Happy Thanksgiving To All My Friends and My Wife

For all of those who I have met and had conversations with in 2013 I want to say thanks, I have met so many new people online through blogging and helped mentor others.  I have met people grateful, hopeful and respectful and I have met those who were pessimistic, sarcastic and depressed.  Everyone has their ups and their downs, everyone has blessings and curses in their lives but all of us have one thing in common and that is we are still living and we are at least talking with one or more people to share what is going on in our lives and how we are doing and nearly all of us have at least one person who we care about and how they are doing and listen to their troubles, their problems and try to offer advice and counsel because we care.

So my thanks is to everyone who cares, cares about anyone else, cares about causes to better man kind, help others, provide help just because you want to or it’s the right thing to do.  We are social creatures and this social nature has found a way to branch online and allow us to forge relationships, friendships with people we may never meet in person.  This is something that is unique to the human race and something to consider.  The fact that I have so many people I know and talk to in countries I have never visited and may not ever visit is astounding.  This is the opportunity to learn about cultures foreign and I am thankful and hopeful that all the walls of bigotry, hatred, intolerance will eventually be broken down by our ability to communicate with nearly everyone globally.

So if you haven’t yet, take time to forge some friendships with people in other locales, learn about their environments, culture and more.  When I first started blogging, it was bloggers in the Philippines that I met online first, people like JP, Rey Jr., Lorenzo Berandino aka. Zorlone and I started paying more attention to the area, the people.  It wasn’t long before many Indians like Samir, Abhi the Odd Blogger, and so many others became people I met and conversed with online. Even recently Pakistani bloggers like Umer who runs Techocafe.com I have met and we had conversations about blogging and more.  I could name dozens and dozens of names of people who I know as a result of starting blogs and interacting online and each of these people have left a lasting impression on me.

Thanks to the following people who have interacted with me and either have provided great information, fun reads, or just I found entertaining over the past year.  Don’t be offended if you aren’t listed, this is just a selection of the many people who I have interacted with in 2013.

Abid Omar
Anchit Shethia
Brian Alford
Brian Belfit
Brian Forge
Cheryl Nilar
Ching Ya
Colby Mort
Deborah Anderson
Dino Dogan
Enstine Muki
Francisco Perez
Garen Arnold
Gemma Baltazar
Hesham Fathy
Holly Jahangiri
Ian Eberle
Ileane Smith
Ivin Viljoen
Jason Evangelho
Jason Mathes
Jena Isle
Joe Colburn
Joel Sawyer
John Paul Aguiar
Josh Bane
Joshua Zamora
Karen Woodhan
Kim Castleberry
King Babajide
Kona Sankey
Lily Ashley
Maria Muir
Missy Diaz
Mitch Mitchell
Mitra Faridian
Mohammad Mushfiqur Rahman
Nancy Badillo
Naser Baig
Nile Flores
Nishant Arora
Oliver Southworth
Paul Salmon
Pawan Bawdane
Purbita Ditecha
Ray Sussman
Raymond Stapleton
Sally Brown
Scott Craighead
Suresh Khanal
Tom Jamieson
Tuan Do
Victor Salazar
Yatharth Jain

I am also the MOST thankful for my wife, year after year she never ceases to amaze me.  She is more human than human sometimes with everything she has to deal with and still has time to care about me and all else that goes in the household and she is everything to me for the past 17 years.  She has given me the two best boys in the world and is such a devoted, loving and caring mother. I will also say that she seems to have a more difficult time than most, life seems to throw more challenges her way than many others, sure there are always people worse off and some better off, but I have seen how much she gets hit with and she does her best to juggle it all.  She is one of the smartest people I have ever met, and will always forever be the most beautiful to me as well.

So thanks to whatever destiny, fate, deity brought this lovely woman into my life because I am thankful just as much 17 years later as I was the year we met.