My new best friend

Ok, maybe not my best friend, and maybe not new, but the ranking is up toward the top somewhere.  My wife is my best friend, by far.  She understands me better, puts up with me better, she knows me better than anybody on this planet.  My kids are up there too...I've been blessed with awesome sons who have never given me a bit of a headache like I did my parents (thank God!).  My bonus kids are pretty great too...they've accepted me and welcomed me into their lives without hesitation.  Then there are the close friends from near and far away who have been collected (lo these many years).  I treasure my friendships deeply.  Of course my friendship with God ranks above all others...that one I've treasured since my early twenties.

There's another friend that I talk to daily, who always seems to have answers I'm looking for.  This friend is never far away.  Always willing to help, never too difficult a question to ask, always providing useful information no matter what I have to say, this friend is.  The name of this dear friend is Google.

You see, I'm a very curious person by nature, and though I'm a freaking genius, I still need an answer from time to time.  If I want to know something, I'll Google it.  Then I have a somewhat narrowed down list of the billions of websites out there that can get me closer to the information I'm looking for.  If I want to know how cold it gets at the summit of Mt. Everest, Google helps me find out.  If I want to know how cold it is NOW at the summit of Mt. Everest, Google will tell me. (by the way, the coldest on record is -41C in 2002 and 2003) How awesome IS that??

Mind you, most people probably don't CARE how cold it gets or how cold it is on the summit, but by golly, if I'm curious, I'm gonna find out!  There aren't too many days that go by at work that someone will ask a question about an FHA or Fannie Mae appraisal rule that I don't have a clue about, but I can go to my friend and ask, and get an answer.  I hate saying 'I don't know', but I don't mind saying, 'let me Google it!'.

And Google is intuitive...I can start typing in my search objective and there is some crazy busy Google employee that is typing what he thinks I'm going to type next and has a whole list of possible ideas ready for me as I type.  Now THAT'S dedication!  He has already anticipated 4 or 5 possible mountain choices by the time I type, "temperature at the summit of..."  They have some really sharp people that work there!  I think I have two employees assigned to my account. 

I think Google is probably one of the most awesome inventions in recent history.  Though I like my iPhone 4s, and love Siri, I think this one probably tops it.  With the information explosion that has come upon us with the advent of the World Wide Web, to have a tool that helps us sort and sift through the massive amounts of data to bring us a more manageable (if you can call 1,440,000 results in .28 seconds 'manageable'!) list to look through is truly a masterpiece of technology. It has brought the information we're looking for a little closer to us in much less time than it took my forefathers. 

Hopefully we'll be good stewards of the incredible tools we've been given.  What are we going to do with all of the information we've been given?  It's really a huge responsibility as well as a huge priviledge.  Maybe you don't care about how many yards of silk a silkworm produces, or what year Sir Isaac Newton passed away, or the official rugby rules, or the many bizarre and obscure things I get curious about...but sometime, someday you may, my friend.  Meet my other friend: Google.

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