Tuesday, May 24, 2011

200 countries, 200 years and 4 minutes

Digital has changed our world in so many ways. In this video that my cousin Steven sent to me from Costa Rica, the Swedish researcher, Hans Rosling,  has translated his research in one of those " a picture is worth a thousand words". It is one of the most awesome graphic demonstrations I have ever seen. And I got it , by just seeing it. I didn't read one page of his research.


I like his statement at the end that "everyone can make it now". Bucky Fuller, who I consider the greatest mind of the twentieth century, actually proved that mathematically. Bucky also told us that our belief in scarcity, inevitablity and " no solutions" are the primary "reasons"  holding us back, because the universe actually functions on abundance, change and multiple answers.

I really needed something postive today. I started off to renew my passport, which was to be a 1 hour process and came to stops every hour. The printer would not print the application because the ink was no longer running out, it was empty. It took trips to three stores to find all the cartidges I needed. I tried first to print out a doc I am working on for work and "no movement".  By 1pm I had ink! By 2:30, I had a passport photo. By 4 pm I had an application printed, a check, an expired passport and a photo  and was running to FedEx to do expeditetd services. Thank heaven for knowledgeable employees. The guy is telling me no one but USPS will send to a PO Box. I am saying: "but it is a PO Box for  the the United States Dept of State." He said: "I know. Does not make a difference. You still may make it to the United States Post Office in time." Post Office: Empty space out front. Second in line. And I got the USPS wonder employee who realized that my math was wrong and I was 10.00 short for what I was asking for. Did she just stick my stuff in the envelope. Nope. She checked everything for ACCURACY! I added 110 for passport renewal, plus 60. for expedited services and 12.72 for overnight delivery and got 172.72. If you are tracking decently, you got 182.72 like she did. And this is where we praise the debit card because I had left my check book on the coffee table! 

At 4:55! she carried my completed overnight delivery with everything she had checked twice to the back. I thanked her with a huge smile. She shrugged and said "we do them here" I said: "I know. I got my original one here 10 years ago. I just waited too long to renew normally".  Getting in the car in my awesome parking space, I felt all the tension I have been carrying around for the past 2 weeks evaporate. I can really go to Denmark now. I have the ticket, I have the airport parking, but until today, I had not renewed my expired passport. I will now have it in plenty of time to visit my Danish family. And it is all thanks to a great FedEX guy and a great USPS employee, because I was definitely batting zero even with pages of instructions.

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