Free 411 Business Service from Google!

Getting lost on your way to a restaurant or theater in an unfamiliar area? Wish you didn't have to pay that 411 charge to the phone company for the number to call them? Google's got this very convenient business 411 service available to anyone who calls their special number. Here's how it works:

1. Call 1-800-GOOG-411 (800-466-4411) to get a virtual operator.
2. Say the city and state you want.
3. Say the name of the business OR the type of business you want.
4. Get connected to their phone number right away or ask for details to hear the business address and phone number.

Try it out when you're safely at home. Ask for the number of your local public library to see how it works like a charm! Who knew?

5 Dangerous Things for Kids

Watch this! (You might need to wait half a minute for it to load.) 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do is a brief, but terrifically interesting talk by Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School where kids "play with power tools!" I found this on the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) site with really fascinating stuff from their annual conference - somewhere in California, of course.

The part that got me, even though I don't have any kids in grade school at my house, is thinking about whether I would let those kids (if I had em) do this stuff. Even better, is thinking about whether you ever did any of this stuff yourself before you got to high school - not counting the Internet stuff if you were born before, say 1985.

Question at the end: does this really teach kids to be safer and more self-reliant in today's scary world?

"Persepolis" and our family connection

My first post! Here goes:
Hope you have heard that the film version of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's marvelous graphic novel about growing up in Iran at the time of the overthrow of the Shah, is in movie theaters across the country. This memoir has particular interest for all of us, since there were some of our very own family members in Iran at that time. They experienced the Iranian people's friendliness to Americans back then, as well as the anxiety and disruption of the overthrow.

The book had a sequel, Persepolis 2, which follows young Marjane as she is sent out of Iran to Europe for her own safety. This definitely has more adult content, but is also well worth reading. The movie version combines material from both books, so get the book(s) at your library or book store, then let's compare notes on the movie!