April 17, 2010

It's a Small World -- But We Already Knew That

In January 1994, I flew to Atlanta to interview for a job. It was a memorable trip for two reasons: I was there the day of the Northridge earthquake and Atlanta was in the middle of an unusual cold snap and an ice storm.

The sports editor drove me around town, giving me his best pitch for a move to Atlanta. It seemed such an alien concept to me. In the end, I accepted a job with the Los Angeles Times.

If you had told me then that I'd end up in France -- a place I had never been to -- in five years I would have laughed. And if you had told me in 2006, when I left France, that I would end up in Abu Dhabi -- well, it's beyond my imagination.

Which brings us to 2010. Here I am in Abu Dhabi, thousands of miles from Atlanta and Los Angeles, and I'm about to go work in the sports department for the first time since 1999. And for the same editor who interviewed me in Atlanta.

Small world indeed. Or, behave well, because what goes around surely comes around.