We read about the website postcrossing.com a few months back but finally signed up this week. We’ve shipped off five postcards (the maximum allowed at one time) to Finland, Austria, Germany, Hawaii, and The Netherlands. Once someone receives your postcard and registers it, you become the next available address for someone else. So, the more you send, the more you receive!

Interestingly, the hardest part was finding local postcards! We don’t live in a “touristy” area so it’s been a bit of a challenge to find a representative local postcard. Luckily, the Hallmark store just down the road has a huge selection. :)

If all goes well, we will be showcasing the cards we receive from all over the world, so stay tuned!

For those of you who haven’t wasted a whole afternoon on the website, hillaryismomjeans.com, here’s your chance.

(You simply refresh the page and each time you get a new “outrageous characteristic” of Hillary Clinton. You can even submit your own!)

This one is for my dad…

(giggle.)

A recent article on the American Association of University Professors website caught my eye with details of international scholars that have been denied entry, or in some cases, re-entry, to the US. While all the cases are troubling, the cases where the government has refused to provide cause for denial are the the worst. In an atmosphere of secrecy and silence it is too easy for government officials to abuse power in an already bureaucratic process. Accountability demands a measure of openness and a system of appeal, and we need to make it easier for people to visit and conduct business, not more difficult. Continuing with the current system will only lead to continued bad publicity and animosity toward Americans traveling to other countries.

I’m not a big fan of top 10 or top 25 lists, but this one made me laugh out loud so I felt the need to share it: Traveler comments that make you say “Duh!”

Sadly, I’m sure these are all real. I especially like these two:

• Where is the best spot to watch the fireworks in London on the Fourth of July? (Come on, Yank. Just think about this for a nanosecond.)
• I am a vegetarian. Do they have vegetables in Kenya? (It is a strange thing in Africa, countries with two vowels in their names are vegetableless. It is just like some dry counties here in the United States.)

For those that don’t know, Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that is editable by nearly anyone on the internet. It is a great resource - but, as with any information source, some skepticism must be applied.

A good reason for skepticism was published today via an AP story about wikiscan, a website that tracks the IP addresses for revisions to Wikipedia entries. Basically, the site makes it easier to find cases where a company, government agency, etc., may have edited a story in their own interest. Wired has a good list of some of the best finds - for example, one unusual edit of the Israel entry was made by a computer on Al-Jazeera’s network. Because Wikipedia is so popular these sorts of edits aren’t going to stop (people could just make changes via coffee shops or other networks for example) but it does make people aware that they can view the history of a page, especially if they are suspicious. Hopefully this will make it even less likely for these edits to remain hidden and improve the truthiness of the site.

I saw this blog post today titled, “The Disneyland Price Comparison for Park Fees” and a few of the comments got me stirred up again about a recent experience at Zion National Park.

We received a 2007 National Parks pass as a Christmas gift last year and the nice thing was that it only cost $50 (because it was purchased in 2006), instead of the $80 it would cost today after the recent price hike. In fact, we took this trip because of this gift and we plan to use it again in August when we visit Glacier National Park.

The first time we used the parks pass was in Shenandoah NP in early May and the guy simply swiped the card and we were on our way. We had no idea that procedures were more strict out west.

We arrive at the Zion NP gate and hand over the card and the woman immediately asked for an ID.

No problem.

Then she asks if this is the first time we’ve used the card.

No, we used it about two weeks ago.

Her next move is to punch the “May” month on the card, effectively expiring our card then and there.

When she handed the card back to me, I (thankfully) noticed this mistake and asked her about it, letting her know that our card was supposed to be good until the end of the calendar year.

She stared at me for a second, and left the booth to go ask someone else. When she returned she told us that because our card was now expired (thanks to her mistake), she was giving us the option of “upgrading” to the current parks pass for an extra $30.

I almost lost my mind.

And this is where Eric jumped in.

After much back and forth, including her never admitting that she screwed up and telling me that “she was in charge here and knew what she was doing,” (when she clearly didn’t) we were finally told to drive over to the parks office and they would issue us a new 2007 pass—which is the result we should have gotten in the first place. This time we had “Dec” punched out immediately to prevent further mishaps.

I get it. She didn’t read that the pass was for “2007″ and made a mistake, but at least APOLOGIZE and certainly don’t act like you are doing us a favor by allowing us to pay more for a replacement pass!

For the record, we never had another problem the entire trip, including on our way back through Zion, entering from another gate. It’s a beautiful place, it would be nice if the people at the front lines were a little more helpful and a little less bitchy.

The New Zealand Herald story “America’s war on tourists” has been making its way around travel blogs, providing a viewpoint on visiting the US from other countries. Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that we’ve been voted the “most unfriendly destination for foreign travellers.” As I’ve written before, recent US government policy seems to treat all visitors with suspicion. Quite simply, this policy is shortsighted and embarrassing and will end up hurting us economically - and not just in terms of tourism, but in science, engineering, etc.

Fareed Zakaria is one of the few journalists who consistently writes insightful and well-researched opinions on politics and world affairs. His most recent piece, Hassle and Humiliation in Newsweek, discusses the sorry state of affairs in US immigration. This is his view of the difference between the 70’s and now: “The reality of the America that I experienced was a powerful refutation of the propaganda and caricatures of its enemies. But today, through inattention, stupidity and bureaucratic cowardice, the caricature is becoming reality.”

I think a large part of the problem is that most Americans never have to deal with immigration or visas in the US, and therefore don’t even know about the frustrations. Personally, we know several people going through the immigration process and the stories they tell are frankly embarrassing. Obtaining a visa is even worse—people are made to feel like criminals. For universities it’s become a stumbling block for recruitment and retainment of students, and made scientific conferences harder to hold in the US. There is a level of oversight that is necessary and proper, but today we have moved to an extreme and frustrating end, ultimately to the detriment of the country.

Damn, It Feels Good to be a Gangsta: A Pop-Culture Mix Tape

This is a great article about some movie-moment songs that you still associate with certain scenes even when you hear the song played years later. We all have our favorites. Ones I particularly agree with (from the article) are:

• Don’t You (Forget about Me), Simple Minds from The Breakfast Club
• Mad World, Michael Andrews & Gary Jules from Donnie Darko
• How to Save a Life, The Fray from Scrubs “My Lunch” (great song and episode)
• Wise Up, Aimee Mann from Magnolia

And a few more that I can think of off-hand:

• In Your Eyes, Peter Gabriel from Say Anything
• You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, Righteous Brothers from Top Gun
• If You Leave, OMD from Pretty in Pink (I’m a John Hughes fan, duh)
• What a Feeling, Irene Cara from Flashdance
• Time of My Life, Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes from Dirty Dancing

The occasionally updated Idle Words blog is a rarity on the internet—well-written. A quote from today’s Hong Kong post:

“In some areas, our civilization had even regressed. In the 1980’s, the bad guys were a globe-spanning empire with a thermonuclear arsenal, undisputed chess superiority, great graphic design and a rather catchy worldview. Twenty years on, the global enemy had become a loose coalition of fundamentalist beardos whose most potent secret weapon was the airborne beverage. Cobra at its least competent was a better global adversary than al-Qaeda. “

I also recommend “Warsaw police hijinks” and “Argentina on two steaks a day.”