Ready, Aim, Connect

“Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories.” ― Laurie Anderson

I have this thing for technology and what it can do in our lives. It can help us find our way to Grandmother's home, provide instructions to repair a leaking faucet or measure the steps we take each day.

The possibilities seem endless to how much we can do today.

Our lives are also about connection and technology can help us with that on a daily, hourly and even minute-by-minute basis. We have the ability for instantaneous connection regardless of where we are in the world.

Connections crossing the globe connecting each of us.

Telegraph and then the simple use of a phone allowed us to move from sending a message to actually conversing with other people miles away. Some may say we have converted the smart phone of today into a modern day telegraph.

As we send text messages back and forth instead of actually talking.

When I travel either here in the U.S. or abroad, my smart phone provides an ability to connect with family and friends at any time. My parents would get a special thrill whenever I called from overseas. They were simply in awe of what communication could do. Once I called them from inside St. Paul's Basilica at the Vatican.

Just think of what you can do with technology.

I was walking and describing everything I could see, relating my experience to what they had only seen in pictures. That is until the Vatican folks caught me and asked me to put away the phone. I gave an excuse about having once been Catholic and forgetting my Catholicism of 'thou shalt not talk in Church'.

The Vatican folks were nice enough to let me stay.

It is also interesting when friends call me on my cell phone. Think about it. Fifteen or twenty years ago, the one thing you never heard someone ask was the question "where are you?" Back then you were located at the place where the phone was tethered.

With cell phones, you can be almost anywhere.

Not long ago, I was in London working and did the tourist thing. I went to Abbey Road Studios where The Beatles recorded much of their best work. Knowing web cams exist everywhere in the city, I knew Abbey Road would have one. In the picture above people can watch you strut across the famous street crossing made famous of course by The Beatles album cover artwork.

Making new friends by stopping local traffic while taking pictures.

So I called my wife Laura, had her get online and watch me real time walk across the street. Sure, geeky cool is all I can say. But today one can do this with something such as FaceTime on the iPhone.

Technology advances faster than we can sometimes grasp.

You can and should us the available technologies we have today and the ones we will have tomorrow. Use them to stay connected with family; use them to stay connected with friends.

It is a great world we live in.

Life can only get better as we take it all in as you connect and grow your life to greater levels with everyone around you. All of those folks are waiting to hear and see you. So ready, aim, and connect.

Stay inspired my friends.

Change of Latitude

“It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of person-kind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely.”
-Leo Buscaglia

From 34.1169° N, 83.9986° W to 25.4687° S, 49.2535° W, the coordinates of where and to our friends the Spells will be moving. They are moving from Buford, GA (in the United States) to Curitiba, Brazil. This is a straight line distance of roughly 4708 miles.

This move was not a whim but driven by a vision they have to help with a church and the people of Brazil. The church is C3 Curitiba and they will be working with Pastor Ronald Berg and his team in Brazil. You could almost call them "southern" missionaries going "south" on a mission.

But this is not strictly about church or even religion. This is about connecting with people and helping them raise up their lives. It is about sharing lives together and helping other people live their best life. And that is something all of us could use, whether it be in Curitiba, Brazil or Buford, Georgia or any place you want to name. All of us are trying to live the best life we can.

You can be a part of their adventure as well, at least in part by helping support them. Annie and Dave could still use a few more monthly partners. If you could make a commitment of $20, $30, or more (or less) a month, it would go a long way. Or you could make a one time donation of $250, $500 or $1000 towards connection and helping others achieve something more in life.

Step out of the ordinary in your life and click on the link below; it is tax deductible.

Annie & Dave Spell - Brazil Missions

Muito Obrigado for your donation. And to our good friends Annie and Dave Spell, happy trails to you!

Stay inspired my friends.

Doing Life Together

"To have common glories in the past, a common will in the present; to have done great things together; to wish to do greater; these are the essential conditions which make up a people." -Joseph Ernest

I am sure you have heard that phrase before, doing life together. It is a phrase that I was reminded of just recently. I was listening to a young couple talking about how their life together was so much more by being part of a larger group. That doing life together with others had changed their lives.

The phrase is most often used in biblical terms, meaning that God never intended for people to do life alone, but to do life together in community. In the medical world, it is said that "...even though research shows that people with strong social ties live longer than those who are isolated," says Shelley Taylor, a psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles. "Making time for close relationships is as vital as many other things people do, perhaps more important," Taylor says.

I am not talking about living alone versus living in a coupled relationship. I am talking about keeping yourself connected to other people as opposed to living life as a hermit; alone in that respect.

But why stay connected with others?

For one, to live a long life we want the quality of that life to be great. The more contact we have with others as we age, the better we can be at retaining mental sharpness. This provides us with more ability to have that quality of life. A public-health study involving more than 116,000 participants found that people with strong relationships had less mental decline and lived more active, pain-free lives without physical limitations.

It is said that your brain needs you to get out and have 1,000 daily surprises. The stimulation of interacting with others and the new, exciting things that happen. Those are the 1,000 daily surprises. Staying socially connected at work, at home, at church or just in public down at the local coffee shop is important to your life. All of these things help provide those daily surprises.


So maybe you should stop in at the local diner, have a meal, strike up a conversation with others and just do life together and not be alone so much.

Stay inspired and connected my friends.