His host brother was someone I connected with on a deep level while he was visiting here in Oregon and we were in Germany. We corresponded for a while after our trip there, and then once we all got into college things dropped off substantially. K (my friends' host brother) and I reconnected every so often but the last time I heard anything about him or exchanged any sort of mail was probably 6 or 7 years ago.

So I met up with my friend from high school (we'll call him "E") for lunch the week before Christmas and talked about what we'd all been doing, the 10-year high school reunion he'd gone to and I hadn't, and folks we knew from our Germany trip. It was a nice visit and last week E forwarded me some pictures of K, his wife and their new baby. It was such a nice thing to see (and his baby's name is the same as my sister's... dunno if that's coincidence or not. :) that he was happy and healthy and life for him was good. I don't know if he'll get in touch (I sent a brief email of congratulations) but it is nice to hear of him and get an update.

The other person I met up with was a gal I went to college with, L. She and I had been super-close my freshman year and then for reasons I never understood, we drifted apart. We were never really close again after that, but after I graduated I kept in touch with my flute teacher, with whom L was also close, so heard things of her life here and there. So after reconnecting via Facebook, we met up in early December and got caught up. She's now married with a 1-year-old little boy. We talked for about 3 hours and probably could have continued if I hadn't had to go home to let the dog out. She's coming over this afternoon with her son for another visit, and I'm hoping we can get together on a semi-regular basis going forward.

I know there's been a lot of controversy out there recently about Facebook and intellectual property theft and all that sort of thing, but I have to say: I'm really glad it exists. I have made some amends I needed to make, and reconnected with friends I've not seen or heard from in years (the above-referenced two and others as well) and generally it's a nice place to poke around when I've got some extra time. And, it's not obnoxious the way MySpace is with the crazy auto-start music clips and way-too-customizable backgrounds, etc.

I've never been one to have an enormous collection of "best friends," but I try to be on good terms with most people. I never thought I wanted to reconnect with the bulk of the people from past adventures, but it's nice to learn that others remember me fondly and want to also be on good terms with me.