As I am sitting here in the R-Bar in Chicago for the CIC Learning Technologies meeting (that’s tomorrow …) I just had the opportunity to sit down next to a guy at the bar who made me rethink a bunch of things.  Joseph asked me why I was here, so I told him … I then asked him and he told me, “you don’t want to hear my story.”  He proceeded to tell me that just a few hours ago his brother died in his arms … his younger brother, by 11 years just passed away in front of him.  We spent the next two hours talking — mostly Joe talking to me about life (and life lost).  Powerful conversation that made me walk away with very mixed emotions.