Archive for December, 2007

During my trip to Florida I have been offline for two straight weeks (sorry if your emails have gone unanswered).  I did have a laptop so I could record my thoughts along the way and transfer thousands of pictures from our digital cameras.

It hasn’t been that bad.  I can plow through all the email in a day when I get home.  It is Christmas break, so there are not a lot of things that need done.

Socially it hasn’t been bad either.  We are doing things every waking minute and we aren’t sleeping much.  Quite honestly, even if an Internet connection were available to me, I probably wouldn’t be online most days.

By the time I get home, my cache will be empty and I will be ready to get back online.

A couple of times during our trip we have had a quick meal at a fast food restaurant.  Today we had one of those times.  During the order process, my wife asks the girl behind the counter about a sandwich.  The question was pretty simple.  “What is on it?”

The answer was just a simple.  “I have no idea.”

I know that most teenagers have at least one hamburger-joint-job during high school or college, and I realize that fast food is not a career option for most people.  But is it too much to ask that we all take a little more pride in our work?

My new favorite store.

Here at Disney I have been amazed by the number of people from outside the United States.  We rode on the tram with people from Brazil.  At lunch we sat with a family from Venezuela.  At the Little Mermaid we sat beside some college students from Indonesia. 

I could go on and on.

I like to talk to people while standing in line.  I have met some interesting people over the years.  Today we were in the queue for the Safari ride when my brother’s wife notices someone in the next row wearing a t-shirt from Lebanon, Missouri.  That is where my sister-in-law teaches.  She asks the Asian if he lives in Lebanon.  He doesn’t speak English.  A translator asks him the question.  He says he got the shirt in China, his home country.  He didn’t know where Missouri was, but he liked the shirt. 

That was weird.

Here is a cool service from Google that can help even when you can’t get online.  We were in downtown Disney and needed to make a dinner reservation.  We knew the name of the restaurant, but didn’t know the phone number.

Using a cell phone I called Google 411 (1-800-GOOG411).  The automated voice asked for the city and state.  It then asked for the type of business or the name of the business I was trying to reach.  I said the name of the restaurant.  Google repeated it back to me and asked if I would like to be connected.  It was just that easy.

On top of all that, the Google 411 service is free.