Week Two Thing 3: technology blog saves the day

As I started this 23 things project, I was totally inexperienced with blogs and many of the other technologies we will probably be learning about. I wasn't sure about the purpose or reason to use or look at blogs with a busy schedule and hardly getting through my email.
However, this week brought home to me the usefulness and importance blogging can have. My 25 year old daughter is obviously much more savy than I am about using Internet tools. Over six months ago she started the process for renewing her passport for our trip to London starting on 6/15/07. The first passport misspelled her name (how difficult is Wilson to spell?) and it has been a nightmare ever since, involving the offices of two senators, a wait in line at the passport office of the state department beginning at 4:00 a.m., wrong information from the passport officials, etc. Needless to say great frustration, anger and angst about missing the trip by Tuesday of this week, not to mention the $400.00 she had already shelled out. However, she used blogs on the Internet to research experiences and advice from a multitude of people going through the same agony and incompetence. She was able to get a name and phone number of a person in the U.S. consulate who actually did answer the phone and by 8:30 last evening she finally and thankfully had passport in hand! Blogging is not a solution I would ever have thought of, but the information she found saved the day. I have a new energy in pursuing this learning. Happy Gardner