Technology is such a wonderful thing. I’m in love with my computer and all the possibilities it opens up in my life. I meet so many great people I would otherwise never have known. No matter that I haven’t been to their home or might not even recognize them if I passed them on the street. They have become a part of my life through the use of the technology called the Internet.  When I was a kid we still had party lines on the phone. For those of you who don’t know, that meant that the line was shared with someone in another household. If you picked up the phone and heard someone talking you politely hung up and waited for them to finish their conversation before you attempted to make a call. Now we not only carry our phone around with us, but we can access the whole world with the touch of our finger from wherever we are (dead zones excluded). Computers used to take up whole rooms and information was input into them by use of a punch card system by typing little holes into flexible cards that were then physically put into the computer. I realize here that I’m showing my age, but it’s important to realize how far we’ve come in such a short time. Although it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the enormous volume of information we’re inundated with on a daily basis, I for one consider myself lucky to have access to this amazing ability to communicate across oceans with people from different backgrounds and cultures. I’m grateful for new friends in places I’ve never been. As our world continues to shrink, we see more and more that we are not so different after all. Perhaps one day, this will lead us to embracing our diversity and creating a more peaceful world.