not the kind of guy who interacts with a lot of people who have assistants. Unless you’re my doctor or my dentist, it’s likely that if we communicate we do so in a disintermediated fashion. If you’re important enough to have an assistant, then you’re likely too important to talk to me. So, two Emmys and an assistant: what was I getting myself into?

I arranged with Natalie to meet Evan at Sushi Jeju at 7:00 p.m. and so, after working a little later than usual, I hopped on my bicycle and rode over. Walking in the door I suddenly realized that, what with all the Natalie-mediated communication, I’d completely forgotten what’s-his-name’s name.

(In general I’m not the kind of guy who meets a lot of new people, so my new-person-name-remembering skills have atrophied).

Fortunately I was there first, and a quick check of my inbox revealed that what’s-his-name was Evan and 30 seconds later, as I rushed to clear the evidence of my forgetfulness from the table, Evan walked in the door.

As it turns out, Evan, in addition to having an assistant and being a two-time Emmy-award winner, grew up in Copetown, Ontario. Which is about 30 minutes from where I grew up in Carlisle. He was from West Flamborough, I was from East Flamborough. We were practically brothers.

And so we had an interesting 2-hour long conversation over Indian fried rice and Sapporo beer and I learned an awful lot about an awful lot.

All of which has me thinking that I should be more actively seeking out dining opportunities with Emmy-award-winner people who have assistants. If you happen to be one of these people, please have your assistant call me and we can set something up.