The People You Meet. . . .In Airports!

It amazes me the interesting people you meet in airports. It's like a cross-section of American society, magnified and weirdified.
I was sitting in Salt Lake City International the other day, waiting the 5 hours for my connecting flight. Delta had given me $21.00 in meal vouchers that I could spend "anywhere in the airport". I ended up at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grill. I was in a people-watching mood so I took a table (more like a tall cafe table) in their open-seating. A couple guys near me were chatting, and one mentioned that he lived in Butte. The Digger Green pride in me reared its head and I said, "Butte? I just graduated from Tech this May."
Butte Guy said, "Oh really? I'm class of '8-." (I forget the exact year) Maybe some people don't think this is a big coincedence but there are only about 100,000 Tech graduates. Some (probably around half) of those graduates are dead. Of all the places, a restaurant in the SLC International Airport was the last place I expected to run into an alum. Before he left for his flight he told me to stay in touch with the Tech Foundation, and to get involved with the industrial advisory board. His logic for this was that someday I would need to hire people, and that a good starting place for good people would be where I got my start. Makes sense, but then again, there were very few C.S. and S.E. geeks at Tech that I really liked. Hmm.
The guy that Butte Guy was chatting with worked for Pharmanex, and was, let's say, of the eccentric-entrepreneur type. While he's probably more interesting than I make him out to be, the scanner that Pharmanex sells is interesting. Apparently NASA will be sending a similar scanner to Mars (attached to a robot) to analyze the Martian soil and rocks.
There was also a girl there who lived in Provo and was a physical trainer. She was on her way to the Bahamas to vacation with her family. She had gone to BYU-Idaho for a short time, but left because she didn't like the honor code and felt that it was too wierd. While she had an opportunity to live and go to school in Southern Cali, she opted for Utah because "it's easier to abide by church standards here". But she's studying film at U of U next semester, which would lead one to believe she would probably end up in Cali or NYC anyway. Looking at her, she didn't really seem to abide by "church standards". She was wearing a low-cut top/vest, and short-shorts. The difference between what LDS church standards are and what LDS young people actually abide appears to be great. Or do they pick and choose what they think they can get away with? "I can wear these cute short-shorts and this cleavage-enhancing top because I'll look cute, but I won't drink tea, because that's bad for you."