"Soon he was on a plane to meet Trevor Blackwell in California."

To me, this fact alone (single data point, an outliar) ... is enough to predict Ben's future

"The next day a copy of SolidWorks and a SolidWorks for Dummies book arrived"

This one is also a strong clue, although not as strong as the former (and the fact he got a machine shop running - now he can prototype in both extremes, CAD and machining)

Independent, outliar data points can tell a lot more than large, 'normal' data points