I hadn't seen him in months. Used to hang out each weekend at the least. Was excited to hear  he had moved over by The Medical Mile. Where the fancy, new buildings were. I'd heard good things about it. How it was going to boost 

Westcity

's economy, bring new people in, and most importantly, stop the brain drain.

Everybody was talking about 

brain drain

. Well at least every teacher who everyone thought was cool. The outspoken types who liked to grab 

beer

with students. After a few drinks they would feel just like talking with a friend even though they were almost three times your age. You could rant to them about your generations' problems and they'd give you a succinct, historical reason for why that problem existed. Often, they'd somehow link this back to some other society -- either 

European

or some more exotic less economically powerful one -- and how they did it so much better than us.

It felt good ranting together. Listening. Thinking like we were learning a lot. So I had heard from one of these professors that we needed more things like The Medical Mile. So I was excited to see Ken after all these months. He'd moved in there just three months ago and it was my first time being home in that time.