We take too much for granted...

Today I was driving back to work from my lunch break, when I saw this guy standing in the street.



Well, all right. Not that guy specifically. He was actually kind of a schlubby delivery guy with iPod headphones as opposed to an part-Asian model who takes pride in the fact that he holds letters like playing cards.

The point is, it got me thinking. Specifically about how spectacular the postal service is. For all our whining and complaining about their slow delivery and losing mail, we lose sight of the fact that here is an organization who is able to bring a physical object from one place to another in a matter of days. Sometimes, even hours. The concept is so crazy that the guy who invented FedEx got a poor grade on a college paper because his professor didn't believe that a business plan for overnight delivery would be viable.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very patient. I hate ordering online half the time because I don't want to wait for it to arrive. When I want something, I want it immediately. But here's where the being taken for granted part kicks in. One hundred years ago, the world just said too bad. You could give it to some guy on a horse and maybe he'd deliver it or maybe he wouldn't. I suppose you could also have trained one of those little pigeon guys to deliver it, but we all know how distracted they get. Your letter to your mistress might get delivered to your wife. Awkward.

The logistics necessary to make this all happen are just incredible. So much organization and trial and error have needed to be done in order to create what is now just an expectation by modern society. Despite the postal service's continuing irrelevance as a daily delivery service, they still provide something awesome that we never really seem to take the time to appreciate.

So that's what this blog is going to become. A (hopefully) daily reminder of all the things that we take for granted and why they are so awesome.