Time Machine Set: Your Mission is Confirmed

All systems are go! Everything has been arranged. But I will tell you now, you only have 6 hours to do the job and do it right. This mission is yours, it has been chosen especially for you. I can get you back to the right time and place and then return you home again, but only you can do what must be done. Good luck, my friend, I know you will succeed. For at this task you are the only master.




Click to Listen to: Time Machine Set: Your Mission is Confirmed

Music Credit: Kevin MacLeod

From A Distance

A campfire under a night sky blazing with stars. It is both an opportunity to find your littleness and your bigness in the universe and to contemplate the significance of you - from a distance.



Click to Listen to: From A Distance

Music Credits:

From A Distance: James Galway, Vincent Fanuele & The Galway Pops Orchestra
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From A Distance: The African Childrens Choir

About the Song: From a Distance

At a small concert I was at in Boulder, Colorado many years ago, songwriter Julie Gold shared the story of how she created the song “From A Distance”. She explained to her audience that she had been composing on a small electric keyboard with poor sound quality during the years she had been living in New York, since she had left Philadelphia. But for her 30th birthday, in February 1986, her parents arranged that the piano she’d grown up with, an upright piano, be delivered to her apartment.

The day after her piano arrived, Julie sat down to her treasured reunion. And, as if in celebration of two dear friends rediscovering the synchronicity of each other’s sounds, Julie and her beloved piano brought forth that very day the ballad “From A Distance”.
She wrote it in one hour.

But when music publishers and record companies did not seem especially interested, Julie’s close personal friend, quick, witty performer and talented singer/songwriter Christine Lavin, shared the song with a close friend of her own, folk songstress Nanci Griffith. Griffith, liking the song very much, chose to record it for her 1987 album, Lone Star State of Mind. It quickly became a favorite of Griffith’s fans worldwide.

In 1990 The Byrds released a boxed set and chose to record only four new tracks as additional material for the compilation. One of those tracks was “From A Distance”.

Later that same year Bette Midler recorded it. Within weeks it hit #2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and then went on to win the Grammy for Song of the Year in 1991.

“From A Distance” has been translated into numerous languages including German, French, Cantonese and Spanish, to name just a few. It continues to be translated and sung the world over and has, as of this date, has been aired over 4 million times.

Volunteering for Disaster: Interview with American Red Cross volunteer M. Ann Smith

As a member of the American Red Cross National Disaster Human Resource Team, M. Ann Smith has been deployed to 16 national disasters in 15 states. She provided relief to victims of 9/11 and Katrina as well as innumerable tornadoes, floods, tropical storms, forest fires and home fires. Although officially retired from her teaching job at Chadron State College in Nebraska, Ann is never unoccupied, or without an adventure in her back pocket.



Click to Listen to: Volunteering for Disaster: Interview with American Red Cross volunteer M. Ann Smith

iPhones: please use the “Download” link to listen in Quicktime.

Music credit: admiralbob77

Laughing Science

"What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul"
Yiddish proverb

I hold on to the pinpoint luxury of those words.

However, there are people who study the intention behind the subject of those words.

For laughter and laughing have a science all their own. It’s called:

GELOTOLOGY.

That’s right. I realize that sounds more as if it suggests it’s the science of Jell-o or gelatin than the science of laughter. But hey, maybe that’s why they describe a good belly laugh as makin’ ya’ shake like a bowl full of jelly….whatdaya’ think?

So, do Gelotolgists, (that’s a mouthful, huh?) just sit around all day and tell each other really great jokes to see who gets the best laugh on some cool laugh meter, with the winner getting treated to lunch everyday or what?

No, from what I’ve figured out I guess it’s a lot more complex than that.

By now we probably all know the old adage “Laughter is the best medicine.”, if only because the Reader’s Digest told us so. But, Gelotology is a true science committed to substantiating and validating why and how that traditional adage works in our everyday lives. Additionally, it is a science actively involved in the development of beneficial new therapies practicable by not just medical and psychological professionals, but also by individuals in all walks of life who wish to use humor, laughter and joy as a way of assisting others in changing their physical, emotional or psychological well-being.

I found myself quite intrigued. For instance, some of the different therapies include:
“Laughter Clubs”
“Laughing Meditation”…which can be done alone or along with
“Laughter Yoga”
There’s also:
“Humor Therapy”…which is different than…
“Laughter Therapy”…which, of course, is very different than….
“Clown Therapy”….(which by now, listing these, I rather feel like...)



But, heck, I was havin’ too much fun doin’ this blog to stop chucklin’ long enough to try any of ‘em yet! But, what it does make me realize is that there is a whole profession of people who spend their entire days doin’ everything they can to try to make every one of their moments count by helping us find every reason we can to laugh.
I appreciate and applaud their every effort.

Hey, go do something FUN!!!!!

Changing the World

You want to get involved in helping to make the world a better place. You see so many places that need your help. But there are 6.8 billion people on the planet. You see so many things that need to be done. There are so many demands on your time, your attention, your energy, your resources. What can you, as one individual do that will make any impact on this enormous world?

Here's how you change the world, one moment at a time, one person at a time.



Click to Listen to: Changing The World

Music credit: admiralbob77 Baby Bird at www.ccmixter.com