"The average newspaper boy in Pittsburgh knows more about the universe than did Galileo, Aristotle, Leonardo, or any of those other guys who were so smart they only needed one name." Daniel Gilbert, from his book, 'Stumbling on Happiness'

Hello and welcome to another edition. This one has landed on the front porch of your internet platform and it has done so on this Wednesday, April 29, 2015. The newspaper delivery boy is for all intents and purposes a thing of the past. I never actually delivered regular newspapers but I did go around from place to place and door to door trying to sell a little paper called the 'Grit'. It was a paper devoted to rural and country life and it had a run from 1882 until it finally closed up shop back in 2011. The iconic newsboy delivery job was a part of the rite of passage for many youngsters growing up in our country. According to the American Newspaper Association here's a few fellows who had the newspaper delivery job growing up: Walt Disney; H. Ross Perot; Bob Hope; Ed Sullivan; Danny Thomas; John Wayne; Bing Crosby; Jimmy Durante; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Herbert Hoover; Martin Luther King Jr.; Harry S. Truman; Ed Sullivan; Isaac Asimov; Carl Sandburg; Tom Brokaw; Wayne Gretzky; Jackie Robinson and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. I also remember reading in his book 'Made In America', how that Sam Walton founder of Wal-Mart gave credit to the selling and collection experience he gained as a newspaper route delivery boy. I didn't include any girls because they didn't list any. I'm not sure what replaces that in today's world but it most likely has something to do with computers. Just a guess.

Today we have to have programming geniuses to keep our world going. I saw some of that before I left the big company many years ago. I remember we were looking to computerize our truck delivery process back when doing things like that was in its infancy. We made a field trip to talk to a company that specialized in providing the programming for small handheld intelligent devices. I know. I know. Your cell phone that you use today has a vast amount of processing capability compared to what we were doing back then. That's right. This is one of those back in the day stories. Because of the limited capacity of these early devices, experts in the programming of these devices were required. We met their version of their expert. He was not much more than a kid, disheveled with his hair going here, there, and everywhere, he mostly grunted, and would not make eye contact with any of us. He was their lifeline and they joked about keeping him in a cage and throwing his food to him. He was the one who made the little handheld devices do their thing. I think about all those today involved in writing software for games, for phone applications, for movies and television, for computer systems, and everything else imaginable. That little visit way back then may have been prophetic.

And, look where we have arrived. We can't even keep the White House email system from being hacked by the Russians. Or, at least, that's what is being reported. I heard the President's spokesperson saying that we shouldn't worry since the stuff that may have been compromised was only the public emails between ordinary staff. You know. Not the important stuff. Not the private private stuff. No one was wearing overcoats that day in the briefing room but I recognize a snow job when I see and hear it. How are the Russians able to do this? Believe it or not they have their fellow, their resident expert, and he's smart enough to figure out how to overcome the protections we have in place. What's our answer to this? Try to find one of our own to do a better job of protecting our electronic assets. Or maybe we could kidnap theirs. The stakes or pretty high folks and this is the future since these kids won't be delivering newspapers growing up. I know. That's likely not a good connection. But I am shooting for story integration here. There might be a point or maybe not. You figure it out because to tell you the truth I'm a little fatigued at the moment. Enjoy the rest of your day and may God bless us all is my prayer. Amen. ...More later.