This Reminds Me

Archive for the ‘Cyber Life’ Category

When Keith and I entered the world of international adoption, we immediately joined scores of user groups, our favorite being the Russian Adoption board on adoption.com. At the American Embassy in Moscow, we surprisingly recognized and joyfully visited with another family from that board.

Monday, “Irina” – a mom and social worker in St. Petersburg – posted a general “I lurk here” kind of message.  Being polite, I was one of several who posted a “nice to meet you” return message.  My board signature always contains a link to this blog.

I thought no more of it.

Tuesday, I had a Private Message from Irina in my adoption.com inbox.  In a city with 10,000 children living in 100 orphanages, Irina had visited Children’s Home #47 and recognized Julia from the photos of this blog!   Here’s part of her private message:  “I came to them in 47 DD and saw Julia very small! I have its some photos – if want, I can send you them on an e-mail!”

If want….IF WANT???   I picked up my jaw and shared my real email address immediately.  Within hours, pictures popped in my email inbox.

Julia’s the cutie in the orange dress.  I’m guessing she’s age four or five here. The children are standing in a common area between the school/play room and the dorm. We dressed Julia right here before we took her hands and walked out of Children’s Home #47.  In retrospect, I marvel at the courage she displayed. I’ve lived six times as long and have never displayed half as much courage as she showed walking away from everyone and everything she knew.

I’m guessing she’s age four here, which is when she came to Children’s Home #47.  Can you hug a picture?  Can you fold a blanket around it and promise to love it until the day you die?  I long to do so.

Russian Orthodox baptism via kitchen pan at age five.  We knew a priest visited monthly.  Julia remembers our lighting candles in Moscow’s Kazan Cathedral.  I think the priest either brought candles to light, or she had visited a church at some point earlier, because she knew to drip wax on the base, then insert the candle.  (I sure didn’t know it!)

Keith and I are thrilled to have these bits of her past to share in the future.

The web surfer in me says, “Oh, what a wonderful coincidence – that Irina would make the leap from a user board posting to sending us these pictures.”

The business person in me says, “Wow.  Here proves the value of social networking.”

But the real me – the “me” that’s buried way down deep – knows it was what my friend Johnnie calls “a God wink.”

He loves the little children, you know.  All the children of the world.

My brother David and I were always were fascinated by sci-fi.  Anything odd.  Futuristic.  Will Robinson was our hero, and Rod Serling our mentor.  We always wanted to know what was just down the hall and around the corner….in the Twilight Zone.

Mom dissed Rod as “just plain weird.” which, of course, made the show that much more appealing.

I think that early ingestion of sci-fi inspired us to be forwarding-thinking, at least occasionally.  Well, sometimes.  Okay, rarely.  Anyway…

I worked at Remco TV Rental through my five years at the University of Houston.  I started as a “gofer” but because the company was rapidly expanding, I got to grow with it and try my hand at all sorts of marketing, HR and sales ventures.  After the owner discovered I loved to read, he started flipping pamphlets, magazines and books on my desk with a “give me a one-pager” command.  Oh.  My. Gosh.  Talk about throwing me in the brier patch!  I was thrilled.  I devoured stacks of opinions and studies about the future of television which – interestingly enough – was often tied to the future of telecommunications.

Future Shock was the first non-textbook, non-Bible I’d ever highlighted.

After graduation, I interviewed with several companies, and had offers from a few.  But even though the jobs were what I wanted to do – write, create, organize – I couldn’t get excited about them.  I didn’t care about insurance.  Or personnel recruitment.  Or mining.  My reading convinced me that at some point in my life, there would be one telecommunications device in the home.  TV – with me – would be part of it.

Danger, Will Robinson!  Don’t go to work in an industry you don’t care about.

Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet.  I couldn’t have told you “IP” from “Dr. Smith,” but I knew that someone would build it, and we’d come.

I eventually interviewed with Southwestern Bell, and started there in 1979, just hoping to be some part of what I knew would come.  Sometime.  Somewhere in telecomm.  It didn’t come in 25 years of Training, Finance, External Affairs, Marketing, Sales Support, Sports & Events, Advertising or Online.  But darned if it didn’t emerge through a hand-picked team (including me) working on a new product called U-verse, a marriage of TV, internet and voice.  The techies throw up when I say this, but to me, it’s TV over the internet.  And it’s way cooler than anything else out there.  And I know it’s the way TV is going to be in the future.

Keith works on U-verse, too, and this week was happy for both of us as Total Home DVR launched in San Antonio.  We were up early to check it out, with Keith snatching remotes and verifying our ability to record then watch in any room.  The girls shared our excitement, so Rachel made this video.  Yes, it’s goofy.  But so is she.

Both have cameras.

Be warned.

They made a strange little film about Dairy Queen that I declined to post, instead hoping for Cannes to discover it.  Then tonight – this two-minute marvel about McDonalds in Wal-mart.

I swear – we really do eat meals at home.

Really.