Life's weird, eh? Mrs. Podrock and I were enjoying an early dinner at our favorite pub and the place began to fill up with folks that all seemed to know one another and they seemed to be celebrating something. Most of them were wearing windbreakers that said "GOOGLE EARTH" and on the back it said "SketchUp!"

Well, the party got larger, and larger, until they annexed the open seats at our table. Right next to my wife was this 20 something kid with (and I'm not making this up) a parrot* on his shoulder. The bird was eyeing our french fries, so my wife gave him one. That opened up the conversation and we asked them what this was all about. They all worked at a company that makes a program called Sketchup and they had just been bought by Google. We talked with them for long after our check came about the program and it sounded pretty neat. This is the program that is being used by Google Earth for the 3D buildings.

I've not downloaded the eight-hour trial version yet, but will later on this evening. They invited us to stop by and take a tour, so we'll do that soon, but after I've played with the demo.

Meanwhile, here's a video of what the program is all about and if it is worth the $495 price tag. Might be the kind of program that I put to use. So I thought I'd let y'all know about it, see what you think.

*I did not get the chance to ask him where he got the parrot.