Columns

by Chris Springer, Contributing Editor

“The Travel Book: A Journey through Every Country in the World” (2004, Lonely Planet. ISBN 1741044510 — 444 pp., $39.99 hardcover).

This hefty coffee-table volume earns its definitive title. Assembled by the editors of Lonely Planet guidebooks, “The Travel Book” devotes one page-spread to each of 230 countries and territories around the globe. This simple, egalitarian concept produces a new world order that is strictly A to Z. For once, places like Chad, Dominica and Vanuatu get their due.

Each country is presented in a handful...

by Janet M. Denninger

A young friend of ours, the daughter of close friends, recently returned from a 2-month trip to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Bali. One afternoon she surprised us with a slide show of her pictures. It was on two CDs. Uh-oh!

First of all, I have to congratulate her on taking my advice and keeping her new Canon ELF digital point-and-shoot handy at all times. In fact, she hung it from a chain around her neck like jewelry and took many, many, many pictures.

With the camera’s tiny size, a large-capacity card and a small hard drive for storage, her...

Hello! My name is Steven Venables.

When I started in the travel industry 40 years ago, everything was a little more formal. In fact, the airline I first worked for, United, required us to wear military-like uniforms and use only our last names when introducing ourselves to passengers or answering the telephone. I was “Mr. Venables.”

But people would often slaughter my name, calling me Mr. Vegetables, Mr. Animals or worse. So, with permission, I assumed a false but easier-to-pronounce last name and became known as Mr. Vernon — that is, until some bright guy came up with the...