There’s no place like “Home”

I flew to Erie, PA this week to do a training evaluation. Well, I didn’t fly to Erie; I flew to Cleveland and then drove 2 hours to Erie. Because I would be doing so much driving (and because the Enterprise guy lowered the price from $9.99/day to $6.00/day), I added a GPS to my car rental. It really came in handy as I drove around for four days.

One of the nice features about GPS systems is the “home” setting – designed to get you back where you started. Funny thing (not funny “ha, ha”), but the “Home” setting on this particular GPS didn’t get me back to where I started – it took me to some car dealership several miles north of the airport (north? west? I’m not sure, which is why I need a GPS).

I eventually found the Car Rental Return, and when the guy asked me if everything went well with the car I mentioned that it would have been nice if the “Home” setting had actually returned me to the right place. “Oh, you’re the 2nd person to mention that today.” Moscow Rule #10: Technology will always let you down. OK, I made up the number, but it really is a Moscow Rule.

Make-A-Wish

Several months ago, my friend Sara did a walk to raise money for her local Make-A-Wish in Atlanta. Because I really like what Make-A-Wish does, I decided to volunteer for the Utah chapter (or whatever it’s called). Last Saturday I finally had my orientation and training session.

When I walked into the orientation room I noticed that there were several young girls in the room – high school girls. Evidently they have to do X amount of service hours in order to graduate from High School. How cool is that? Anyway, they invited me to sit at their table, which I thought was very nice of them. During the orientation, we did several group activities as a table. I was having delusions of coolness and hip-ness as I was joking around with these young girls – then, I realized, to my horror (I like that word, horror), that I was old enough to be their mother. YIKES!!

It was quite the emotional morning. They showed news coverage of different wishes that had been granted for Utah kids. I was totally crying. There are so many amazing, generous people in the world – it’s awesome. Click here to read about one of the young kids who got his wish. What a great organization. I can’t wait to get started.