I’ve been pretty busy with a project for Toomre Capital Markets for the past few weeks and my social media activity has suffered as a result. However, there are a bunch of different updates I would like to highlight.

A few days ago, Fiona and I made brief video about Hamilton Island. This is the Australian island that is look to hire a blogger, a job they’ve descrived as The Best Job In The World. A few days ago was the last chance to upload a video, and I tried to get our video in under the wire. Their servers were very slow, but today, I got an email that they had received the video. You can see it on their site, Aldon, United States – The Best Job In The World. In about eight days, they will announce the top fifty videos. Of that, eleven will be selected to travel to Australia for an interview.

Meanwhile, I’ve gotten two interesting emails about other opportunities for people searching for new jobs. The Network of Executive Women is currently accepting applications for undergraduate scholarships for women residing in or attending schools in Fairfield or New Haven Counties. The deadline for applications is March1st.

On a lighter note, I received an email from another group offering scholarships.

According to The Wall Street Journal, more than 70% of former Bush officials are out of work, and an online Poker training school is offering them free Poker lessons from non-partisan twenty-year olds earning 7 figures a year. To qualify, simply fax in a letter describing your former position in the Bush Administration, along with phone and e-mail contact information, to (623) 889-5670 to process a 30-day subscription to www.BluefirePoker.com.

Sure, these guys helped to dismantle the American economy – and gambled away our futures – now they may want to consider gambling for a living (legally of course).

For online communications, there are two important sites that I want to highlight. Most importantly, my friend Carol continues her battle with leukemia. You can read her story at Carebridge. Currently, they are looking for people that can donate platelets in the St. Louis area. If you can, please check out the Pheresis Donor Program at Barnes Jewish Hospital.

Another friend has just started blogging. Peter Howie is the Managing Director of The Moreno Collegium for Human Centred Learning, Research and Development. He has started the Moreno Collegium Blog.

His first entry is the President’s Report that he wrote for the Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Associations. It is a wonderful blog post, talking about "We are the ones we have been waiting for" and this is not the time for lone wolves. and promoting Moreno's dream of dreaming again to the world..

In and of itself, it is a wonderful blog post. Yet as I tie it into the fanciful dreams of blogging from a wonderful island, the very real dreams of being able to afford college, and especially the very hopeful dreams of winning a battle against leukemia, and so many other dreams, it becomes all the more powerful. In it, he links to Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’.

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse.

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

I think of Carol. I think of all the people that are trying to fix her leukemia, who are trying to provide lights to guide her home and to ignite her bones, or at least her bone marrow to return to making the blood cells she needs.

Years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about his dream and for many people, the recent presidential election and inauguration in the United States was the culmination of this dream.

Yet as I think of Carol in her hospital bed, as I think of our economy as it struggles and the struggles of so many without jobs or without health insurance, when I think about the environment, and all the challenges ahead of us, I realize we are not at the culmination of a dream, but at the beginning.

There is so much more dreaming to do and I wish Peter luck with his blog and with The Moreno Collegium for Human Centred Learning, Research and Development that they may join with many to ignite bones, ignite dreams, and help others to dream again.

Postscript: As I finished writing this blog post, I received an email from one of my daughters, “This guy comes off as really crazy, but is probably one of the happiest people in the world right now. http://www.caboodleranch.org/About_Us.html”