Gratitude Monday: The Internet

Pandora.com has become my most favorite place to go for all day music of whatever I'm in the mood for. You can choose artists or bands or songs or genres. It's the bomb and I've gotten to find a whole bunch of music that I wouldn't have otherwise found.

Freecycle.org is probably one of the coolest utilities around these days. It's kind of like a never-ending garage sale that allows you to feel good about being a consumer AND lets you meet new people and learn new towns. And, best part: It's all free.
If you haven't tried it out yet, y'oughta.

The Metra Map online is yet another in a long list of amazing and totally necessary maps that I've found online. Google maps and Map Quest are equally cool, but I had to choose only one image to illustrate this - and, well... The Metra Map was by far the most colorful.

Oh Craigslist - what a fortuitous bucket of luck that I found you. This site has allowed me to see a huge part of America and get to airports and train stations on time (ride-share), Laugh out loud at least once a week (Best Of), find jobs, sell stuff, find stuff and give stuff away.

It was here that my true nature as a voyeur was most completely defined. If you haven't been here yet, you really ought to just go check it out. I'm not going to bore you with the details here that you can find there. But, do go find it there - it's just a good way to start your Sundays.

There was a time when I thought the whole Internet thing was just further evidence that we're destroying our innate ability to interact with humans. I'm glad that time has passed. I'm glad for every "conversation" that I get to have with my kids ... with my extended family and many of my friends. I'm glad I can jump over to Twitter and see just what it is that my people are doing for dinner.

I'm thankful for the pictures of my nephews, children, extended family, all my real-life friends and my grandson. My Space and Facebook aren't really the work of the devil and I don't like one over the other. They have both allowed me to find people I've lost and stay connected with the ones I didn't.

I think this Internet thing might catch on.