Just wanted to say thank you for checking in this year and wishing you a fabulous 2012!! All the best!

My wife, Lesley, is a flight attendant with United Airlines and every once in a while we get to take advantage of her benefits and do some traveling of our own. Last week we had an amazing time…my daughters and I tagged along on a trip she worked with a 3 day layover in Seoul, Korea. I didn’t really have much in the way of expectations, but it was a free trip so I figured, what the heck?

I have to say…Seoul was really, really fantastic. It’s a very dynamic, modern city. Just to begin, the airport is the most modern facility I’ve ever seen! It’s gorgeous! Everywhere we went was very upscale and affluent. We stayed at a large Marriott in the city that was the nicest inner city hotel I’ve ever been to. If you sat down in the rather enormous lobby a waitress greeted you and asked if you wanted food or drinks. Every one of them was wearing a floor length gown. That went for the lady bartenders as well. I’d say 75% of the people we saw were extremely well dressed. I was the only man wearing blue jeans for three days. Some other observations:

* There seems to be a cultural imperative for men, regardless of age,  to have their shoes shined at all times. I’ve never seen anything like it and it caused me to clean up my own act.

* The women, again regardless of age, were VERY well dressed, hair and makeup flawless and very, very stylish. It all reminded me of what it was like here when I was a kid. Everybody dressed well.

* Young teenage girls like a sort of unusual fashion accessory…they all seem to wear eyeglasses. We saw several large groups of young girls all of whom had glasses on and at first we thought Koreans all had vision issues…until we saw some girls buying frames with clear plastic lenses at some street kiosks we walked by. Sort of funny…it’s cool in Seoul to wear glasses.

* The subway was the cleanest public transportation I’ve ever seen. I thought these trains were just put into service last night! Spotless floors and walls. The seats, which appeared to be velvet (couldn’t be, right?) were spotless. No stains or marks of any kind. There’s 9 lines that crisscross central Seould…9! SF has one BART line under market street. Some of the lines had to be 300 feet underground requiring 2 separate escalator rides to get to them.

* I’m really not sure why this is, but there didn’t seem to be any trash on the streets anywhere. There also were very few trash cans! I couldn’t really figure that out…I guess people simply hold on to their trash until they get home or to work? When I bought a coffee  and carried it out I would always seem to hold onto it forever until I found a trash can to dispose of the cup in. Again…there’s no trash on the streets anywhere.

I love traveling like this…and I also love discovering just how much we have to learn from other cultures!

Even in this really kooky year, I’m very thankful today. Among other things I’m sure thankful for all of you have read this blog, have made it successful and have broght me business as a result. I truly hope that you all have a great day tomorrow! Happy Thanksgiving! By the way, this time it’s planned. No Foto Contest on Friday. See you next week.

Well, something happened that I’ve actually never done before…I missed a Friday contest. I was back east spending some time with friends and was having such a good time I forgot about it. Oh, well. Anyway…back to normal this week for sure. Thansk for hanging in.

My daughter, Christina, was born with a genetic skin condition called Epidermolysis Bulosa. The “grout” that we all have between the layers of our skin that allows us to absorb friction is missing in one specific layer in her skin and as a result she blisters. Particularly on her feet…which you can imagine gets alot of friction for all of us. Christina has the mildest form of EB yet for many events that cause us to walk alot, she needs a wheelchair. The Giants game, Disneyland, a big school campus. This week she’s in Washington DC with her class and…she’ll need the chair for alot of that touring. Honestly, she’s triumphant and amazing. I very rarely think of her as disabled. She’ll live a relatively normal life..so what if she’ll never snow ski.

Unfortunately, there’s a number of kids born with far more severe forms of EB. Forms that are so debilitating the child lives in almost constant pain. The level of care they receive is astonishing…bandaging their whole bodies daily in a process that takes 5 or 6 hours. Cancer is like the flu compared to the severe forms of EB and these kids rarely survive their teen years. Consequently, I always write a post at this time of year. Stanford is doing remarkable work in solving this human problem and they actually think there’s light at the end of the tunnel. For more information, please click on these links. If you feel led to give…please do.

www.ebkids.org

www.ebinfoworld.com

Thanks!

In honor of those who died and those worked so hard to save lives 10 years ago…

Once again…it’s time for vacation. This year we’re off to the Florida Keys, staying right about directly under that plane in the pic above in Key Largo. Sorry, no foto contest this Friday guys. Thanks for coming folks…see you next week.