A very heartfelt (albeit belated) Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Moms out there and to those who are regarded as a Mom to someone. I especially extend this to my Aunt/Godmother and to my own Mother-in-Law, the latter with whom we spent some nice time with this past weekend.

It is also yet another day that I remember my own Mom, whom I lost 6 years ago. She was an amazing woman, and I could fill pages of posts about how truly wonderful she was. Not only was she the one who taught me about sports, but she did all she could to make sure both of her kids went to college, and encouraged me all the way with computers from when I got my first one in junior high. Though it may be cliché, I would not be here today if it wasn’t for her love and sacrifices.

This picture is my favorite of me and my Mom, taken at the old Foxboro Stadium during a Patriots game in 1999. Some say it is ironic that the Patriots won the Super Bowl and I got married, both within a year of her passing – but I know better that there were some special "forces" involved!

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Have you purchased your Forever Stamps yet? With next week’s postal increase, the post office came up with what I think is its best idea in years – a first-class postage stamp that once you buy it, you can use it at any time, even after the next postage increase. Where on the surface this may not make sense, factor in inflation, interest and the cost of distributing 2-cent stamps, and it is a wise move.

With all of the problems that the post office has in its customer service and mail delivery, especially in Chicago, I have decided to focus on the things that I do like about the postal service here in the US. In addition to the Forever Stamps, my other favorites include:

• Automated Postal Center (APC) kiosks at many post offices allow you to weigh and ship packages without waiting in line, as well as purchasing books of stamps. In many post offices when there is a line at the windows, there is no line at the APC.
• USPS.com allows you to track shipments and buy stamps with only a $1 surcharge, which is more efficient than waiting in line for either.

Come to think about it, what I like about the post office is related to new thinking and services that require little human intervention.

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I just got word that the next likemind will be on Friday, May 18. In Chicago, it will be at Intelligentsia Coffee, 53 E. Randolph, at the corner of Wabash.

What is likemind? It started with two people who decided to meet for coffee and invited others. There are now 22 likemind locations around the world... amazing!

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As time slides through the hourglass and I did not schedule time to write more this week, I thought I would share this story from The Onion on blogging.

I don't consider this a biopic at all, but we can all use a few extra bucks!

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I never use the term "under construction" in Web site copy because a Web site truly is always under construction. The same can be said for my blog. Today I have made some small changes which will hopefully make it easier to navigate the site, and may have more in the future.

If you happened to use the autodiscovery feature of the browser to subscribe to the site, could I trouble you to unsubscribe and resubscribe? I ask this as I have changed the feed link to using Feedburner rather than the native link for the feed. This way I can better track readership. If you subscribed by clicking on the icon on the Web page itself under the heading of "Subscribe to the Feed," that has not changed and you don't need to resubscribe.

What is autodiscovery? In the address bar of your browser, to the far right may be the orange icon for a blog/RSS feed. By clicking on it, it will "autodiscover" the link for the feed then subscribe you to the feed in whatever designated feed reader you have selected. This has been a feature in Firefox and is new to IE.

Now that The Hot Iron has been live for four months, I am learning great deal from my own use as well as feedback from readers like you – thank you! And please keep it coming.

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