The Gun Counter

Talking about a 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon type connections.

I think this is an interesting topic in general that we have not touched on. I have some perhaps unexpected ones, so I figured that I would start off to get it going:

1. I have never met a US President. However, I did know Cyril Clemens pretty well, and he met every US President from FDR to Reagan so that puts me one degree of separation from all of them (and Mark Twain, and Mussolini and Churchill and a bunch of other interesting people) http://www.amazon.com/Cousin-Mark-Twain ... 0838317448

2. I met Dan Quayle at my USNA graduation, so I am one degree of separation from GHW Bush.

3. In A'Stan I met Robert Gates (SECDEF) a few times so I am one degree of separation from both GW Bush and the current denizen of the White House.

4. When I was 7, I met Eric Hartman (which is cool in and of itself), but of course he met Hitler, so that puts me one degree of separation from him. (I did not say they were all positive.)

5. My great grandfather was as officer in the Tsarina’s Horse Guard regiment in WWI. I have a photo of him and other officers from the regiment posing with her. He died in WWII, but my father knew him, so I have 3 degrees of separation from the Tsarina and 4 from Tsar Nicolas II (and presumably also Rasputin).

6. When I was at USNA, we grabbed Roger Staubach at a football game and passed him up the stands. So I’ve helped hold him over my head, and thus one degree of separation from all of the football greats he played with.

Based on Milgram's work, a ground-breaking study from the 1960s that we today call the Small-World experiment. Fascinating work, although it (like any scholarly work) has its detractors.

One of my mom's friend's husband used to run Los Alamos.

PawPaw wrote:Based on Milgram's work, a ground-breaking study from the 1960s that we today call the Small-World experiment. Fascinating work, although it (like any scholarly work) has its detractors.

There's a TV show here now with the premise of six degrees of separation. The hosts start somewhere in the world, and are challenged to make it to a person somewhere else in the world. They have to do this by using personal contacts of the person they are with at each step.
I've only seen parts of one of the episodes. It started in some remote mountain village in Nepal (I think), and the person they needed to get to in six steps was Buzz Aldrin. They actually made it, the first step was that the local farmer knew a journalist for a small paper in the capitol, and the fifth step was a photographer in DC that knew Buzz. I didn't see all of the show, but I think they passed through Turkey as well.

My grandfather taught celestial navigation to bomber pilots destined for Japan to help maintain radio silence. I might be a few degrees from Doolittle.

I'm one degree of separation from Joss Whedon and everyone he's worked with since I met Nathan Fillion. And I met Tommy Lee Jones once, so there's my entrance into knowing bunches of folks from Hollywood. I'm also within a few degrees of knowing Michael Dell of Dell computers

Uhm, My uncle on my fathers side new Roy Rogers. So I'm real close to Trigger the stuffed horse. My uncle resembled the back end of Trigger.

My Dad went to High School with Frank Sinatra. (Hated him too.)

I once met Desmond Tutu.

I'm one degree of separation from Joss Whedon and everyone he's worked with since I met Nathan Fillion.

I've had fantasies about Kaylee, does that count for anything?

My "Bacon Number" (and consequently my relational distance to pretty much anyone in Hollyweird) got a LOT lower when my brother went to Julliard. One of my 1SGs worked directly for Petraeus, and one of my PSGs was until very recently the Sergeant of the Guard, Tomb of the Unknowns. Brother-in-law once dated Ms Florida, and my dad went to high school with Darrell Waltrip. I'm not an overconnected node, but I do know a couple.

As an anecdote about the world being a small place, I'll mention the following: On a 747 returning from a TDY in Korea back in 2002, I got up to stretch my legs mid-flight. I was standing in the extra space adjacent to the galley, and struck up a conversation with a fellow traveler standing there. He was a missionary who was returning after a long stint planting churches near Seoul... and had been in seminary with my dad back in 1972. Small effing world indeed.

I've met Jack Hannah from Columbus.Zoo. He's been on the Late Show and the Tonight Show. That gets me into nearly every celebrity in the world.
Also met Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller, and Dean Kamen of Segway fame. Harry Blackstone.Jr, the magician. AJ Foyt, the driver. I can get to Jamie Dimon of Chase in a couple steps.