I Just Read About That…

Welcome, Jawilla, Bienvenue, Willkommen, Selam, Ghini vinishi, Tau mai, Dobre doshle, Witajcie, Kalos orisate, Hoan ging di lai kao, Tere tulemast, Wilicom, Welkom, G’day, and Hallo.

I recently installed a Sitemeter account on this blog. One of the best features about it is that it tells you where people are logging in from when they browse the site. This has been endlessly fascinating for me. I have one on the site where my son and daughter’s pictures are, so it’s usually pretty apparent which one of my friends have visited, but for the blog, it is amazing to see the international visitors. I was checking just now and I’ve had visits from Peru, Canada, Austria, Israel, Greece, the UK, Australia, Macedonia, Taiwan, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Estonia and New Zealand. For a geek like myself, this is unfathomably exciting. I mean, the statistics alone are supercool, but since I love to think of people coming together, politics be damned, it is simply great that Communication can occur across so many different countries.

Every time I think of political policies, public policies, immigration policies, wars and the whole us vs them mentality, I think about how many people are influenced internationally by others on the web. And I think, how could you consider lobbing bombs at someone who may be reading your blog?? I know, its a hippy, utopian attitude, but so be it.

And of course, welcome from all over the world. If you’ve got a moment tell me about where you’re from!

Of the countries listed above, I’ve been to:

Canada (love it, as you can probably tell from my Maple-leaf-ophilia…Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver so far…Saskatchewan, you’re next!)
The U.K. (had a great time in London, many many years ago, and look forward to returning some day)
Spain (on a high school trip…it was beautiful)
The Netherlands (what an amazing place! We stayed in Amsterdam for a few days, then to Brussels and Bruges. Each place was charming and cool, we could have stayed even longer. It was like a second honeymoon, and we absolutely must come back).
Ireland (I’ve friends in Dublin and Galway, and I even got to travel across the country on the rail system. Wonderful place, and wonderful people. Hi Lar, Ailish, Louise, Mark)
Belgium (see The Netherlands).

Now that we’ve got two young kids our international travels are on hiatus, but we look forward to more exciting trips ahead. So, enough of the ridiculous airport security…stop blowing planes up, let us wear our shoes and drink water again, and allow us to go explore the world.

Oh, and not to dis my own or anything, but of course, U.S. visitors are welcomed too!  Because even seeing visitors from overseas, seeing folks from Seattle, Nashville, Omaha, Malvern, PA (Ann, Tony, is that you?), Blue Diamond, NV (Never heard of it, and welcome!), Belle Mead, NJ (5 miles from my house, welcome!) is pretty cool.  So, thanks one and all for looking.