(Hover over the photos for descriptions.)

Costa Rica was interesting. I wish I could say that I had a great time and could chalk this trip up as one of my most memorable experiences, but really… eh. I worked the entire time, and didn’t get to see anything other than the area between the hotel and the factory. So, it really was a good thing that I didn’t bring my camera – it would have been useless. My cell phone did a decent job, though. Other than the nightmare that is customs (seriously, is it really necessary to go through security FOUR times to get back into the country?), the currency (colones), the language (Spanish, of course, and since I live in Arizona, well, the language wasn’t much of a shock), and the use of the metric system (“What’s “cold” in Celsius? I don’t know what to set my AC to…”) there wasn’t much about this trip that screamed, “You’re in a foreign country!” We arrived at the beginning of their rainy season, which is their version of “winter” at that point near the equator. It was mid- to high-seventies the entire time, and there were brief thunderstorms most afternoons.

Costa Rica is a developing country, though according to co-workers who have made the trip multiple times over the years, the country is improving upon their infrastructure at an amazing rate. There were certainly areas that were disturbing in their poverty. Every window and every door in every home had bars across them. The affluent neighborhoods also had fences and gates around their entire property lines, with armed security guards monitoring entrances and parking lots. There were armed security guards at most of the public parking lots – restaurants, malls, etc. You paid the guard to watch your car. If you didn’t pay the guard, he’d watch all of the OTHER cars and then look away while someone broke into yours. With hundreds of cars to choose from, it’s interesting how the thieves know JUST which car didn’t pay for protection…

Things that make you go hmm.

Driving in Costa Rica is best left to the natives, referred to as “Ticos”. Horns are frequently used, though never in an irritated way. It’s the primary way that a small car or motorcycle lets the larger vehicles know that they’re there, about to come around them, or about to be hit by them. The lanes on the road are mere suggestions, with cars darting around one another without warning and with a mere breath between each other. Trucks stopped in the middle of the road in a way that would NORMALLY stop traffic but instead just created an eddy in the stream, and motorcycles rode between lanes of traffic – including ONCOMING traffic. Two-lane roads were reduced in width by parking on either side, but somehow the drivers had a double-dutch rhythm when taking turns along the narrowed lane. One morning our shuttle bus broke down on a hill, and the driver coasted backwards for a good 100 yards, trusting the cars and bikes behind us to just move out of his way. Which they did. Then we shimmied off onto the side of the road, disembarked to await our new shuttle bus, and stood around taking pictures of each other (and the cows in the field next to us) with our phones. THAT got us honked at; you could tell the Ticos were thinking, “Stupid gringos.”

Anyway! We ate out a lot… well, I guess we had no way to eat IN, unless you count the hotel’s restaurant. Which was very, VERY nice, even though the ubiquitous Imperials cost the equivalent of six bucks each. Oh, and they had unfortunate taste in entertainment – two guys with a slide guitar and a keyboard, singing Lionel Richie and Journey… phonetically. There was a nice breakfast buffet each morning (with cafe con leche, please!), lunch was either on-plant or a trek to a nearby food court (they love them some food courts!), and dinner was either the hotel restaurant or another nearby restaurant. We went to a Peruvian restaurant the second night we were there. Though I’m not sure how the way they prepped my salmon was uniquely Peruvian, it was still delicious. Other meals: seafood chowder with a plethora of little baby octopi that got gently laid to the side, a seriously fabulous slab of fillet mignon, a strange spin on an American Cheeseburger (the bun was more like a large, soft cracker), and TRES LECHES. If I could find a place in Arizona that served a decent Tres Leches I’d be in heaven. I meant to have ceviche but completely forgot until it was too late. I also followed advice and didn’t drink the water, eat the cheese (which is often un-pasturized) or eat raw vegetables, and managed the trip without a jot of digestive distress. My co-workers ate and drank everything and didn’t have a problem, either. I figured I’d be better to be safe than sorry, even though they made fun of me for constantly ordering bottled water. Or… other bottled things.

There are no Starbucks in Costa Rica. In the same way that there are no Red Lobsters in Maine. I brought home several pounds of coffee. And a couple of shot glasses. And t-shirts. And Jeepin’ hats with the Imperial logo emblazoned on the front.

Everyone was really, really nice – even when they had to suffer through my assassination of their language. The country purports itself as “The Happiest Country in the World”, and to be sure I didn’t see a single grumpy person. Oh, I’m sure they had to be there, but I didn’t come across them. I would have liked to have seen the coast, or the jungle, or the volcano, or gone zip-lining. Something tells me this isn’t the last time I’ll be sent there. So, maybe next time.

Here are some more crappy cell phone pictures.

I’m NOT bringing my camera.

I’ll just let that sink in for a minute.

Bill gave me some great advice, recommending that I don’t take my Canon. First, it’s a business trip so there won’t be a heck of a lot of opportunity to wander around taking pictures. Second, I’d be better off getting a phone with a decent camera for a few hundred bucks, rather than risk the potential theft of $5k worth of gear. Third, less stuff to lug around, check through customs, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

So, I got an HTC One. It’s got an 8mp camera and HD video. And other way cool stuff. It’s fancy dancy.

What I’d like to know is, how would you like me to share with you while I’m on my trip? Facebook (Tiffany Joyce), G+ (search for Snerkology or Tiffany Joyce), Twitter (Snerkology)? There’s a WordPress app for Android phones that would enable me to blog and post photos to Snerkology directly from my phone, but I don’t know how and I’m rather down to the wire on being able to figure it out. If I do figure it out, well, you’ll know because stuff will show up here.

So anyway, if you have a preference, let me know. Cuz you’d miss me, babe, and you don’t want to miss a thing.

We’re definitely going back, hopefully closer to sunset next time.

It was a fantastic day.

(Also, thank goodness Flickr increased their maximum file size!)

Click any to embiggen, and view the whole Jeep Adventures set here.

Too many photos to load on one page, so…

I don’t really know the story of why they went with that particular choice of eternal commemoration. I think it’s just something she said a lot in conversation, an embellishment after shock and awe has been garnered. I don’t know. I have the impression that my mother was something of a social butterfly and entertained her friends with some lively stories.

It has always struck me as humorously morbid. Morbidly humorous? As in addressing her ghost, “Well gee, Carol, you’re dead!” “Yeah, tell me about it.” Or bellying up to her headstone, like a patron to a bartender, ready to spill all their woes. That my elder family members would choose to put this phrase on her grave just speaks to the prevailing sense of humor that is, apparently, genetic. A perfect lack of overt sentiment that just serves to underscore the potency of their loss.

Occasionally I entertain the concept of my own epitaph (haven’t we all? Just me? Okay…). Something to carve decoratively into a squat marble edifice (obviously nothing less than a tomb will do for MY eternal rest), or more likely engrave on an urn that lives on the mantle (Bill wants to still be able to talk to me). No flowery biblical sentiments for me, no sir! I want an inside joke, a phrase that encompasses how I have lived, and what I mean to the people who love me. I want the very first reaction to be, “Oh, that is SO HER.” Followed by a quick tear and quicker smile.

It seems rather self-serving to write my own (NOT that I’m preparing for my imminent demise, mind you). Those who love me and know me best will have to rely on their own creativity. A whole life, summarized. A hundred years from now when someone wanders past my grave (or finds my urn in a garage sale… yurg) I want them to read it and say, “Huh!” Then stand and reflect upon the kind of person who inspired such words.

———-

This post went in a very unexpected direction. I was going to talk about how fulfilling my life has been, how much I’ve accomplished, the places I’ve traveled, the friends I’ve gathered, the experiences I’ve had. But for some reason that stuff up there is what came out instead. I think it has to do with the topic we’ve been discussing in school – we kicked it off by watching the Frontline video Facing Death. The subject is a well-known trigger for me.

Then, while digging for change at lunch, I came across the dollar coin that I received in change at the Field Museum during last May’s trip to Chicago, which made me think of Larry. Then THAT made me think of Simone. Which in turn made me think to ask my sister to put flowers on Grandma’s grave the next time she was in town. Which is right next to my mother’s, but putting flowers on her grave was a secondary thought. Which made me feel guilty. Which made me wonder if someone who remembers her better is tending to her grave. Which prompted, “The epitaph on my mother’s headstone reads, “Tell me about it.”"

It’s fascinating, the way my mind works.

Waaaay back in June of last year, when it was first announced that there would be a Formula One track built in Austin Texas (the Circuit of the Americas), Bill and I jumped on making plans right away. There were two tentative dates that the race would be held in 2012 – one in June and one in November. To be safe, I wanted to make hotel reservations for BOTH dates, since I knew that demand on hotel rooms in the area far exceeds the supply, and that rates would skyrocket once dates were solidified. I did some research and found that Orangewood Suites in Austin, Texas had the room rates and location that we wanted for our trip. Our total for a two bedroom/two bathroom loft for four nights was $420. I called the hotel directly. The front desk person told me they don’t make phone reservations that far in advance, but that I was welcome to make on-line reservations. So, I did, through their website. I got e-mail confirmations right away for the room I wanted, the rate I wanted, and knew I could keep one and cancel the other once the race dates were confirmed.

At the beginning of the year, the date for the race was confirmed for November. On March 1st, I went on-line and canceled the June reservation, and immediately received an e-mail confirmation of the cancellation. I then actually called the hotel in person, just to absolutely confirm that the November reservation was still untouched, confirmed on the books. I was told we were all set.

Ten days later, on March 11th, I received an e-mail that my November reservation was CANCELED.

Obviously, I had not canceled the reservations myself. I hadn’t even been on-line in their reservation tool since making the June cancellation, for which I immediately received a confirmation, ten days before. So I immediately, like two minutes after getting the cancellation email, called Orangewood Suites to tell them that some mistake had been made.

Thus began an epic saga.

The front desk representative couldn’t reinstate a reservation, since it was made on-line by a separate system, to which they didn’t have access. So I asked for a manager. I was told that she was out, and had “flexible hours”, but I was welcome to leave a voicemail message. So I did.

I didn’t hear anything back for several days, so I called again. Same story. Another voicemail. A few days later, I called AGAIN. This time I asked for an e-mail address before I was sent to voicemail again. The manager finally responded to the email, and said that the reservation couldn’t be reinstated, because it was not made “at the Property level”. I called her right away (she had her cell number in her email signature) – I insisted that I didn’t cancel the reservations, and that there must have been some issue with their system. She said would investigate the issue.

A few days later I sent another email to follow up, and was told, “We do not have a designated person in charge of GDS (on-line) Bookings. Once the rates and inventory are loaded for the entire year everything else is automatically controlled. We have no control on GDS Bookings.” Which told me nothing. There HAS TO be someone in charge of these “GDS bookings” and I was getting stonewalled. I called the manager again, and she said there was nothing she could do, she’d escalated as far as she could and was told there was no issue with their system that would have caused the cancellation. She would not reinstate my reservation but I was welcome to re-book.

Yeah. Sure. To the tune of OVER SIX TIMES the room rate ($662.50 PER NIGHT, as opposed to $420 total for FOUR NIGHTS). I was not able to re-book at the room rates I’d originally had. As you can imagine, I very vehemently protested, and insisted that I speak to someone higher up the management chain. She refused to give me any contact information – outright REFUSED – and told me she would give my information to another guy, who would “be in touch”.

That was back on March 28th.

Since then I have sent several more e-mails, and left several more voicemail messages, and have gotten absolutely no response.

It’s obvious to me that Orangewood Suites did not want to honor their original, AFFORDABLE rate, and decided to scam us out of our room so they could charge six times the amount and take advantage of the supply/demand situation they find themselves in for the Formula One race. I am absolutely disgusted, and am now warning all of you guys, and anyone else who (hopefully) comes across this post, to NOT support Orangewood Suites with your business.

http://www.orangewoodsuites.com/

935 La Posada Drive
Austin, Texas 78752
(512) 459-3335

I’m going to contact the Austin Chamber of Commerce, the Better Business Bureau, and even see what I can do to get their AAA rating removed or reduced.

You’d better believe I’m going to tag and SEO the HELL out of this entry. Hotels that aren’t already booked solid are charging exorbidant rates. So, we’re not going to Formula One after all. And we’re mightily disappointed, especially considering how much effort we put in to be over-prepared for the trip.

What the hell ever happened to Customer Service? Why can’t people just do the right thing???

High 60′s and breezy. The cats are locked in the bathroom, the back door and garage door are open to cross-breezes, drag races on the TV, Bailey is wandering around squeaking her stuffed dragon, Gadget is begging for treats, and Bill is making the Jeep look stylin’. Today is a good day.

I’m pretty darned proud of myself at this moment in time. I’m ahead on my homework (as an aside, I’ve started having those darned dreams again, where I completely forget I’m supposed to be attending a class, and lo and behold, Finals are looming and I haven’t attended a single lecture). I’m three weeks away from finishing this semester. I have two classes to take this summer (Stats and Nutrition), two this fall (Leadership and Experiential Writing) and two to take during the winter semester (Global Business and Sustainable Solutions) and I will be DONE. D. O. N. E. DONE. DUH-UN.

And about friggin’ time.

We’re taking a vacation this summer, back to Wyoming, to re-enact parts of our epic road trip and also spend some much-needed quality time with our awesome Wyoming family. The kids will be with us this time, which is wonderful considering we haven’t taken a vacation together, as a complete family, since before Robert went into the Marines. So the five of us (that’s me, Bill, Robert, Amanda, and Amanda’s boyfriend Brandon) will be flying into Denver, driving to Laramie to spend a few days (Cheyenne Frontier Days!), then up to Jackson Hole for a handful of days (Teton National Park and Yellowstone!), over to Cody for a couple of days (Nite Rodeo and the Buffalo Bill Museum and a cheesy chuckwagon dinner!), back down to Laramie for a couple more days, then home again. I CAN’T WAIT.

I talked about it on Facebook but I don’t think I mentioned it here – about a month ago we thought Gadget was on death’s doorstep. He couldn’t breathe – he was struggling so hard we really thought he wouldn’t survive the night. He just wanted to snuggle, didn’t wag his little stump tail when we talked to him, refused all treats. I bawled my eyes out, repeatedly. But he was still soldiering on the next morning, when we had an appointment with the vet. Poor Gadge, he just lay on the floor in the exam room, instead of sniffing around and being sociable like he usually is. I really thought it was the end of the road for him. The vet gave him a diuretic and a shot for pain, and we took him home again so Amanda could visit after work and say goodbye. Within an hour, he was breathing better. Two hours later, he ate his dinner (he’d left it the night before – I don’t think I could eat if I couldn’t breathe, either). Amanda got to the house and was all, “Why, what’s the matter with him?” The next day, he was pretty much back to his usual dimwitted self. We’ve been giving him diuretic pills – it seemed he had a bunch of fluid buildup around his lungs, which these pills helped to resolve. He is utterly back to normal now and behaving in a manner that is incongruous with his actual age.

Fourteen years old and he’s going to end up outliving us all, I bet.

Something I also haven’t mentioned on this blog (“Poor neglected Snerkology” indeed, Jean!), is that Robert enlisted in the Air National Guard and has been in Texas since January. He actually left while we were in Wyoming, so we haven’t seen him since around Christmas (weird to think of it that way – we text and call each other so often it seems like much less time has passed). His schooling is up in mid-May, at which time he’ll be headed back home. His being gone just further aids the excitement about being able to take a family vacation.

Also! I’m going to Costa Rica for a business trip in the second week of May. I’m just waiting for my “expedited” passport to come back, then my boss and another co-worker and I will be headed there for a week. We may take an extra day to do the tourist thing, and I’ll take an epic ton of pictures. This will be the first time I’ve ever traveled outside the country (Canada doesn’t count). I’m excited! I’m also glad I’m going with folks who have been there before – if I were going by myself I’d probably be a nervous wreck.

I got a really good review at work.

I got a new lens.

Bill thinks if I actually say “life is good” out loud I’ll jinx it. So I won’t say it. But consider it implied.

This is the most pleasant part (read: in a NOT kind of way) about Generalized Anxiety Disorder. This non-specific anxiety that I’ve been feeling lately is directionless and causeless. I run through the Rolodex of Potential Issues in my head – money? Family? Work? Friends? School? Everything seems to be handled, for the most part. Certainly nothing to feel anxious or upset over, and being busy is actually GOOD for folks with GAD.

The thing is, anxiety throws all of my other emotions out of whack. Laughter can edge over the line into hysterical, tears are closer to the surface, annoyances pop up on the rage radar. I can flip from one extreme to the other with the slightest provocation, and all the while the pterodactyls in my midsection are maintaining the backbeat rhythm.

Music is the push that is swinging the pendulum, at the moment. I was unhappy yesterday (again, nonspecifically), to the point where I could feel pinpricks behind my eyelids. As I’ve learned to do, the little part of my brain kicked in that is reserved for clinical examination and analysis of my emotions, separate from and observing the moment. I realized it kind of felt like homesickness, but I hadn’t been thinking about home… until that thought did make me think of home, and then my nonspecific feelings focused and aimed, which escalated the whole mess… anyway, you see what I’m dealing with here.

I needed to belay that as soon as possible, so my boss wouldn’t give me that look that he has, informing me that my little ways have baffled him once again. Nothing like collapsing in a sobbing mess in your cubicle to make folks question your level of competency.

I’ve uploaded my iTunes library into the cloud (“laaaaaa”) via Google Play (which is AWESOME, so check it out if you haven’t had the chance). This is the first song that played.

I kid you not, within the first five notes my mood swung back to ecstatically happy so fast that I felt the wind in my hair. Again, the clinical part of my brain registered the fact that this mood probably wasn’t any more “real” than the one I had been in just five seconds prior. But since happiness is infinitely easier to tolerate than sadness, the analysis stopped there.

(As an aside, if you haven’t checked out Fun., you should. The band name includes the period, which combined with the banality of their name makes them hard to reference or write about. Their album “Some Night” is completely, utterly awesome. And their music is, actually, fun.)

There are days when I deal with this anxiety better than others. Sometimes that gets narrowed down to the number of hours that I’ve successfully “handled it”, and a “good day” constitutes one in which there are more calm hours than manic hours. There are days when I just throw up my hands and wallow, drink (probably too much) and eat things that are very bad for me, bury myself in a movie or a book, and ignore ALL THE THINGS. I can’t just let it go like that, though, because the anxiety train gains impetus the longer I ignore it. Then THAT turns into WORRYING ABOUT WORRYING, which is just batshit crazy.

I’ve been to therapy a couple of times for GAD. Contrary to what some folks may think about mental health care, you don’t at any point become “cured”. There is no “fix”, you are strictly there to learn coping mechanisms, better ways to avoid your triggers, and get medication if things are bad enough. Then you are released back into the world to put those tools into place that your therapist so carefully tried to get you to instill into your own psyche.

When she told me, quite a few years ago now, that one of my “tools” should be to write about what I was feeling, I laughed and told her it wouldn’t be an issue. Apparently, many folks balk at the thought of keeping a journal… well, hi there. Going on twelve years, my lovelies! With a lifetime of composition books before life began on the internet. So, no problemo.

And it does help. It does. I feel more grounded now than I did when I started this entry. And that’s the point. There is nothing to “solve” and nothing to “fix”.

Re-balance and move on. That’s my mantra.

I should make T-shirts.

A few weeks ago Bill and I were at the grocery store. I left him in the junk food isle while I went to the lady’s room (as is my habit) and was in the stall doing my thing when I heard someone come in. There was only one stall operational and I was in it, so I hustled because I heard a conversation between a lady and a little girl to the effects of, “But I don’t think I can hold it…”

When I opened the stall door I saw a woman and a little girl of about five standing near the door, which was cracked open about a foot. The lady was peeking out and speaking to someone, then closed the door and hurried into the stall with her daughter. I figured maybe it was her husband telling her to hurry it up, but when I left the bathroom I had to step around a cart in the alcove. A cart with a boy of about two strapped into the seat.

Alone. In the shopping cart. In a dark corner of a very busy grocery store at 8:00 on a Friday night.

Did I mention ALONE? And TWO?

There was no way in hell I was leaving him by himself, so I stood there and chatted with (well, at) him while he stared at me with big dark eyes and gnawed on a cookie. I was out there for six minutes – I looked at the store’s clock when I stepped out, and again when the boy’s mother and sister came out of the bathroom. SIX MINUTES she was going to leave him there by himself, in the alcove, parked between the door to the lady’s room and the door to the men’s room. She didn’t even peek out the door the entire time I was standing there.

Did she even realize all of the things that could have happened to her two-year-old son in six minutes??? He could have been kidnapped, or molested, or somehow fallen out of his seat, or choked on his cookie. At the very least he would have been frightened and anxious.

She gave me an odd – wary, distrustful – look when she stepped out and saw me talking to her son. I told her, “There was no way I was going to leave him here by himself. Anything could have happened to him.” Then I turned and walked away before I gave in to the urge to slap her face.

I mean, what the fuck lady?

———-

Okay! Jeepin’ update (click any photo to see a larger version).

The last adventure I mentioned was the East Verde River Trail on February 11th. Since then we’ve driven the Montana Mountain Trail (February 26th), the Table Mesa Trail (March 4th) and the Box Canyon Trail (March 17th).

The Montana Mountain Trail is off of US 60 between Florence and Surprise. It’s got a difficulty rating of 5 out of 10, and we were on-trail for seven hours. It has become our favorite trail – the scenery was incredible (yellow wildflowers were carpeting the hills), there was just the right amount of a challenge, there were some interesting ruins to explore, and the start/end of the trail is only 45 minutes away from our house. On this day we took Bailey with us, and she was incredibly well-behaved. We stopped a bunch of times along the trail, let her off the leash, and she stayed right by us. The strange thing was (and is) that she refuses to pee until we’re back home again. No matter how much she’s eaten or drunk, she’ll only potty once we’re back home. Since on this particular day we left the house at about 8:00 in the morning and we weren’t home again until almost 5:00, I’ve gotta think she was in a desperate way by the time we got home. She never acted like she was distressed, though. And she LOVES to go Jeepin’ with us.

This is a WAY photo heavy entry, so check out two more Jeep adventures, a neighborhood party, and some more general updates after the break.

The Table Mesa Trail is off of I-17 near New River, and has a difficulty rating of 4 out of 10. We were on-trail for about five hours. The scenery wasn’t as pretty though there were some spots, like Seven Springs, that would be great for camping. This was a very popular trail, we came across a lot of other folks out four-wheeling. Everybody waves – pass on the road, wave. Tuck into a pull-out so other folks can get by, wave. See someone having lunch on the side of the road, wave. See folks target practicing, wave. There was an awesome pile of boulders at one spot along the trail that were great to explore. It look like some god-child piled them up on the hillside. The perspective is hard to figure until you’re right on top of – or inside – them.

We drove the Box Canyon trail yesterday (and took Bailey again – we draped the “way back” with blankets to try to keep the hair wreckage down). It’s accessed from US 60 quite near the entrance to the Montana Mountain Trail, but on the other side of the road. We were on-trail for about four hours. It was also rated a 5 out of 10, but the center portion of the trail should have been rated a 6 or 7, in my opinion. There were a couple of hairy spots where we had to climb boulders, or descend down over rocks that were placed there by other drivers, just as wide as the tires themselves. We did scrape the bottom a couple of times, and ended up using the rock rails for their intended purpose (rather than just a step up into the Jeep). At one particularly challenging spot there were a bunch of people just parked there watching the show as more vehicles came along. Everybody helped the drivers spot and pick out the best path across, which I thought was cool. I should have taken some pictures of the scene but I had Bailey on the leash and was busy pondering our own Jeep’s fate.

If you don’t have a Jeep, I highly recommend you fix that.

———-

Our favorite neighbor Johanna (she of the Le Creuset casserole) hosted her 60th birthday party in her backyard last weekend. We arrived at 4:30 and left after 10:00, and had a really great time. We met a lot of fun folks, played cornhole, I had the biggest burger of my life, we watched as Johanna was anointed as a “Wise Woman”, and we watched an impromptu “wedding”. I was really glad Bill grabbed my camera, as I didn’t think to bring it with me at first.

As you can tell, a good time was had by all.

———-

Let’s see, what else? We’re finally wrapping up the details of Bill’s dad’s estate, and I’m going to write an entry about how we went about doing all the things we ended up needing to do, just in case the info should (God forbid) come in handy for anyone. It is NOT an easy thing to settle an estate without a will, even if there is nothing much IN the estate.

I’m halfway through the semester in school, and though this week is technically “Spring Break” I’m going to use the time to get a few assignments caught up or done ahead of time. I met with my adviser on Friday and she thinks that I may only have to take two or three more classes. My experiential portfolio and credits from on-the-job training might put me over the top on my requirements. If that’s the case I’ll be done by the end of the year – sooner if I can get my portfolio together quickly.

My cubicle at AcronymCo has been reconfigured, and is now installed with a sit/stand station (and a new comfy chair!). So I can sit and do my work, or raise the desk up and stand at my computer. It’s actually pretty darned awesome, though they’ve removed both of my shelves and one of my file cabinets, so I just have a three-drawer cabinet, the desk, and my chair. It seems like there’s more room in there now (it’s just 6×9 so every little bit helps) and certainly there’s more wall space for All! The! Maps! I kept leaving my cube to go to the bathroom or the cafeteria or a meeting, and when I’d come back there would be someone else trying out my new chair and desk. “Look! It can to up… and it can go down. Up… down. Up… down.” I lost the task lighting that was under the shelves, so our admin bought me a couple of lamps. Everybody keeps asking me why I’m so special, but ALL I DID was ask the admin for a new chair because the padding on my old one was thrashed. I told her my butt kept falling asleep and I wished I could stand up and work sometimes. She asked me if I’d like my cube reconfigured, and that was all it took! If the activity around my desk is any indication, there will be more folks in my group asking for the configuration soon.

There! Epic update achieved!

Then I realized that U.S. Americans tend to forget that we have “upstairs neighbors”. We in the U.S. tend to forget that the continent is named America, not our country. Our particular brand of arrogance is a topic that has filled libraries abroad. I love my fellow countrymen, but we do tend to act like the universe revolves around us.

I’ve heard Canada described as “America’s Attic” – that room in the house completely forgotten about until one day we finally take a look and end up finding all this interesting stuff! But we didn’t know it was there and never really needed it. I don’t think Americans mean to be derogatory in their thinking towards other countries. The feeling I get when I talk to fellow U.S. citizens is that we regard Canadians with fondness, like distant and somewhat less sophisticated cousins who eke out a living in the vast and freezing Canadian wilderness. We’re comfortable with assuming the stereotypes are true: that Canadians would rather bite off their own tongue than be rude do you, and that they’re innocent, down-home, folksy people who obsess over hockey. We think their accent is adorable and their customs are quaintly puzzling (Tintamarre? Poutine?). We know they would never cause us any problems – indeed, we would be shocked if border issues ever arose. We feel utterly safe when we visit Canada, and consider it a pleasant extension of our own country – easily navigated, few if any language barriers, and similar to home but with enough Asian (west coast) and European (east coast) elements thrown in to feel refreshing. Most of us even think that a passport shouldn’t be mandatory to travel to Canada, because we’re just all one big happy continent. Well, Mexico is a different story.

There’s also the general opinion that the Canadian lifestyle is nearly Utopian. Consider the following:
- Extremely low violent crime rate: 610 homicides reported in Canada in 2009, versus 15,241 in the U.S. That’s 1.79 vs. 4.86 per 100,000.
- Better, less expensive and universal health care: In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in Canada was $3,678 and in the U.S. it was $6,714.
- Fewer vehicular fatalities: 30,797 deaths in the U.S. vs. 2,011 deaths in Canada in 2009. That’s 9.98 vs. 5.90 per 100,000.
- Less obesity: 24% of Canadians vs. 34% of Americans.
- Less pollution: Canada ranked #12 and the U.S. ranked #39 on the Environmental Performance Index.
- Lower unemployment: It’s currently 8.3% in the U.S. and 7.4% in Canada.

I find it interesting that population size has little to do with the statistical results. Canada’s population is 34 million spread over 3,855,081 square miles, or 8.8 people per square mile. The population of the United States is 313 million spread over 3,718,691 square miles, or 84.2 people per square mile. So the U.S. has over nine times more people, but even when compared apples-to-apples the per capita data still shows a better rate in Canada on every point.

All this leaves me with the following concept to ponder: just why is it that Canadians are that much better at the general business of living together and caring for one another and their homeland? Is it by virtue of their European roots (though we know how peaceful they are)? Was it some sort of influence from Mother Britain, from whom they didn’t gain full independence until 1982? Is everyone just spread so far apart that they’d have to travel too far to start a fight? The answer, according to several of my Canadian friends, is simple: “We were just born and raised that way.” This vague answer demonstrates to me that even they don’t know how they do it. The real answer is just too intangible to grasp. That’s just fine by me because if you can’t define it, you can’t change it and you can’t ruin it. The problem is that you can’t emulate it either.

Bringing things back down from a national to a personal level, I simply adore Canada. My experiences over the border have been nothing but positive. Every person I encountered really was unfailingly polite. I really did feel safe. I really was able to find my way around. Every now and then I would receive a stark reminder that I was in another country – folks speaking to me in French before switching to English, roadway signs measured in kilometers instead of miles, and the ever-present poutine to name a few.

During one memorable trip to Vancouver, I encountered many people from other countries in much higher numbers than I ever encounter in the States. Folks from New Zealand, Australia, China, Japan, England, and Belgium were staying in our hotel in Whistler Village (even several years before the Winter Olympics were held there). Everyone was obviously happy to be there, completely entranced with the environment and delighting in the Canadian experience. There were many conversations about wanting to move to Canada. Dual citizenship has a romantic allure that sounds better than it would probably be in reality.

It just seems, however incorrectly, that the pace is slower and more relaxed in Canada. People seem to spend more time living, and living simply. Theirs is a population that seems to be heavily influenced by their environment, that treasures the natural resources and lives more outdoors than indoors (weather permitting). That is a lifestyle I covet, yet doubt I will ever achieve here in the United States. Maybe someday I’ll realize my dream, but for now I just have to admire and envy my upstairs neighbors while I toil away here in the basement.

I’ve asked a couple of Canadian friends if they would mind sharing with me their perspective – what makes living in Canada so great, how Canadians feel about Americans, and what Canadians think of our opinion of them. When they share their thoughts, I’ll be sure to post a follow-up to this article.

I know that when I enter search terms into my search engine of choice (Google), that information is stored and used to “personalize my user experience” during future visits. The ads that are ubiquitous to my browsing experience are now tailored to my specific needs, likes, dislikes, shopping habits, locale, and even medical conditions. When those tailored ads first started appearing in my browser, it was a little jarring. “How does it KNOW?” I asked myself. “How can it tell that I have asthma, that I recently bought a Jeep, and that I enjoy reading trashy romance novels?” Well, Google “knows” these things about me because I recently looked up the side effects of a new asthma medication I’m taking, the phone number of my local Jeep dealership, and a review of a new book by one of my favorite authors.

Search engines like Google are also sneaky enough to be able to track the websites I visit directly, rather than by finding them through the search engine. Google uses various types of “advertising cookies” that are installed on our computers to monitor our activities in order to personalize the ads we see. This is a feature that end users can opt out of. Unfortunately “opting out” isn’t as simple as clicking a nice big red “Don’t Record My Personal Information” button. No, you have to dig through several layers of personalization settings in several different places in order to disable the various tracking mechanisms. Even then, every time you clear your browsing history, or get a new computer, or load a new version of the search engine, those settings have to be adjusted again.

Facebook works in a very similar way. It tracks the pages that you “Like” or subscribe to, and the links that you post to your wall. It uses any personal information you include, such as your place of work, your alma mater and hometown to personalize the ads that appear on your page. Facebook also changes its policies, layouts, and functionality frequently enough to irritate its end users. They are then required to figure out the privacy settings all over again, and make themselves aware of the changes and additions. Fortunately, Facebook and Google do not sell your personal information to third parties. But some sites do, and it’s not entirely clear who shares what information with whom unless you dig deeply into the site’s policies and read carefully.

I recently watched the documentary Digital Nation, which I highly recommend. The documentary is broken down into many chapters, one of which discusses the impact that internet searches have on hiring practices. Employers will do an internet search on potential employees and use that information as part of the process for determining who to hire. So, say you have very strong political beliefs, and post your views regularly on a political forum. If your potential employer finds that forum, reads your posts, and finds anything in those views to be an issue, they can decide not to hire you and you’ll never know the reason why.

Now that I’ve discussed the lack of internet privacy in detail, it may seem that I would be concerned about my own privacy and the safety of my personal information. In fact, I am not. I am ALL OVER the internet, and anyone who conducts even the most basic search on my name will find a slew of information about me. We’ve all conducted a “vanity search” of our own names before. The very first thing that appears in my search when I type in “Tiffany Joyce” is a picture of me when I was little. Then you see links to my Flickr account, my Facebook page, my photography portfolio, and my About.me page. I have on-line accounts for pretty much EVERYTHING – Pandora, YouTube, my bank, Amazon, all of my credit cards, school, Linked In, Twitter, Yahoo, WordPress, and on and on.

It used to be very difficult to “find” me on the internet, because I always used a pseudonym (a “nom-de-net” if you will). All of my accounts were set up under this other name, I wrote under this name on my personal and professional blogs, and even used fake names when I wrote about the people in my life. Then a few years ago, my opinion about using my real name shifted. I think it was perhaps because I was beginning to write professionally more and more, and became a professional photographer, so I wanted people to know my actual name. I became more confident in the fact that, should anyone seek me out on the internet, there wasn’t a lot of harm they could do with the information that they could find.

I know of people who have been fired from their jobs because of what their employers found out about them on the internet. Perhaps I’m as worry-free as I am because I know that I live a decent life that is open and above-board. As long as no one is overly offended at my penchant for swearing, I feel confident that any information they find is a positive – or at least neutral – reflection of me. Which isn’t to say that I consider myself to be a Perfect Pretty Princess, only that I’m … normal. I guess if someone had something to hide, they’d be much more concerned about their privacy.

Then there is the potential threat of stalkers – those on-line and in “real life” – who can use the information they find out about me to make my life difficult or even present a real physical risk. That risk is present for everyone, everywhere, at any time. Just because it’s relatively easy to find out a lot of information about me, doesn’t mean that you’re less at risk just because it’s a little harder to find information on you. Even if you don’t have a website, or a Facebook page, or a Twitter account, all information that is a matter of public record is readily available to anyone who wishes to search for it.

I suppose I’ve made the conscious decision to not be paranoid about my personal information. I’ve come to the conclusion that, while Google and Facebook have used my information to personalize my ads, well, sometimes I find those ads to be pretty darned useful. Now, I’m not going to go out and post my social security number or my credit card information on my blog, but I don’t have issue with the fact that the entire internet knows (or can easily find out) that I live in Chandler, Arizona, and that I like to vacation in Maine. They can easily find out what kind of car I drive, what my opinions are about religion and politics, and whether or not I can take a decent photograph. They can even find out exactly what I look like, how I like to dress, and what I like to cook for dinner. If someone wants to know all of that stuff about me, well, more power to them. I’m just going to occupy my little corner of the internet and go on living my life.

I’d be very interested to know what you guys think! Are you concerned about internet privacy, how your information is being used, and/or your personal safety?