Anyone heard of Tele-Atlas? They're mapping our world...

Another Goose Girl...

First, let me apologize. I feel as if I have dropped off the face of the earth. Maybe I have. My flooded basement and the ensuing difficullties of dealing with the insurance company, damage mitigators, electricians, dry-wallers, plumbers, the cable TV company (ask me sometime what "Comcastic" really means), and more, while trying to fit going to work every day, seem to have conspired to keep me from blogging...and I feel like there is so much to say!

So, in any case, I promise to be better. I have many things to write. Unfortunately the things I want to write about may come out more stream of consciousness rather that in any navigable, chronological order. But speaking of things navigable...

I was in beautiful but smoldering St. George, Utah for the Utah Library Association conference the latter part of this week. Met Shannon Hale, Honor Book recipient for her new book The Princess Academy, who also wrote The Goose Girl. Shannon is wonderful. But what I really want to write about are the incredible synchronities that are happening all the time around us:

I'm driving home early Friday morning (I hope to get home before the kids get out of school and Friday is early out day). I'm cruising along the Interstate and come up beside a strange looking van with housings and machinery bulging out of it's sides. A logo says, "Tele Atlas...We're mapping your world." I was intrigued. I'd never heard of them before. It turns out they are this cutting edge navigation, Internet, and wireless company. Here is the short quote from their page: "Tele Atlas delivers the freshest, richest and most accurate digital map data to power the world’s most essential geographic solutions."

The orange logo above is inspired a classic children's book, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, by Selma Lagerlöf, the first Swedish writer and the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

From the TeleAtlas page: "First published in 1906, the story follows the adventures of a mischievous 14-year-old who is transformed into a tiny being, transported across the Swedish countryside on the back of a goose, and learns about nature, climate, geography and culture, and the importance of friendship, tolerance and the belief in a good world."

Pretty cool stuff.