Alex is a great guy!
I will share a funny story about the time he flew in from Germany to interview me for the magazine. Before he came to town I was able to setup a very special tour of ESPN for us. Because of the security there I had to pull some strings to get him in. Because he was from out of the country they wanted to do some background checks on him so they made me get a copy of his passport for them. So Alex send me over a photo of his passport which I passed on to ESPN's "World Security" team.
As I looked at it, I noticed something... his birthday listed was 1/7 which was the day he was coming to visit me. So I made some extra special arrangements with what is considered one of Connecticut's best steak house. I figured since he was coming out to see me on his special day then I should treat him to a special day.
So Alex flies in to Connecticut and I take him for the tour of ESPN. Him being from Germany he really had no idea of what ESPN was or how big it was here in the USA, but he enjoyed the tour none the less.
After the tour I took him out to his fancy dinner at the steakhouse. He got to the table and the waitress came to the table and the first thing out of Alex's mouth was why our table was decorated so differently then everyone elses. The waitess said... well today is one of your birthday... then Alex wished me a Happy Birthday and I said NO it is your birthday. He said no my Birthday is in July no January... and then I said no its not I saw your passport it said 1/7 was your birthday. he started laughing... almost all countries in Europe reverse the day and month when they write it so it goes Day / Month / Year not Month / Day / Year like we have here.
We all got a chuckle out of it including the waitress who said she would have did the same thing.
it was a great night with Alex.