Twitter Followers, Romania and Social Stigmas

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?, The Social Media Phenomenon

I lived in Romania in 1994 which was 5 years after the fall of the wall but still very early in the post Communist process. I was 20 at the time and got the wake-up call every American needs. I now think everyone needs to live abroad. Only then can you appreciate what you have, and what you don’t.

One of the curious aspects of Romania at the time was their attitude toward customer service. Coming from the U.S. where customer service has been the buzz word for 30 years, I was shocked by that particular difference.

Centre of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, dominated by St.
Image via Wikipedia

My host family once told me that Romanians didn’t like the term customer service. Not because they didn’t want to treat customers fairly but because of the history they had with the word service, servitude and serving their government. She said if that concept was to one day become a business buzz word there – the word service would likely not be part of the term.

I didn’t fully grasp that comment, at least not personally, until Twitter. For me it’s the word “followers”. I really don’t like that word at all. I think of David Koresh and the Waco, TX incident. I think of kool-aid drinkers of South America. I just can’t come up with a positive idea regarding the word “followers”.

Like the Romanians if I could rename that part of Twitter, it certainly wouldn’t include that concept. Maybe that’s because I don’t “follow” anyone. I certainly don’t log-in to Ashton Kutcher’s page to see what he did for lunch and where he is now.

Facebook calls them “friends”, LinkedIn – “Connections”. I sure do wish Twitter had called them Party Go-ers, or Tweeps or Interacters. Actually I can’t come up with a good term myself.

But if it were my business, I’d really take a good, long look at the terms I use on my site. Not only does language play a hand in the terms you choose, but so does culture. What is the culture you want to create? Does that culture mesh well with the culture of your market?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments





Adventures of Mark and Dan -Lost in Ljubljana, Slovenia

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?, The Adventures of Dan & Mark

Ever get lost in Ljubljana, Slovenia? In the course of two days, we had two incidents where we were lost. Maybe getting lost is normal for you, but for us – it’s extremely rare. Both of us are the kind of guys that really have no issue with directions or maps. I wouldn’t even get nervous in the woods knowing which direction to head. That’s just us.

Ljubljana skyline, including Ljubljana Castle
Image via Wikipedia

Early one morning Tom, my brother, and I decided to go for a jog. We knew there was a “Central Park” type place so headed there and actually found a paved jogging trail. (That I didn’t expect). So we took off on a relatively leisurely run.

The paved trail was nice and wide with pretty street lights lining the roads. I don’t know when it dawned on us, but after an hour we realized that we were no longer in the park and didn’t seem to be heading back to the city yet. We found a jogger who spoke English and asked how to get back to town and was told to keep following the trail.  He just failed to tell us that it a 13 mile trail.

After following some back roads and stopping many more joggers, we ended up finding our way back in about an hour. But let me say, that was a long hour.

Then later that day, not the next day. That day. Mark and I decided we’d go get reservations for our ship ride. Tom and Szabi decided they’d hang out a bit and then would meet us at the train station where we’d have a better idea of which train to catch.

It must have taken us longer at the ship reservation place than all of us thought it would because when we got to the train station, Tom and Szabi were not there. They had waited so long, they’d come looking for us.  For the course of another “nervous” hour, Mark and I went searching for Tom and Szabi who were searching for us.

And then it started to rain.

In the end we all kept our wits about us and made our way back to the hostel – probably thinking when in doubt meet at the common meeting place.  For my little brother’s first trip to Europe, I was nervous. Very nervous.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments





Cool Places To Take Kids – A Twitter Clinic

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?, The Kids

This Twitter Clinic was posted June 4 at 10:30 pm

Tonite’s Twitter Clinic is about cool places to take kids this summer for vacation without spending a lot of money. I’ll start with my most

favorite place: The City Museum in St. Louis. Let me tell you that a museum it is not. There is nothing in it that you’d even want to just

look at. The City Museum is like a huge, HUGE, indoor (and outdoor) McDonald’s playland. But none of it is plastic. There are conveyor belt

slides. There’s even one that’s 3 stories high. There’s a 10 story spiral slide in the middle. Outside there’s a plane suspended 100 feet in

the air, and lots of cool rebar ladders, wire mesh and steel steps to climb up to it. A big ball pit, a bus on the roof, tunnels as dark as

night, as furry as kittens, and tunnels made of hollowed out trees. Pizza that’s out of this world. It’s just cool. You should check it out.

My next favorite place to take kids on vacation would have to be Cedar Point, in northern Ohio on Lake Erie. If you’re kids are older and

love roller coasters, there is no better place on the planet to take them. Cedar Point is the roller coaster capital of the world.

In California, I think Legoland has a lot to offer, but I wouldn’t want you to skip the beach. It’s free, fun and relaxing for everyone.

Illinois has Chicago, but it also has Metropolis – the home of Superman – at the southern tip. Great highway stop and 1/2 day stop.
In Orlando, don’t just go to Disney while you’re there – drive 40 minutes, save money and take them to Coco Beach – they’ll love it, too.

Also in Orlando, just outside Disney on the way is a huge Walmart that has all the Disney souvenirs for 1/5 the price.

Anyway, come to our Facebook Group My Favorite Place To Take Kids on Vacation Is. . . to share your ideas as well:

Did I tell you about the Hocking Railroad in Southern Ohio?How about Sesame Street Land outside Philadephia?The Strong Museum of Play in NY?

There are so many great places to take kids. Just outside Springfield, VA is a farm with mazes, tractor rides, giant pillows,life-size chess

- that makes a great “less stressful” stop if you’re taking young kids to Washington D.C. for the week. Anyway come join our Facebook Group

and continue this conversation about cool places to take kids on vacation.


  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments





Travel Is Fun When Things Look Different

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?

I just don’t like driving in the U.S. much. Maybe I’ve just done too much of it, but seldom do things look different.

Sure going from Kansas to Vail, there’s a topography change – and it’s dramatic, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Once you get into the mountains, very few places look different from other Colorado mountain places. Pretty – but standard.

Driving from Nashville to Orlando, when you’re very close to the Georgia/Florida line the trees, the feel, the topography are quite different. It’s swampy and the trees are all short and odd looking. I really enjoyed the 30 or so miles of that drive where everything just looked different.

The Chiricaua Mountains in Arizona, close to the Arizona/New Mexico/Mexico are very different. I don’t remember seeing that anywhere else. The rock formations are so interesting, they certainly rival Garden of the Gods.

There’s a spot between Tucson and Rocky Point in Mexico that is crazy, weird. It’s the result of an asteroid field impact and really feels like you’re on a different planet. That and Rocky Point are great places to “be transported”.

Finally, what inspired this post, was my drive today from Nashville to the hotel here in Wytheville, VA. Just before you leave Tennessee there appears to have been a state effort to plant evergreens next to the highway. Well, for 15 miles or so, there are thousands of evergreens next to the highway – thousands. And all of them are 5 feet tall or shorter. It’s different – almost cute.

Been anyplace that just feels different? Leave me a note – I’d love to hear about it – then go there.

  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments





My Favorite Place on Earth

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?

What a strange title I just wrote. I’ve spent my life traveling – seriously – my entire life. My father’s military career decided that he should move frequently so his family could test out restaurants, churches, schools and airports nationwide. It was a good plan, really. Making friends as a military kid is not so easy – but in the end you learn a lot.

Follow the sign . . .

So whenever I talk about my life people inevitably ask which place has been my favorite. Until this very moment, my answer 100% of the time has been “I always like where I am more than where I was, so I’ve never had a real favorite”. But I can say that 2 years ago I spent 25 minutes in a place I totally loved.

On the northern side of the Mediterranean, just east of Italy is a beautiful, little town called Dubrovnik – in a wonderful country re-named by our egocentric culture, Croatia. Dubrovnik is not the place though. In fact, Dubrovnik is a mix of good and bad. There are some really cool unknown swimming holes with tide pools and rock walls to climb, there’s a place that makes an unbelievably good hamburger (which sounds strange).

And then there’s the old fort which is a bit like Disney. The old fort houses my favorite place, but it’s not the fort itself. When you enter the old fort at the main entrance you are greeted by tons and tons of tourists, shops, museums, vendors and outdoor seating. It’s fun for, like, 10 minutes and then it’s just annoying. Loud, obnoxious Americans and lots of tourists from cruise ships.

But walk all the way down the main hallway and take a right heading toward the outside western wall. Look for a sign that says “Cold Drinks With the Most Beautiful View” and follow it.

The bar from the castle wall

The bar from the castle wall

Eventually, you’ll come to a hole in the wall of the fort that actually take you outside the walls to a bar.

It’s not a typical bar – I mean it’s outside – on a the edge of an old fort. And you’re sitting in plastic chairs at plastic tables and there are people swimming just off the rocks. The bar itself is small; they sold simple stuff like refreshments and basic alcohol.

The unbelievable part is your sitting there looking out over the Mediterranean with a view so vast and wide that you can see the curvature of the earth. And there are yachts moored just off the shore. And down the way a bit, and around the corner of the fort wall is a water polo ‘pool’ laid out with buoys in the sea. And you’re just sitting there, enjoying the moment away from the maddening crowd. It’s beautiful. It’s my favorite place on the planet.

  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments





Santa Claus’s House is Just As I Remember

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?

I lived on Elmendorf Air Force Base when I was a kid. That’s the one just outside Anchorage and just down the street from Sarah Palin’s Wasilla. It’s a cool place to grow up, let me tell you. Having grown up in 11 or 12 different states I feel like an expert on ‘cool’ places to grow up. Think about this from a kid’s perspective. In the summer – it’s light all the time. 2:00 it’s light. 6:00 it’s light. Bedtime it’s light. Playing outside never ends. And Anchorage is not too hot, not too cold – just right. And then in the winter you get to make snowmen, go sledding and build snow forts from October through March. Did you know that just about every elementary school has an ice rink? And then there are moose walking around and they are the biggest animals ever. The neighborhood dads used to make an ice rink in the backyard by shoveling out a big 20 x 30 area and using the snow to make walls around the outside edge. Then they’d all put their hoses into the middle and fill it up overnight.  Like I said, living in Alaska as a kid is cool.

Well one year we drove north to Fairbanks. Do you know what’s in Fairbanks – Santa Claus’s house. Cool, eh? Yeah, just outside of Fairbanks is North Pole, Alaska and alongside the highway is the cheesiest, giant Santa themed gift shop. Oh wait, from a kid’s perspective – and then when you’re leaving Fairbanks you get to a place where the snowbank is really high, you turn into the parking lot where the reindeer land and you get to go into Santa’s candy covered house. It’s filled with toys and ornaments and elves and music and colors. It’s awesome. And all the toys are on racks that you can spin around and there are toys hanging on all sides of the racks. And toys are on shelves down low and way up high – so high your dad has to help get things down. Santa Claus’s house is the greatest place to visit because it doesn’t matter when you go there – it’s always Christmas.

Anyway, I think we visited it in July. But for some reason I remember all that snow. What’s funny is I remember all kinds of stuff like that.  It’s kinda like the smurfs. I remember them so vividly all blue with white hats and yellow mushrooms, green trees and Gargamel’s grey cat. I have this clear vision of life when I was a kid that’s so different than reality.  I have 3 kids now – and I wonder.  Are the smurfs blue in their world?  I wonder – because I remember them so vividly and yet we had a black and white TV.

I hope your childhood memories are as kid-like, and you have memories of Santa too.

  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments





Culture Shock: Going Up in Paris

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?, Life's Experiences

Two point five days in Paris. It wasn’t our only days in France, but for some reason it was our only time in Paris. We’d spent Thanksgiving in Nice (Antibes, really) and then had taken the TGV (that really fast train) directly from Monaco to Paris.  Our quarters was an apartment that belonged to a friend of ours. He lived on the oustkirts of town, not at all within walking distance of the cool stuff – but staying in an apartment (for free) was cool all by itself. I don’t remember how we got from the train station to the apartment complex but I remember arriving and walking inside. He lived on the 4th or 5th floor so we took the elevator up.

That brings me to a question, what is culture shock? I think part of it is realizing that you don’t squat about the world. At this point in time I’d lived in something like 9 states, traveled to a bunch more, had been living in Romania for a while and now had traversed my way across Europe to get to Paris. I guess all that contributed to the false sense that I was ‘worldly’ and had seen some stuff. And while this seems strange now, getting into that elevator was one of those moments. It made me realize that none of that other stuff mattered because there are plenty of things in this world that are going to surprise me. Maybe that’s not culture shock, but it left an impression.

It was the elevator that did it, not the apartment complex, the elevator. Back in Romania, the apartment I lived in had a funny elevator, not funny ha ha, but funny different. It was typical shape, a few feet wide and a several feet deep, but you had to manually open a sliding gate and then the door to get in. Then you manually closed them both and pressed the floor button, but it wouldn’t always stop at the floor. Sometimes it would stop a few feet above or below the floor – and sometimes the gate or door didn’t close – but no matter what it got you there. Even though it was different the gate and the floor stopping problem weren’t culturally strange. Even though you may not have seen one you see stuff like on TV and movies occassionally.

The elevator in Paris hit me like lightning. Again, this might seem silly but I never would have expected it. When the elevator door opened, the back of it was right there. I mean the elevator was 12 to 18 inches deep. You had to get in backward, really. And then you sidestepped to the right, past the elevator buttons about 6 feet into this ‘pocket’. And the next person slid in next to you. So if you wanted to get off on the next floor, everyone had to slide out, let you out and then slide back in. It was the strangest thing and I just remember thinking that my life is so shallow if I didn’t know an elevator could surprise me. I mean this was an elevator – not a war torn village in the mountains of Afghanistan. An elevator.  And I’m standing in a pocket 18″ deep, at the most, looking at wall, holding my luggage by my side -smiling.  Life is good when you can go somewhere and be surprised by the elevator. Where in your hometown can you expect that to happen?

Travel. Let yourself be surprised – and then tell me about it. I’d love to hear your story as well. By the way, that was our point five day in Paris – wait till you hear what happened when we got off the elevator on Day One.

  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments





Getting Away From It All – Without Leaving

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?

Have you ever been to Branson, Missouri or Pigeon Forge, Tennessee? On a Vacation?  Did it remind you of your State Fair on a Friday night? Shops, Ice Cream Parlors, Ripley’s Museum, Shops, Show Palace, 7-11, Traffic Lights, Shops, Outlet Mall, etc. . .     At one point in my life going from t-shirt shop to t-shirt shop was pretty fun, as was buying seashell necklaces, eating funnel cakes, and paying to see a VW Bug made out of toothpicks.  I’m not sure whether you get wiser as you get older or whether you just get tired of the stuff you used to do, but please don’t make me go to a place like that during the summer, again.

Fortunately, I’ve been pleasantly surprised twice in the last few years with places that have the potential to be Pigeon Forges and turned out to be just the opposite.  A few years ago my family (much smaller then) lived in Phoenix, AZ and were attracted to the idea of going to Mexico for the weekend.  Not just across the border, but right on the Sea of Cortez – the closest real beach to 4 million people in Phoenix, Tucson and Nogales.  You’ve all seen pictures of Tijuana and those other beach places close to the border – well this place is just as close.  Mexico calls it Puerto Penasco – and of course we renamed it Rocky Point.  I’d heard many folks talk about their beach house in Rocky Point and knew we were in for a commercial drubbing.

Rocky Point is the opposite of commercial, however. It’s real, genuine Mexico. I think Holiday Inn had just finished a hotel there – but it wasn’t even on the beach. And that was the only name brand hotel there. Everything else was run by locals to serve, basically locals. There were a couple streets set up with craft vendors for the Gringos – but that’s it. The beach was just a beach. Restaurant menus were written in Spanish, and no Ripley’s Museum in sight.  The best part about Rocky Point is the shrimp. They have these blue shrimp that measure only 5 – 6 per pound. They’re enormous and great on the grill.

This year I had another experience like that, but I didn’t have to leave the country.  The story starts the same .  .  . everyone goes there for vacation, they have beach houses, it’s the closest beach to all of Alabama, some of Florida, some of Mississippi and most of Tennessee. That’s a whole lot of people bearing down on this one town – Gulf Shores, Alabama.  Unlike Rocky Point however, Gulf Shores is somewhat developed with Walgreens, malls, shops and hotels. But the closer you get to the beach, the less development there is. Maybe one major chain hotel on the beach – otherwise it’s all cottages and condos. You can actually bring your own food, rent a condo and spend your entire vacation hanging out on the beach without ever having to pass a t-shirt shop, ice cream parlor, mini golf place or surf shop. My kids got to play with hermit crabs, we saw a seahorse, got to see some jellyfish and lots of cool shells. You want to get away from it all, drive south to Gulf Shores – then drive a little bit farther and park yourself on the beach.

I don’t remember it as clearly, but I think Wells Beach in Maine is the same way. For the locals that live there – it’s a great place to get away from it all.

Dan – Clippershiptravel.com

  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments





My Favorite Place On Earth (thus far)

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Ever Been There Before?

What a strange title I just wrote. I’ve spent my life traveling – seriously – my entire life. My father’s military career decided that he should move frequently so his family could test out restaurants, churches, schools and airports nationwide.  It was a good plan, really. Making friends as a military kid is not so easy – but in the end you learn a lot. So whenever I talk about my life people inevitably ask which place has been my favorite. Until this very moment, my answer 100% of the time has been “I always like where I am more than where I was, so I’ve never had a real favorite”. But I can say that 2 years ago I spent 25 minutes in a place I totally loved.

 

On the northern side of the Mediterranean, just east of Italy is a beautiful, little town called Dubrovnik – in a wonderful country re-named by our egocentric culture, Croatia.  Dubrovnik is not the place though. In fact, Dubrovnik is a mix of good and bad. There are some really cool unknown swimming holes with tide pools and rock walls to climb, there’s a place that makes an unbelievably good hamburger (which sounds strange) and then there’s the old fort which is a bit like Disney. The old fort houses my favorite place, but it’s not the fort itself. When you enter the old fort at the main entrance you are greeted by tons and tons of tourists, shops, museums, vendors and outdoor seating. It’s fun for, like, 10 minutes and then it’s just annoying. Loud, obnoxious Americans and lots of tourists from cruise ships.

 

(Can you believe I found this place after reading a tiny notation in the Southwest Airline magazine a year before I’d planned to go to Croatia. Well, that’s not true, which is why you don’t believe it. I did know that we were going to Croatia.)

 

But walk all the way down the main hallway and take a right heading toward the outside western wall. Look for a sign that says “best bar” and follow it. Eventually, you’ll come to a hole in the wall of the fort that actually take you outside the walls to a bar. It’s not a typical bar – I mean it’s outside – on a the edge of an old fort. And you’re sitting in plastic chairs at plastic tables and there are people swimming just off the rocks. The bar itself is small. I had a Coke, but I’m sure it had alcohol.

 

The unbelievable part is your sitting there looking out over the Mediterranean with a view so vast and wide that you can see the curvature of the earth.  And there are yachts moored just off the shore. And down the way a bit, and around the corner of the fort wall is a water polo ‘field’ (?). And you’re just sitting there, enjoying the moment away from the maddening crowd. It’s beautiful. It’s my favorite place on the planet.

 

Dan – Clippershiptravel.com

  • Share/Bookmark

Related Posts:

Read Comments








If You Liked Your Visit, Share This Blog With Others

Switch to our mobile site