Sixintheworld.com

By far the biggest concern others have expressed to us regarding our upcoming trip is that we remain 6 in the world and don’t drop down to 5. We have spent a lot of time thinking about the safety and continued possession of our offspring. After extensive research and domestic testing, here are our top 6 recommendations for keeping your kids safe while traveling:

6. Become Canadians. Americans seem to draw unnecessary attention to themselves through a variety of conspicuous behaviors including speaking loudly and wearing flashy or impractical outfits. To prevent your children from standing out to potential criminals, teach them the Great Northern dialect and dress them in organic clothing. Make sure they insert an “eh” at the end of at least every other sentence and turn the “ow” in “about” into a “oo” like “a boot.” Throw a maple leaf patch or decal on at least one piece of each child’s clothing.

5. Use technology to stay close. While Kiddie Lo-jack would be a nice step, GPS implants would open a Pandora’s box of privacy and moral issues. Piece together the next best thing—a complete arsenal of modern electronics. We recommend three products to improve security. First an electronic alarm system which alerts the parent in charge if a child wanders more than 20 feet away. The second is a screaming device for small wives. Although your wife might be child sized and tough enough to defend herself, you will want to arm her with a screaming device to alert yourself and anyone within 100 meters that someone is messing with her. We also recommend a set of radios to ensure you can communicate with each other if you get separated.

4. Stay connected physically. Strapping your children to your body is very easy when they are under two and most parents are already accustomed to using a Baby Bjorn or a backpack when a stroller isn’t practical. For kids 3-8, however, we recommend leashes. These low tech devices are always a source of controversy domestically, but the bottom line is even if they look bad, they’re a tangible link between you and your flight-prone, easily distracted little ones. There will be no wandering off unless they take you with them.

3. The Buddy System. We suggest pairing children up in the following manner: the oldest and the youngest, the second oldest and the second youngest, until you run out of kids. If you have an odd number, don’t worry, the one in the middle will be used to it.

2. Avoid war, civil unrest, and countries with high kidnapping rates. Although Mexico, Guatemala, and parts of central Africa would have been on our ideal itinerary, pragmatism dictated we drop them. We suggest you avoid those and the nearly twenty other countries which are just too dangerous to drag your loved ones into.

1. Avoid places that despise Americans… I mean Canadians. This unfortunately knocks the Philippines and much of the Middle East off your list, and unless you can get that crazy Canadian government to start being a little less aggressive with asserting its bad self all over the world, this list may expand before it contracts. The good news is there is always an election every 4… we mean 3-5 years, so things can always change for the better.

Our final advice would be to have a big Vin Diesel-like dad who can strike fear in anyone smaller than he is with a glance. We realize, however, that those who are not genetically endowed with male pattern baldness might be reluctant to shave their heads weekly, so we’ve left it off the list.

Technorati Tags: Family, Gear, Safety

I don’t care how old you are, how much you’ve traveled, or how much time you’ve spent in a hospital, shots are never fun. My little kids, who usually handle immunizations with relative grace, came completely unhinged yesterday in the face of their last remaining injections before the trip. We traveled to the Utah County Health Department Immunization Clinic in Provo but did not brief them on the cause for the visit. They had no reason to suspect anything as the lobby was packed with people of all ages and no one was in apparent distress. After a brief wait and a lengthy consult with the travel nurse, I was led to a sterile room to review the protocol and examine the syringes and vials. The nurse was insistent that I see exactly what I was getting since I was shelling out such big bucks. The plan was to sneak the little kids in one at a time and quickly poke them while they weren’t looking. The element of surprise is usually our greatest tool for a tear-free immunization experience. I lost the upper hand, however, when they came busting through the door, curious to see what I was doing. Seven syringes were spread on a tray: yellow fever for all of us and typhoid for the little ones. (The rest of us can take oral typhoid—it lasts much longer.) The jig was up.

The nurse, in his infinite medical wisdom, recommended the three of us who were not eyeing him like he was the bogey man go first. Surely Kieran and Asher would be encouraged if they saw us survive the needles’ jabs. No, no, no, I assured him. Things go much more smoothly if we get theirs done first. That way they have less time to worry about what’s coming. I snatched up Asher and held her lovingly in the designated position, explaining that everything would be fine and that we were going to get a treat after we were done. Nothing I said could calm her and she began wailing and flailing, making it difficult for the nurse to do his job. It was over within seconds but she could not be comforted. She clutched her arm defensively and glared at us from the safety of Dax’s lap. There was no convincing Kieran that this was a worthwhile pursuit, and I wasn’t able to get him on my lap until Dax, McKane, and I had received our shots. His screams were so loud in conjunction with Asher’s moaning that another nurse popped her head in the door to see if we needed an orderly…or perhaps a sedative. By the time she had gone, Kieran was done. He didn’t even realize the first shot was done until he watched the second needle make the plunge into his tiny tricep. Moments later he was completely calm, in no pain and pumped that there was a new Lego in his immediate future.

$624 and many sympathetic looks later we were out the door with everybody in one piece. Despite the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth from the little bits, the visit was probably hardest on me. If you’ve been reading along over the past few months, you know that I’ve been sitting on the Yellow Fever fence. Currently there is only one place on our itinerary that falls in a Yellow Fever zone (Iguazu Falls in Argentina), and I was considering dropping it just to avoid the shot. Millions worldwide get vaccinated every year–in fact in many countries it is a requirement–but there have been a handful of people, mainly Americans, who have actually contracted Yellow Fever and died as a result of the immunization. I think I’m safe in asserting that most parents have tinges of fear when they subject their children to any vaccination. Worst case scenarios run through your mind. You ask yourself, “Will my child be the in 1 in 5,423,791 that has a febrile seizure or ends up in a persistive, vegetative state as a result?”

I opted for the shot for a number of reasons. Our itinerary is highly flexible and there is a good chance we will want to visit other areas in the Yellow Fever belt or enter countries that require proof of immunization. Most importantly, however, it is hard for me to deny my children protection against anything so insidious if there is the slightest chance they might be exposed to it. And the reality is the sad faces only last for a little while.

Technorati Tags: Health, Typhoid, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW, Travel, Vaccinations, Yellow Fever

Utahns pride themselves in the natural beauty of their state. The Rocky Mountains, forbidding in their jagged majesty yet comforting in their powerful embrace, cast spectacular shadows over the carefully settled desert valleys. Inspired by such awesome surroundings, many residents revel in outdoor activities such as hiking, biking, running, and camping. Overall, Utah’s people are exceptionally healthy with the state placing fifth in the United Health Foundation’s annual health rankings.

With its history as the home of the LDS people, Utah enjoys the nation’s lowest rates of alcohol and tobacco use. Some critics claim that Utahns’ teetotaling ways prevent them from having fun, but nothing could be further from the truth. Just because most abstain from racier substances doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate a good high every now and then. Visitors just need to know where to look to join in the local customs.

During my initial visit to Utah in 1990, the first business I set foot in was a 7-Eleven. Tom picked me up at the airport and in an apparent rite of passage took me to a nearby gas station for my first sugar run. Inside the store I was confronted by the longest, widest, tallest candy aisle I had ever seen and a soda fountain that stretched the entire length of the store. I noticed a curious arrangement of oversized mugs at the end of the counter but didn’t think much of it at the time. I soon learned that these “jugs” were an integral part of many Utahns’ lives. Ownership entitled the bearer to dirt cheap refills at virtually any convenience store in the state, and wherever I went, I encountered thirsty yet budget-conscious citizens who coddled their jugs like infants.

During our three years living in Utah, I drank only fruit juice and refused to let Tom buy a jug of his own. As a result he was relegated to the ranks of disposable cup buyers and their measly 44-ounce maximum. Ten years later I have mended my ways. I am now a regular visitor to the Alpharetta Qwik Trip, which boasts its own formidable beverage bar even though it resides 1500 miles east of the Rockies.

In a fit of “when in Rome” behavior, I shelled out a cool $5.99 last week for my very own 64-ounce jug. (No, I won’t be taking it around the world.) I opted against the 100- ouncer since the clerk said I’d need a forklift or much bigger biceps to get it into my car. I now enjoy membership in an elite society of soft drink afficionados and chronically parched construction workers who acknowledge each other with an approving nod and secretly evaluate each other’s vessels while filling up.

This lovely young lady—my sister in soda—didn’t think twice when I asked her to join me outside the Holiday Mart for a photograph this morning. Her jug was a particularly vibrant shade of yellow and adorned with surfboards and Woody cars. My navy blue version emblazoned with psychotic clowns paled in comparison.

In case you’re interested, I don’t have any statistics regarding candy, but it is a well-known fact that Utah ranks first in the nation in Jell-O consumption.

Technorati Tags: Big Gulp, Jell-O, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW, Soda, Utah

Many of you appreciated Tom’s last post on the wonders of Web 2.0. Though I may feign ignorance, I actually know a thing or two about technology, and like most of you, use it just about every second of my day. I share my husband’s hope in the promise of technology, but unfortunately I seem to spend most of my time trying to figure out why it fails me. It seems whenever I begin to revel in the seemingly limitless productivity my gadgets afford, they break, explode, or simply stop functioning. My lackluster blog performance in recent days has largely been the result of lack-of-laptop-itis. My little Sony VAIO has spent the last 6 weeks at a warranty repair facility in New Jersey waiting for me to authorize a $400 fix. I’ve gone back and forth a million times between indignation (why I should have to pay anything since I spent $300 on an extended warranty?) and desperation since my creative juices can’t really flow when I’m sitting on a hard chair staring at a desktop monitor. I finally broke down and forked over the dough just because it’s the only remaining Windows machine in our family computer arsenal and I have fifteen years worth of Quicken data trapped on it.

An even greater impediment to my productivity this summer has been my phone-induced woe. When we got to Utah we discovered that Tom’s parents were without a landline. Two months ago they were persuaded to switch to a slick new provider who promised lightning-fast internet and reliable phone service for one low, low price. The internet thing worked out well, but after dozens of cell phone calls, hours on hold with both the old and new provider, no phone service was ever established. Now I know many Asians and Europeans function quite adequately in a strictly wireless world, but I’m not aware of any domestic company that makes that feasible. (I won’t even get into my ongoing battle with my cellular provider–I’m giving them one more chance to repent before I publicly harangue them.) After a mere three days in Utah, I had used more than one third of my monthly minutes just trying to set up medical appointments and negotiate with my laptop folks. Since no one I need to speak to is available after 9 pm MDT or on weekends when my minutes are free, I’ve been reduced to making early morning runs to a friend’s house to use the phone.

Enough excuses already. A friend of Tom’s commented that he is heading “doe-eyed” into the world with his naively optimistic view of both people and technology. The grumpy, cynical side of me might be inclined to agree, but after today’s experience with the telephone repairman I’ll stand by my man. After all, how bad can the world be when the guy who restores a dial tone to your residence is willing to don a party hat to celebrate the occasion?

P.S. Don’t try to call us just yet. There’s still this little issue with incoming calls.

Technorati Tags: Cell phones, Phone Service, puppy, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW, Technology

Do you think lifechanging inventions like the web should continue to have numeric labels that increment every couple of years like software products from the 80’s? And if they do, who will be the person who decides we can’t have a web 8.0 and forces it to be called Web 2019? Just one of the silly things in life to ponder.

One silly thing you shouldn’t have to ponder is why are we doing this blog. We might come across as a little schizophrenic, and you may question our motives, our coordination, or my mental state. There are a couple simple reasons we are doing this and if you understand our backgrounds it might come into focus. Anne is an accomplished ghostwriter who has had a number of books published. A writer by both trade and nature, her reasons to write are both to document our adventures and to entertain those who stumble across this blog. Like many bloggers she is participating in the poetry of the day. I, on the other hand, am not a writer, at least not professionally. As I mentioned before, I am an internet executive who works at EarthLink. I am one of the Web 2.0 champions at the office and am in love with the power and possibilities of the internet. I am not going to get all teary eyed and blubbery, but I believe this is one of the greatest things to happen to humankind—maybe not as great as domesticating animals but close. I had that level of appreciation with Web 1.0 and I am just as excited about Web 2.0. If you don’t know the difference, I hope you enjoy Anne’s posts. To me, this blog is a way to enrich our travels with the benefits of a socially interconnected world and to extend my knowledge of web 2.0 (I am not a developer and intentionally have yet to ask a developer for help in creating anything on this blog). For me this blog isn’t just about the six of us in the world, it is about you as well. It is about the thousands of potential interactions we will have with people we may never have met otherwise. Ideally, I would love people to get involved and give us local recommendations, to follow our recommendations, to meet us when we are in their town, or to share in a healthy exchange of travel ideas and topics. I am going to call this new connected traveling, “Travel 2.0.” Sadly, I am too late to coin the term. It is most often used by professionals in the travel industry who are discussing how their marketing and services are rapidly changing.

The simplest way to Travel 2.0 would be to post your travelogues, questions, and pictures at one of the great travel social networks like Travbuddy, World66, Travelblog, or Tripadvisor. For a two week trip an article on trip advisor and a photoset on Flickr would be about all you need. For a year long trip that just doesn’t sound like a proper level of engagement. We will do it the hard way with our own blog and domain. It is more challenging, but in the end, it should be a much richer experience and we hope a more interactive one. When I have finally figured out all the tools we are going to use I will create a more detailed post explaining them.

Consider this the first of many pleas to get involved. If you have ever taken an extended trip, if you know someone who has, or if you dream about taking an extended trip let us know. Anne and I exist in 2 different worlds, and we are thrilled to bring both those worlds to the blog. Anne will continue to find interesting observations and write about them. I will put up mailing lists and email links for her and keep the rss feeds, comments, and trackbacks up for me. Of course, I will also look for opportunities to massage the necks of any heads of state we come across.

Technorati Tags: technology, Travel, Travel2.0, web2.0

One of the biggest incentives I have for taking this trip is to prove to myself and my family that the world is not nearly as big and as bad as we seem to think it is. Though current events are disturbing, they have taken on a different meaning for me since I have been in many of the places they are occurring. In 1999 Tom and I stood at the Israeli-Lebanese border and watched as laborers crossed back into Lebanon from their day jobs in the Golan Heights. In my mind, I can see those same people now fleeing from the invading Israeli troops, just as I would if my home and life were in danger. I have stood in the exact locations in Bali and Egypt where bombings have occurred. I can see street signs, storefronts, and faces. I understand that the people who inhabit these places are much like me. They love their children, wash their dishes, and yearn for a world at peace. As a result, I feel connected to what is happening rather than being frightened or disinterested. Aren’t I worried about the bombings in Mumbai or the uncertainty in Lebanon? On a personal level, no. The chances of my family being affected by a terrorist act don’t seem any greater while we’re on the go than when we’re standing still (we do after all live within 30 miles of the Centers for Disease Control and CNN). On a human level, absolutely. I get that we’re all basically the same, no matter what our garb or dialect. Moreover, I know that within 48 hours I could be almost anywhere on the globe–sharing, helping, experiencing.

Today was a fitting tribute to my burgeoning small world philosophy. Though I’m thousands of miles from home, I got to say farewell to one friend and welcome seven others to their new home. Oscar Moreno is on his way to El Salvador for two years to serve and to teach. His journey begins in Utah, where he will study and prepare for the next few months. The Jensens, some of our dearest friends from Atlanta, arrived on Sunday night to begin their new lives here in Salt Lake City as a result of Mike’s job change. Dax, McKane, and I picked up Oscar at the airport this afternoon, fed him an awesome Greek lunch, subjected him to three hours of shopping torture at REI (the hunt for gear continues), and then delivered him to the Jensens new home. (Mike will take him to the MTC tomorrow.) We visited for a while, snapped a few pix, and relieved them of two kids for the night.

Though we’ll go many months without seeing any of these fabulous friends, we know that the world is full of people a lot like them—people we will love and people we will one day miss. Fortunately, no matter where they move or where we travel, we will always be connected in this wonderfully small world.

Technorati Tags: Bali, Bombings, Egypt, Friends, Golan Heights, Israel, Lebanon, Mumbai, puppy, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW, Travel

Tom made a post yesterday that dealt with the more technical side of his life. Though technology pervades the rest of the Andrus family’s lives, we are not involved in the evolution of the internet the way Big T is. We make advances in our own ways: I am trying to master text messaging, a skill with which modern-day teenagers come prewired; Dax (who can text message faster than I can type) is learning iMovie and taking high school classes online; McKane is downloading music and constantly finding ways to spend my money on the web; and the little bits have become experts in seeking out and downloading viruses and spyware into our non-Apple machines. (A plug for Apple here–our two Windows laptops are currently out of commission and not likely to be revived anytime soon. Between Utah and Georgia, the family is currently working off of a collection of two PowerBooks, one MacBook, one G5, and one iMac.)

My relative ignorance aside, tonight I managed to plug in the right assortment of wires and click the right buttons to perform my own high-tech feat of prowess: a long distance dinner with dad. Tom couldn’t be in Utah to share in Grandpa’s roast, but he cooked up Peach Shrimp Scampi and asparagus and joined us via videoconference.

It’s doubtful we’ll do this every night. If Tom is smart, he’ll savor a few evenings of solitary dining before solitude becomes an impossibility!

Technorati Tags: Apple, iChat, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW, Videoconference

It hit me this week that I am going to be leaving work in 30 days. There is a ton left to do at work, but I am sure there will still be a ton months after I am gone. It wouldn’t be work if it didn’t pile up on my desk. One great thing happened this week that makes it easier for me to start thinking about my leave of absence. You would expect it to be something bad that makes me glad to have a year away, however, it was exactly the opposite. I work at EarthLink, and it is an extremely exciting time with lots of new products and businesses. Three are getting a lot of attention: voice over IP, our Helio cell phone deal, and Muni Wifi. While I have worked in all three of those areas (all in their earliest stages), my attention over the last 2-3 years has been in our web and value added services. I truly find this to be the most exciting area at Earthlink, but people outside Earthlink don’t always get a chance to see the things we are doing. I am so proud of the team of people who work on these products that I feel bad leaving them. I know they are doing a great job and our growth over the last 3 years has been wonderful, but this team needed a little outside recognition. On Thursday night this week we got it. Two of our early products, reader and myfavorites (both still in prerelease) were found by some of the new media thought leaders who pondered when-did-earthlink-get-so-cool. Both Michael Arrington (the writer of leading new media website Techchruch) and Dave Winer(the inventor of RSS) gave us nice endorsements. It is one thing to get an endorsement from a random journalist who only understands RSS after you give them 4 or 5 examples, stop and explain it again as a news ticker, it is all together another story to get nods from people the team respects and reads on a daily basis. The week just kept getting better and Michael also reviewed our photo and web storage product called Weblife.

So what does this have to do with me and my year away from EarthLink? I am not sure why, but this gave me an easy feeling that the work we have been doing has been right and the future roadmaps will be good and all the great people who have been working on this stuff will continue to do innovative things while I am away. This wasn’t a shock to me; I just hadn’t thought about it, and it made me smile when I did.

And just in case anyone was wondering, EarthLink has always been cool. The only way we have survived against monopolies and some of the most dauntingly competitive companies in the world is to be cool and stay ahead: do DSL when it is a nightmare, offer choice to Time Warner cable subs, sell satellite, take chances with things like Ricochet, RIM, and fixed wireless. Keep the customer in mind and create new services like our security suite, acceleration, many flavors of voice over IP, and invest in new access methods like municipal wi-fi networks, Helio cell phones, and DSL 2.0. We aren’t big enough to do everything but we fight way above our weight class. We always have and as long as it is legal and possible we will. Perhaps that is why I feel it is ok to step away for a year and focus on my family and some other personal interests. You have to admit any company that lets someone leave for a year and then come back must be cool. The only thing cooler would be if they kept paying me.

Technorati Tags: broadband, earthlink, Michael Arrington, wifi