My seatmate

I rarely pay attention to who sits next to me on planes.  I'm sure that I've been on flights with a lot of famous people and never even taken note.  I always figure they are glad that you don't...flying is not a lot of fun and to be stuck on a place with a bunch of giddy fans would totally annoy me to no end.

Yesterday, from Tokyo to Detroit I sat next to Carlos Rogers who played in the NBA.  I googled him to find this out.  He was an incredibly nice guy...we had the normal airplane seatmate chitchat...he asked me to help him make sure he was able to buy duty free stuff since he wanted to sleep most of the flight...we had a funny conversation about people having the 'dropsies' (his word, not mine) after the champagne and orange juice incident.

He didn't have a stellar NBA career but I always think it is cool to get to meet professional athletes.  The cool thing about him is that he retired in the middle of his basketball career to donate a kidney to his sister...pretty selfless...here is an article about it:  http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxiii/2.21.97/sports/eli.html

Like I said, I don't normally pay attention but after reading that article I'm glad I did.