One of the good things about living in Sydney was that, at least from the 2000 Olympics on, people around the world had some idea where I was located. Since we moved a few hundred miles north to the beautiful Gold Coast/Tweed Coast area, explaining where I am has been more of a challenge.

But no more. All I have to do now is get people to visit this blog and click on the Multimap button over in the right hand sidebar and they can see a map of the island I live on and then zoom out to get progressively bigger views of the area. Try it! (Update: I haven’t used the Multimap tool for a while – Google Maps have sort of taken over.)

Not sure how I found this, but there’s a detailed explanation of what to do to map your blog at the Clagnut blog. Evidently this tool has been provided on the initiative of a Multimap employee. Cool! Let’s hope the company likes it and rewards him!

Thinking about the no show by Tom Peters and a few other expected participants at the Blog Business Summit, on account of severe weather problems, I recalled, inconsequentially, the legendary  motto of the US Postal Service – ‘Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds’.

I didn’t attend the Summit either, but that was more about the challenge of time and airfares to cross the Pacific.

But from reading the Summit blog I know I would love to have been there. Lots of stimulating thoughts just from the session information and downloadable PowerPoint slides from the presenters (don’t know how long they will be available).

Great news that the organisers are already working on the next Summit.

Incidentally, in the interest of historical accuracy, it seems the US Postal Service has no motto. The words cited above come from the Greek historian Herodotus around 2500 years ago and referred then to the Persian mounted postal couriers Herodotus observed during the Greek-Persian wars and the original (translated) version is: ‘Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’.

How come the US Postal Service reference? When the New York City General Post Office was being designed in the late 1800s, someone had the bright idea of engraving Herodotus’ saying all around the outside of the building. This and information about other fascinating inscriptions on post offices is at the History of the US Postal Service site .