Google Adsense College

Posted by Carrie Farrell, Veteran Santa
Tracker

It was more than half a century ago, on Christmas Eve in 1955, that
a Sears Roebuck & Co. store in Colorado Springs advertised a
special hotline number for kids to call Santa. What the company
didn't know at the time was that they had inadvertently
misprinted the telephone number. Instead of Santa's workshop,
the phone number put kids through to the

href="http://www.norad.mil/" >North American Aerospace Defense
Command (NORAD), the bi-national U.S.-Canadian military
organization responsible for the aerospace defense of the U. S. and
Canada. Worse, it wasn't just any number at NORAD: it was the
commander-in-chief's operations hotline. In the spirit of the
season, Colonel Harry Shoup, the director of operations at the
time, had his staff check radar data for any indication of a sleigh
making its way south from the North Pole. They found that indeed
there were signs of Santa, and merrily gave the children who
called an update on his location. Thus, a tradition was born, and
NORAD has continued to help children track Santa on Christmas Eve
ever since.

It just so happens that Colonel Shoup is my grandfather, which is
why I'm so excited that, 52 years later, Google is joining the
effort. This holiday season, NORAD has partnered with Google to use
technology including Google Maps, Google Earth, iGoogle and YouTube
to track Santa. I can remember tracking Santa with my grandfather
as a child, and I'm so proud to see my company carry on his
vision of doing something this special for kids around the
world.

The countdown begins December 1st on NORAD's href="http://www.noradsanta.org/" >website,
where families can find a new kid-friendly game or activity every
day until December 24th. And starting at 1:00 am PST on December
24th, you'll be able to track Santa's trip in real time.
You can download href="http://earth.google.com/" id="tv1z" >Google Earth and add
the href="http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=http://www.labpixies.com/gadgads/norad/norad_new.xml&source=snta"
id="yz-4" >NORAD Tracks Santa iGoogle gadget to your iGoogle
page anytime, but make sure to come back to href="http://www.noradsanta.org/" id="i5xa" >noradsanta.org on
December 24th to download the special Santa Tracking file for an
enhanced 3D Santa-tracking experience.

onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"
href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_Ap14FtNN91w/R1AbpzjHTpI/AAAAAAAAAeE/7uHcEfbxD18/s1600-R/Carrie_NORAD.JPG" >
height="1" width="1" />

Tags: , Carrie, Farrell, half, Posted, Santa, TrackerIt, Veteran