Our Zambian son

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We had a dear loved one pass away recently and someone asked, “Was it family or a friend?”

I had a hard time knowing how to answer it. Technically and officially in the light of the law he was “just a friend.” But to our family members he’s so much more than that.

“Friend” just doesn’t do the relationship justice.

In the same way, calling my best friend Matt, “my best friend” or just “Matt” doesn’t really do him justice either. Which is why we always refer to him as “brother” or Uncle Matt with our boys.

Have any “friends” like that?

All that to say, while it may confuse some, my “sister” Kathryn is living and working in Zambia right now and just sent us a number of photos in an email titled, “Your Zambian son.”

That does my heart good.

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Our family has sponsored Lupiya through Family Legacy thanks to Kathryn’s work. He lives with his grandmother and several cousins in Lusaka, Zambia.

Separated by thousands of miles and yet we can still call one another family.

Isn’t it good to know that family goes far beyond anything a law, a blood relationship or even geography can define?

There’s no blood or law uniting us – it’s something much stronger – love.

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Find out more about child sponsorship through Family Legacy.

Pressgram is coming…

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Earlier this year, John Saddington launched a Kickstarter campaign to support his latest project – Pressgram.

And let me just say – I’m a huge fan (and backer).

What started as a personal side project for John has turned into a full-time job thanks to the Kickstarter support.

The FREE iOS app (Android planned to be released later) sets out with a sole purpose of freeing content creators from the often insane terms of service some social networks offer their users.

The app works similar to Instagram but instead of uploading your photos to a server owned and controlled by Facebook, users upload their photos to their own WordPress powered site (hosted or self-hosted).

Think about that – a super easy way to get the features you love in apps like Instagram (filters, social aspect, etc) but you get to own the content and bring traffic to your own sites – not someone else’s.

What better way for a business to drive traffic to their site than with an app that posts images directly to their site and then shares a link to it on Twitter or Facebook? No more sending customers to someone else’s site and hoping they click back to yours.

I can’t wait!

Personally, I’ve been trying to share most of my content here on my blog again – like the good ole’ days – and while the WordPress iOS app does a decent job of posting content to your WordPress blogs, the media manager/uploader leaves me wanting.

I have no doubt Pressgram is going to fill that hole the minute I get my hands on it.

Who knows… it may even be enough to get me to finally hit that delete account button.

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What about you? Are you frustrated by the terms of service companies like Facebook and Flickr offer?

Would you delete your accounts and move everything to a self-hosted solution if the right tool was available?

Mister Rogers learns to Breakdance

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I don’t remember seeing this when it originally aired (Feb. 1985) but it just goes to show how his simple message, “I like you just the way you are” carried over into every aspect of his show.

As one commentator on YouTube wrote:

The best thing about Mr. Rogers was that he never spoke down to children. His comments never sounded sarcastic or uninterested, never scripted and rehearsed. Each word was full of genuine interest and sincerity and was directed straight to the child he was talking to. It’s the kind of thing that every kid deserves and can build them into a wonderful adult. That’s what separated Rogers from any other celebrity or personality on television and what made him the best teacher for millions.

While his show doesn’t air regularly on our local PBS affiliate – I’m glad my boys are learning this simple truth and others through the new Daniel Tiger TV show.