I was in St. Petersburg, Russia, on business and some pleasure in October ’05. I was guided on a tour through the Hermitage by an excellent, knowledgeable guide, Anna Getmanskaya (Museum & Palace Tours, St. Petersburg; phone 356-69-79 or mobile phone +7 812 918 15 99 or, preferably, e-mail get_ann@mail.ru).

A licensed guide, she is a professor of English at the St. Petersburg University and can arrange trips to museums in the city (she has licenses to all of the museums) as well...

The Geochron is a global time indicator with a moving map driven by a clockwork mechanism and backlit with internal shutters. There are scales on the bottom to show the day of the week anywhere in the world and scales across the top to indicate the time of day anywhere. A separate scale gives the month and date. It also shows the sun’s position in the sky from anywhere on the planet. An analemma moves between the two tropics, indicating the sun’s position over the course of a year.

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ITN reader Dorothy Morris wrote about not being able to mail her bills from New York’s JFK airport (Feb ’06, pg. 11). There is another solution to having your bills handled while you are gone and that is to use a bill-paying service.

Most banks offer this service, but I prefer to use www.paytrust.com. I have been using Paytrust for about five years without any problems. My bills are mailed to Paytrust and I can view them online at any time. This comes in very handy when I am out of...