Musings at Altitude

What a beautiful day here in Colorado Springs!  I hope it’s beautiful where you are as well!

Here are some random things I want to share:

(1) I finished up my morning meetings yesterday just before 1:00 pm, and I sent a text message to my wife asking if she wanted to treat me to Starbucks for lunch.  She quickly called back and said she had just finished a “web cam lunch” with her sister in Alabama.  She said she’d come pick me up though, and spend some time with me while I drank my coffee.  When I got in the car, I asked her about her “web cam lunch”, and she explained to me how she and her sister had been talking on the phone previously with her sister eating Taco Bell and my wife had joked that they should share Taco Bell together.  So they did yesterday.  Both went to Taco Bell, brought it home, and shared lunch together over an internet video link.  It’s amazing to think what technology allows us to do today.  We can get daily pictures of our loved ones through emails or text messages.  We can contact those we need to talk with 24/7 now because of cell phones.  We can post pictures and videos on the web and let others share our lives near real time.  We can find just about anywhere we’re trying to get to through “never lost” systems and GPS tracking, and we can entertain ourselves with games and music and download new things on the fly through wireless web when we get bored.  It’s an amazing world we live in. 

(2) And yet, even though we have so many ways to communicate, collaborate and share with each other, the number one thing we hear today at family and business meetings is we need to communicate more with each other.  I heard that this past week at a board meeting where the board chairman said the corporate staff and the operating companies needed to spend more time in dialogue so that both understand what’s going on in the other organization.  Then I heard from my Mom later in the week , “Did you visit with your sister while you were out in DC this week?”  Both pointed to that same issue…we don’t spend nearly enough time communicating, collaborating and sharing with each other.  I remember the old saying, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”  Technology today gives us the “way”.  But all the technology in the world can’t force the “will”.

(3) I received a package in the mail today from a cherished friend who included the book “The Last Lecture” (this should be mandatory reading for all of us) and an article about her grandfather who turns 101 this coming week.  He’s celebrating his 74th wedding anniversary soon as well.  With the article was a lengthy description of life back in 1908 when he was born.  It’s amazing to compare life as we know it today with life as our parents and grandparents knew it back then.  In fact, it’s amazing to compare life today to life as it was back in the mid 90’s before the internet became so accessible and so affordable to us all.  But with all those changes that have supposedly made life so much easier on us today from those of yesterday, one thing stands out that hasn’t changed at all.  According to Grandpa Schaar, the secret to happiness is respecting others.  I’m sure that’s equally as true today as it was back in 1908, and many of us need to listen to those wonderful words of wisdom.

(4) For the first time in my 26 years of marriage, I bought my wife’s Valentine’s present early.  In fact, it’s been sitting in the house in plain sight for over a week now, but my wife has yet to notice it.  That’s very unusual for her, because she notices when figurines are moved a fraction of an inch.  She notices when candles have been shifted and are out of place.  She notices when pictures have been bumped and they are slightly off level.  But she hasn’t noticed her Valentine’s Day gift!  I’m actually pretty excited about the gift and the fact that she hasn’t noticed.  It’s killing my 14 year old though.  She’s been passing hints and setting her mother up to see the gift for days now, but my wife hasn’t taken the bait.  I’m pretty anxious to see the grin when she finally gets her gift.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!