This Thanksgiving I'm grateful for a technology that allows me to transcend both time and space with my words.

I am thankful today for all my teachers, in public school and various universities, who created in me a lifelong thirst for learning.

I'm grateful this Thanksgiving for all the daily blessings: health, friends, and readers like you who make writing this column the highlight of my week.

Borrowing a tradition from a journalist friend, I've decided to use this column to profile the year, highlighting those things I am most grateful for this Thanksgiving.

It all began in January with an offer from Brad Tooley (publisher of The Canyon News, Canyon Texas) and Billy Smith (a journalism professor at West Texas A & M Univerity) to join their new Lighthouse Syndications. Lighthouse seeks to provide newspapers with columns that are both practical and uplifting. Today I am humbled that they chose to include Midlife Moments, and excited over the possibility of gaining new readers for my stuff.

Thinking of new readers, most of mine have been added this year via my web site, which celebrated its first anniversary in March. I now receive about 2,000 hits per day, which translate into hundreds of new visitors each week and several thousand each month. My guests have arrived from every state in the union and over 60 countries. Outside the U.S., most are from Canada, Australia and Great Britain. This Thanksgiving I'm grateful for a technology that allows me to transcend both time and space with my words.

Spring brings the dual-miracles of new life and new chances, and, because of this, it always lifts my spirits, but this May was special. After five years of graduate study, I received a Ph.D. in Technical Communication from Texas Tech University. The degree was the final step in a midlife career change and the first step in what I hope will be many years of teaching college students. I am thankful today for all my teachers, in public school and various universities, who created in me a lifelong thirst for learning.

What does one do after they finally finish that much dreaded, time-consuming dissertation? In July, my wife and I took a trip to see our daughter Janet in Lake Tahoe. Our sojourn included a stop to see another daughter (Joni guides backpackers in Wyoming's Snowy Range), a sister (D'Lynne lives in California's San Joaquin Valley), and a brother (Craig lives in Phoenix, and you're right; the trip was a long one). Along the way, we visited a number of places for the first time, among them Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Yosemite National Park (where forest rangers were witnessing a record number of car burglaries--by black bears).

We came home with tales of rafting on the Truckee River, sailing aboard an old-fashion river boat on Lake Tahoe, and spending the night with a punk rock group in Phoenix (My nephew Jeremy's band was on tour, and, despite the signature punk look, we've rarely met a more friendly and polite group of kids). Our trip renewed my love of and appreciation for the beauty and variety of the good ol' USA.

In late August, it was back to teaching at Tech, and, on Labor Day, we celebrated our first grandbaby's first birthday in Dallas. My wife and I do all those things one detests in grandparents. We spoil the child; we constantly brag about her, and we're always taking her picture (please don't ask to see one unless you're prepared to stay awhile).

Having said this, you should know that Taylor Bellah is the cutest one-year-old in Texas and probably the world. Today I'm thankful for this midlifer's best hope for the future: a child's child.

Finally, I'm grateful this Thanksgiving for all the daily blessings: health, friends, and readers like you who make writing this column the highlight of my week.