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The Big Blue Marble Newsletter: Sample Article (The traveler) may feel assured, he will meet no difficulties or dangers, excepting in rare cases, nearly so bad as he beforehand anticipates.? In a moral point of view, the effect ought to be, to teach him good-humored patience, freedom from selfishness, the habit of acting for himself, and of making the best of every occurrence... Traveling ought also to teach him distrust; but at the same time he will discover, how many truly kind-hearted people there are, with whom he never before had, or ever again will have any further communication, who yet are ready to offer him the most disinterested assistance. True Confessions of a Geography Addict: The Insider Scoop on the Origins of The Big Blue Marble Somehow, I always knew that my love of geography would get me into trouble. While most of my friends were obsessed with dinosaurs, I spent every free moment studying geography.? I don?t know what propelled my geographic obsession; however, I do know that I?ve loved geography my whole life.? In fact, most of my most vivid childhood memories involve geography. One of my first memory of childhood took place when I was seven years at a table?at Harvey?s Restaurant in the Grand Canyon. I was eating breakfast with my Grandma Flo who was talking to another grandmother.? The other grandmother bragged about her grandchild.? Grandma Flo replied, ?Paul knows the name of every country on Earth, don?t you Paul?? I said, ?Let?s start in Europe. We have the United Kingdom (which is also called Great Britain), France, Monaco, Spain, and Portugal...? This continued all the way round the continent. ?The woman, a bit taken aback, said, ?That?s impressive.? I betcha it?s hard to know all of Africa.? ?Yes?, I replied, ?It is difficult but I know it? and, proceeded to recite the name of every country and then added: ?Oh, I also know the capital of every country as well.? By third grade, my love for geographic trivia got me into a fight with my teacher Ms. Romley. One of the questions on?a quiz was ?What is the capital of Brazil?? I replied Brasilia.? She crossed out my answer and put Rio de Janeiro, to the side. I told her that the capital changed in 1960 to Brasilia.? She ignored me.? I didn?t let this injustice stand.? Two months later, at an open house, I introduced Ms. Romley to my father, John Heller, and asked, ?Pop, What is the capital of Brazil??? He replied sheepishly: Brasilia.? I started to gloat.? Ms. Sawyer scolded me for dragging my father into this discussion since ?no one really care about the capital of Brazil anyway.? I replied:??Perhaps, you don?t care but, the 110 million people that call Brazil home do.? She gave me the ultimate evil eye yet promised to correct her mistake in future classes. ?I moved soon thereafter, though, I frequently envision Mrs. Romley on her death bed saying, ?God, has been good to me.? He moved that obnoxious Paul Heller away before he drove me out of my mind.? When I was fourteen years old, several little old ladies banished me from a trivia contest on a two week Caribbean cruise because I knew too much geography. ?During the first week of the cruise, I went to the early morning trivia quiz every day and won every prize the cruise ship had to offer.? After the first week, I asked my father to go with me to the contest.? When my father arrived, a squadron of blue-haired little old ladies asked him, ?Could you get your son out of here?? We aren?t having any fun. He?s won everything. ? My father gently explained the situation to me and I agreed to stop attending the quiz to allow the blue-haired ladies to enjoy their game again.? To this day, I wonder, though, if I could have won all the prizes and really driven those blue-haired ladies insane. Soon thereafter, I realized I want to do more than learn about the world.? I wanted to see the world, as well.? I bought the first edition of Lonely Planet?s Shoestring Guide to Asia and memorized almost every sight, accommodation, and restaurant listed in the guide.? Over the next couple of?years, I spent my free time perusing guidebooks to design my future trip round?the?world. ?When I was 13, I went on a forty day bus tour of the United States that got me hooked on travel.? By the end of college, I had been an exchange student in Japan, the Philippines, and Mexico; spent a semester abroad in Egypt; and traveled around Mexico by myself for three months. After college, I settled into several government jobs.? Though I was able to take frequent vacations, I always yearned to see the world.? Fortunately, my jobs allowed me to learn about public relations and to be published several times in the process.? I must admit, though, if I had my life to live over again, I would have done something else.? I never really felt comfortable as a bureaucrat. I created The Big Blue Marble to share my love for geography and travel with other people. I feel blessed that, instead of getting me into trouble, my obsession with geography has?enabled me to create a job that fully integrates my passion and skills. I hope that you?ll enjoy the result.
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