Having taken a rather long reading and writing sabbatical due to a very busy work schedule I haven’t had the chance to keep up with much of what’s going on in the world or to share some goings-on from my teenie little corner of the universe.  So I have a few observations to share:

We Americans can be some goofy MFers.  I mean this whole brouhaha about the Star Spangled Banner being sung in Spanish is really kind of funny.  After all as far back as 1919 it was done in Spanish and the State Department currently has four Spanish versions on its website. Oh and in 1861 it was translated into German and into Yiddish in 1947.  But forget that, does singing it in Spanish, or any other language for that matter, change its meaning?

Of course the roots of this are in the debate about immigrants making the effort to assimilate into the "English" speaking culture of America.  I agree that the effort needs to be made, but we need to keep in mind that this problem is as old as America.  First generation Italian immigrants went throught the same process a couple of generations back and what happened?  Their children all spoke English because they needed to in order to succeed.  I can almost guarantee the same will happen with the current wave of Hispanic immigrants.

And what about this whole oil thing?  Are we dense or just stupid? Gas is expensive now and everyone is jumping on some kind of reactionary bandwagon.  Windfall taxes?  So you want to penalize someone for doing their job and that will fix things how?  Will it reduce the price of gas?  Doubt it.  Will it make someone look good for the election?  Maybe, but I doubt it.  We Americans may be goofy but we can spot a pandering a-hole from a mile away.

Finally, the recent issue about American students not being able to find Louisiana is such a non-news item.  American students have always been bad with geography and just because a state was almost wiped from the map doesn’t mean they will know where it is.  Just watch Leno’s man-on-the-street items and you’ll see all the evidence you need.

If Disney World is any indication we Americans can be an incredibly lazy lot.  While I was visiting various Disney properties with the family earlier this week I noticed that lots of people who were perfectly capable of walking were renting those little electric scooter things.  I literally saw whole groups of people convoying on those things and I swear there were scooter jams all over the place.  Mix them with the strollers and legitimate wheelchairs and you had more traffic than the DC beltway.  No wonder we’re much less healthy than the British even though we spend more on healthcare than they do.

Working with unions sucks.  I was in Disney working a conference last week and as a result I was interacting on a limited basis with some union folks and I have to tell you that I find them harder to give instruction to than my pre-teens.  I mean if you don’t give these folks explicit instructions they can’t, or won’t, tie their own shoes.  I’d rather deal with middle-schoolers and those little monsters scare the bejeesus out of me.  Next year the conference will be in New York so I’m betting I’m gonna have all kinds of fun.

And before you accuse me of basing my opinion on a sole occurence I have to tell you that I had similar experiences at conferences in Chicago and Boston and in my earlier life I regularly worked with members of the postal workers’ unions.  The members themselves weren’t all bad, but they were a pain in the ass to deal with because of the union rules they had to follow.  Basically they can’t think for themselves and that’s antithetical to good business.

Sleeping in a hotel for 10 days sucks.  I don’t care how nice (or not) a room is, there’s nothing good about staying there 1 1/2 weeks.  I was never happier to get home than after my business trip/family vacation to Disney.

After being cut off from my online reading for a couple of weeks I now realize how much cool crap I find via blogs. Here’s just a few items I found in less than 10 minutes of reading my blog reader:

• Digital images of high-denomination US bills
• Credit card size notebook and pen
• Measuring tape tape.
• MapGasPrices.com
• Wireless doorbell
• Foot gloves
• Magnetic hanging bar for fridges

I’m sure there’s a lot more there, but I haven’t had time to find it and that ought to do it for this post.