There are more than a few serious subjects weighing heavily on our minds today, including the news that the GOP House is still planning on their pyrrhic vote attacking health care insurance reform next week; the Governor of Nebraska's next budget has everything for everybody except common sense, and the Governors of Virginia and Maryland have swapped brains; and we're still frustrated because Apple isn't releasing the iPhone on Sprint yet.
(OK, that last topic is basically our web guru's personal issue, but we'll let him roll with it today.)
Something that's been on all of our minds this week is the concept of home.
Home isn't just the place where four walls come together around and where you lay your head at night. It's a place where your friends are, where your family is, where you feel comfortable, safe, and secure.
In our modern, highly-connected world, home isn't just a physical location. Think about it - how often do you see your friends these days? Maybe you see them in person once a month or every couple weeks - but you don't see them every day, as you likely once did. We're willing to bet you do as we do, and talk with your friends by phone, e-mail, Facebook or Twitter on a daily basis.
Most of us are so connected these days - or can be, at a moment's notice - that we talk with some of our friends more now than when we lived in the same general part of town.
We each carry our own versions of home around with us these days, connected both locally, and over long distances, to those we care about most. Technology has made that possible, just as it has the those huge TVs that are as thin as our thesaurus.
That ability to mix the virtual and digital, with the visceral and tangible, to create a concept of "home" where those we care about, no matter where they are, feel like they're just next door, has been a blessing we've counted many times, lately.
When the weather gets bad - or just bitterly cold, like it has been in Nebraska lately - that vision of home has allowed us to not even leave the house, and still make all of our deadlines and appointments just fine.
There's an old axiom that home is what you make it. We highly doubt that those who coined that phrase ever thought it would have something to do with Skype and phone calls, email and texting.
Even if that wasn't the original meaning of the phrase, we think that those who originally came up with that idea would look favorably upon our modern, highly-connected view of hearth and home.
For one thing, it means that each of us can keep those we care about with us, wherever we go.
For another?
When it's this cold, our new definition of 'home' means we don't have to get out of our robes and slippers to brave the elements.
And we're just fine with that, too. So... where's Spring?
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