New Blog & Travel-sized Toiletries

This is the kick-off entry to the new PATHWAYS Blog. Before, during, and after Certiport's international conference in Orlando, Florida, we'll keep you up to date on the latest goings-on (I love using that phrase ... heh, heh ... goings-on).

In fact, I'll get a little help reporting PATHWAYS from the following folks:

• Sunny Washington - reporting on the International Educational Advisory Board (IEAB) track
• Allen Logue - reporting on the Partners track
• Anita Osbourne - reporting on the Instructors track
• Denece Mikolash - reporting on the Student Competition track
• Doug Anderson - I'll be making general entries from time to time

Now that we are T-minus two days and counting until PATHWAYS begins, I've already started on my list of stuff to bring along. One of the recent carry-on travel restrictions includes bans on certain quantities of gels, liquids, and aerosol devices. This doesn't bode well for the world of toiletries.

I actually learned this the hard way a month ago when I flew for the first time in a year. Airport security took my bottle of moisturizer. It was a small bottle and only had a few days worth of moisturizer, anyway ... but still: Couldn't they just gauge the amount of the contents before tossing it? Another colleague on the same trip had a similar problem with a bottle of hair gel. His dilemma became much more obvious throughout the conference when his hair began to resemble Albert Einstein's during his unkempt later years. Yeah, it wasn't pretty.

OK ... and I'll admit it: I'm a germaphobe. And because of I can't take my trusty bottle of Germ-X with me to the airport (a god-send for parents, germaphobes, and parents who are germaphobes), I may be left languish in the germ-ridden merry-go-round we call the airport.

(I guess I could always buy a new, travel-sized version of Germ-X. Hmm ... now my inner cheapskate is battling it out with the germaphobe.)

- Doug