When I called my dad this week he was a little distracted. It seemed he was trying to look up the phone number of his eye doctor.

Since I was at my computer, I simply googled the name and within ten seconds was able to give him the phone number. No big deal except that I was on the other side of the country and since he’s a technophobe he was freaked out because he couldn’t figure out how the heck I had managed to do it so quickly. He had to admit he was impressed even though he’s… More Posted on 02-22-09

The Importance of Fun

Thank goodness for birthdays.

This week my friend Carol’s birthday provided the impetus for an informal, on-the-job get together. Rose, definitely the most culinary-gifted member of our team, made a to-die-for chocolate mousse cake piled high with fresh berries and shaved white chocolate. Martha would have been proud to put her name on it!

To make it even better, Rose also brought her gourmet whipped cream charger -  a steel cylinder-shaped container filled with nitrous oxide. Apparently nitrous oxide is used because it migrates easily into the cream so that when the cream dispenser’s valve is opened, the… More Posted on 02-15-09

We have Rights AND Responsibilities

Two totally unrelated news stories set me off on a tangent this week.

One of them involved the eight babies born last month to California single mother Nadya Suleman. The octuplets join her existing six children, bringing her total offspring to fourteen. 

Unemployed and living with her mother and father, she understandably has been subjected to a significant and largely unfavourable public outcry.

Yet for her it is simple. Yes she admits, she has made unconventional choices in how she’s chosen to bring children into the world, but as she put it in a recent interview, “Being a… More Posted on 02-08-09

Five Minds for the Future

My good friend and colleague, Dianne Renton, is one of the hardest working, and most intelligent women I know.

She’s been working head down and flat out to integrate a number of technologies that will facilitate learning and communications for the work we’re doing to strengthen community leaders. 

She has researched, installed, tested, and pushed the limits of six different kinds of software to make them work together in a way that not only empowers us but will ultimately be sustainable.

As a result of her work, our website runs on a user-friendly, open source platform that… More Posted on 02-01-09