Remember our troops

My nephew is serving on Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Ottawa, which departed from her homeport of CFB Esquimalt Tuesday for a four-and-a-half-month-long deployment to the Asia-Pacific Region.

The deployment is part of the Canadian government’s commitment to operations in the region and as part of ongoing United Nations sanctions against North Korea.

Starting early October, the renewed Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) contribution to the multinational effort in the Asia-Pacific region will be a CP-140 Aurora, along with the crew and supporting personnel, operating from Japan.

HMCS Ottawa will join the international maritime monitoring mission periodically between late August and mid-November.

He is serving our country as did his grandfather and his great uncles. This day is a day to remember the men and women who serve our country and willingly put themselves in harm's way so that we can enjoy our freedom. Here is are the numbers of those who died in service to us. The important point to remember when reading statistics of war service is to appreciate the fact that every number represents a person.

These are men and women who grew up, had families and left loved ones behind.

One of the best ways to remember and support our vets is to wear a Poppy. By making a donation and wearing a Poppy, Canadians of all ages support the Legion’s mission to serve veterans and their dependents while also promoting Remembrance. The sale of wreaths and the Poppy Campaign make it possible for the Legion to operate a National Service Bureau which acts as an advocate for veterans and their dependents seeking compensation from the government for service-incurred disabilities. Every year, more than a million dollars of the money raised through the campaign is used for direct assistance for ex-service people and their dependents in financial distress. The funds are used to pay for food, accommodation, utilities, dental and optical services and hospital comforts.

It is also important to note that over the years many millions of dollars have been given to worthy charities or spent providing valuable services, such as Meals on Wheels, to seniors. The campaign’s expenses, meanwhile, remain low owing in large part to the national network of volunteers who distribute the Poppies.

The money collected is held in trust and cannot be spent on anything other than the purposes specifically authorized in the General By-laws of the Legion.

If you do nothing else today, buy a poppy and hold one minute of silence at 11:00 to remember our serving troops and our veterans who fought for our freedom and who continue to put themselves in harm's way for us.

Do you have Amazon Echo Show?

Over the next few posts, I will be focusing on some technology that might help us as we age, the ideas come from the work done at Tech life. 

Some of my tech friends think that Alexa or Amazon Echo might help combat isolation and loneliness. This is an interesting idea and one that was explored by Tech Life a while back. I thought I would share some of their thoughts.  

When we look at the idea of using these tools to combat isolation and loneliness there are two separate ideas about how it could be done.

First, there is the idea, getting a fair bit of media attention, that interaction between an older adult and an AI (Alexa) might help reduce isolation.

Second is the idea that Alexa (an AI) can facilitate deeper human to human interactions (with friends and family for example) as well.

It's this second idea that Tech life found intriguing and based on their recent explorations of Alexa and the Amazon Echo Show, they think this tool has real potential to combat isolation and loneliness.

Alexa is an artificial intelligence (AI) developed by Amazon and made available in a family of hardware products with names like the Amazon Echo, the Amazon Echo Dot and recently the Amazon Echo Show.

To understand how older adults would interact Tech Life had older adults interact with the tools. Most of these adults said that having artificial intelligence to interact with was certainly cool, and found it very useful. The question that Tech life wanted to explore was if Alexa could also improve the depth and quantity of our interactions with our fellow humans to reduce isolation and loneliness.

Social Isolation and Loneliness are complex conditions, with a variety of contributing causes which vary greatly from person to person.

But there are several ways in which you can imagine Alexa can make a difference.

·       Interactions directly with an AI (Alexa herself);

·       Interactions with other humans — made easier or better or more frequent by Alexa.

And as far as interacting with humans is concerned, there are two subcategories that Tech Life explored:

·       Deeper interactions with friends and family who live far away; and

·       Making new friends; or finding acquaintances with the right interests or personalities.

Smile and the world smiles with you

Some people smile to make friends and they are right. New research suggests a good way to make a new friend is to smile. The visual display of positive emotions works because people are much more attuned to positive emotions when forming new bonds than they are too negative ones such as anger, contempt, or sadness.

Others smile to look younger and live longer, guess what they are wrong. When asked, most people would say that a smile takes years off your appearance. According to the latest study, it is quite the reverse. Research shows that, if you want to appear younger, a look of surprise is your best bet.

According to the latest study, smiling makes you look 1 year older. If you want to stay looking young, there are several things you might choose to do - exercising, eating right, and getting enough sleep. Also, you might try smiling less.

Smiling is typically associated with youth and vibrancy, and anyone who has ever watched a makeup commercial knows that. However, scientists have discovered that, if you smile, other people will, on average, rate you as older.

A new study from Western University in Canada, published this in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review proves this point and probes a little deeper into our subconscious.

When the survey was over, the researchers asked the participants if they held the belief that they rated smiling faces as younger when, in reality, they rated them as older. 

From a psychological point of view, this is an interesting result. "People's beliefs don't necessarily correspond to the way they behave; they can hold a belief that's contrary to the way they behave," says Goodale. "This adds to that whole corpus of knowledge that one has to measure behaviour directly, rather than simply taking an attitude scale or a rating, because sometimes - though not always - you can be misled.

And then there are those, who so totally get a life, that smiling is all they know and they know that people react positively to your smile.

Turn, turn, turn, for everything there is a season

If summer resisted fall, it wouldn't really be summer or fall.

Better to celebrate the season you're in... especially those of your wonderful life. 

But maybe your life is not so wonderful now, maybe you’re in a season of transition, grief, conflict, illness, new challenges, or just trying to get by.

Ever tried to be a gardener? Many of have and those of us who have worked with the soil understand dirt holds a certain magic, cradling new life

Whatever season you’re in, there’s one way to live your season well: embrace it. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to love it; it simply means letting it be. Your past mistakes, your heartache, your circumstances, and the tension you feel right now in your season—every bit of it is part of your growing ground.

Here are some reasons to embrace the season you’re in:

1. Your season may turn into a time of growth if you are willing to dig in right and accept it. Fighting the seasons is like wearing shorts in the winter. I have done that but only when I have changed my winter for summer by changing hemispheres. Normally I would not recommend wearing shorts in winter.

2. Your season might be preparing you for what’s next.

After any struggle in life or battle with illness, we come out on the other side better prepared to face what is next. I talked to a person who had survived a fire with 40% burns all over his body. He said that his survival prepared him to face whatever would be thrown at him next. He was very positive.

3. Your season might surprise you!

Fighting your season and grumbling in your heart might make you miss the good things life is throwing at you: perhaps new opportunities, new relationships, new paths, or new dreams that are far better than anything you could imagine.

4. Your season may have something to not only to teach you, but also to teach someone else.

Productive relationships aren’t about us, and perhaps that trial you are going through was meant to grow you and others.

5. Your season may bring life-giving memories later on.

When my mother died, it was hard to cope, but she gave us a gift of herself through her journals and her diaries that she kept and which were shared with us after she died. Her death was hard, but through it, she gave us a glimpse of the person she was and I am thankful that she shared with us.

6. Your season may fly by when you begin to see it as a gift.

Now, let me say that this is hard to do. This is incredibly challenging. But those who accept the situation can perhaps begin to see a path through.

7. Your season may teach you an essential life skill: how to embrace change.

To grow what matters in your life, just as you grow flowers in a garden, get your hands dirty, digging in right where you are. Growing what matters takes doing something that is counterintuitive to how we usually operate: embracing change. We choose to embrace change, imperfect progress, and imperfect circumstances which allows us to embrace change.

8. Your season may help you come alive!

Humans need to grow, change, and learn over time, through different seasons—not all at once. The truth is, I like you am fearful at times I know I am not perfect but as I have faced many times of transformation in my life, I have learned to trust myself and embrace change

9. Your season will not last forever, but it might have something really good for you that you don’t want to miss by fighting the season you’re in, fighting the changes, or fighting what feels imperfect. Dig in right where you are.

For everything, there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.

Remember, everything keeps getting better,