I met Phil at Franz Nahrada's workshop in January 2010 - or to be more precise I met him on the way over. I was very interested in his pre-workshop observations. I thought they were very wise and insightful. However when I commented on them on the way home he seemed to think they were just throw-away comments on the obvious (so I guess he's that wise and insightful most of the time).
We also suffered the same cancelled flight on the way home - made much less stressful for me by Phil's presence, and help at a distance for both of us by another Pam in the UK.