If Only

This morning I stopped at the office of one of the builders for whom I work. The architect was there with a blueprint for me to look over. He was sitting at his desk with his 25” plasma monitor and much-faster-than-mine computer. He decided to show me the location of the job and pulled up Google’s new map program. He had been using it lots the past week or so and was impressed and wanted to show me all the features. He also showed me Google World and Google Moon, equally cool sites.

When I got back to the truck where my son Mark was now taking a nap, I had to tell him about the program and the fact that we looked at Chisnau, Moldovia from satellite pictures. He’s leaving for there in less than a week. Maybe we could look for Inga’s home this evening, I told him.

When I arrived home I had to share with the Warden my wonderful discovery. I thought she would have been amazed, BUT. . . BUT . . . BUT . . . She reads Kiihnworld and IdeaJoy more regularly than I do. She knew all about these new programs because her blog reading is broader than mine.

I read Swansmith to stay out of trouble, but it’s often tough for me to venture onto other blogs. My reading addiction takes hold and I loose track of time. With Kiihnworld and IdeaJoy especially, I get hooked into linking and surfing farther than I should. They always provide such enticing links that I have to force myself to stick with blogs that don’t link, lest I travel into the hinterlands of cyberspace. When I go to their sites, I start taking some quiz on what kind of 1960s TV show I am, then I’m looking at comic book characters, then I’m reading Augustine, and I get lost and never update my checkbook or send out the invoices that I originally sat down to do.

But this time, IF ONLY I had been more attentive to the blogging community that stays on the cutting edge of what’s happening out there, I would not have allowed my wife to scoop me on this one. She knew what Google has been up to, because she had read it on Kiihnworld and IdeaJoy. Google is doing some great things in addition to search engines and blogspot. Check it out.