Here in Texas, we’re approaching the 6-month mark following Hurricane Harvey’s tremendous impact on the Texas coastal area and metropolitan Houston, resulting in 68 deaths directly related to the storm, and in massive property damage and destruction.
Having lived through Hurricane Charley in Florida back in 2004, I have a small idea of what survivors of Harvey have and are experiencing.
When you think of the damage inflicted your mind typically goes to residential and personal property items such as homes, appliances, furniture, clothing, and automobiles. As devastating as those losses can be, they can all be repaired and/or replaced.
But one of the most heartbreaking losses for most survivors is the loss that occurs when one-of-a-kind or single-copy family photos are damaged by wind and water, rendering them, in many cases, unfit to be re-framed or displayed as they were pre-disaster.
So I’m happy to see this feel-good story and video from AdWeek sharing how a group of high schoolers from San Antonio, Texas who are members of an Adobe (makers of Photoshop software) group known as ambassadors, spent weeks employing their Photoshop skills and talent to repair rips, tears, color and water-damaged family photos. The students then returned to those homes in December of last year to present the repaired, printed, and newly-framed photos to survivors, still struggling to recover from Hurricane Harvey.
I doubt that many people can watch the 4-minute video without their eyes at least watering up when they see the joy and tears of happiness from the survivors AND those students with the results of restoring family photos damaged by Hurricane Harvey.
Good work guys.
Did Robert Wagner kill Natalie Wood? I well remember 
Are you an introvert or an extrovert, or somewhere in between? I was a shy child. I remember when I was eight or nine years old running home from a friend’s birthday party because I did not know anyone there. I just dropped the gift off and ran back down the street to my house. And even though I took pains in my late teens and early twenties to become more outgoing and engage in a fair amount of public speaking, to the point that today I can stand up in a room full of strangers and speak with no more than the usual butterflies in my stomach that almost all public speakers get, I still prefer my own company or that of those close to me (which ain’t many, lol). 
So, you may have heard about 
I was 8 ½ years old at the time and since we didn’t have iTunes or Spotify in those Dark Ages, we had to settle for listening to AM radio stations and boy did this song get ample airtime on every rock n’ roll station in the Greater Miami area. In addition, every girl I knew, and some of the boys I knew, owned a copy of the 45 (no, that’s not a reference to the current President of the United States) record and I imagine quite a few stereo and record player needles were worn out from the constant playing of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” across the country.
I had already been up since 4am (Thursday and Friday nights I was nightmare-free for the first time in a couple of weeks, but last night they returned and had awakened me), first just lying in the dark thinking about things that were on my mind and in my heart, and then sitting up and continuing to read the Steve Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson, so thankfully I wasn’t awakened by the flashing strobe lights and piercing sound of the alarms. But I wasn’t happy about it either, lol.