Flickr image by user emilydickinsonridesabmx

I am sure that many of us have sad childhood memories of feeling left out because we weren’t yet big enough to ride the cooler rides at the fair or amusement park. The cartoon character on the height measurement sign was almost mocking us as we were turned away from the fun. Continue reading

Photo by Gordon Hatton

Imagine that you’re about to take a cross-country road trip with your friends or family. You took the time off of work, you packed the car and are sitting in the passenger seat, excited to begin the adventure. As your friend pulls out of the driveway, you ask what route they’re taking. They respond, “Oh, I didn’t look up a route. The interstate system is simple enough, we’ll figure it out along the way.”

My guess is that you would be pretty concerned at that statement, to put it gently, if you stayed in the car at all. Maybe the driver thought it was more fun to go without planning the route, or maybe they were so excited to get on the road that they didn’t want to waste time finding the way. However, we can probably all guess that, if they went ahead without a route planned, they likely got lost many times, their trip took much longer than it needed to, and they spent more on fuel and hotel stays than if they planned out a direct route. Continue reading