Keeping Up With Technology

Last night, Bob and I trotted over to Best Buy and purchased a camera with a microphone for our computer. Our sons assured us this would be a cheap, easy purchase. Ha. Fifty-three dollars later and two hours of downloading and tweaking---we are ready to skype from our end now, too. We practiced on James. We could SEE James in his plaid green shirt. It took talking on the phone with him to get the sound right after a while. And there are still strange frog farting sounds, and at one point, what sounded like someone's heartbeat...but we bent his ear for thirty minutes.

Now we are ready. Now we are ready for the grandchild to SEE her old grandparents.

Bob was so funny. This camera/microphone comes with all these options for getting creative with the screen. Bob could not control himself. He could make our heads look like pears or mushrooms, add a dog, and even make us all swirly. Now we know where certain sons get their "ADD".

Bob asked James if he wanted to observe us play Scrabble. But, James said, no. That James, he is learning to stand up for himself. He never knows when we are going to throw test questions at him. Good to see him assert himself. While some may find watching us play Scrabble to be entertaining, I guess he just did not want to reforee. He would have wanted to be ready to receive Amber's call at the drop of a hat, anyway.

What will they think of next? Now you have to take a shower, and get all fancied up for talking on the phone via the computer. I wonder aloud if folks set up old laptops for the skype-ing and then they can still work or check stuff out on the other laptop or desktop computer? I like to be able to google things. For example, I have never been to a hockey game in my life. But, for some reason, if I set the hockey game going on the radio real quiet, it is enough white noise to put me back to sleep. Our WBAP radio station is usually talk radio---from the funny Hal Jay in the morning, to the conservative, hard headed Mark Davis followed by Rush Limbaugh. In the evening, while Bob is driving home, he will turn on Mark Levine--but I am usually making supper, so I don't catch much of his ascerbic wit. But, in the evenings, they bounce Laura Ingraham for a hockey game. And I have been wondering what "icing" in hockey means. I think to check while driving to Walmart, but not until this very moment have I remembered whilst I can actually check. But, if I navagate away from this page whilst composing a blog---there is the danger of losing all this pithy instropection.

But, let's risk it. What is "icing" in hockey? When I google it, Wickipedia is first on the list of references. Wikipedia has illustrations. But, the explanation is still pretty complicated, and I will need to check further references to find out where they got the name, and how exactly the stop play or waive. Strange. But, thanks to the technology online---we no longer have to get up off our behinds and drag out the heavy encyclopedia volumes. I know we are not suppose to believe everything we read on Wikipedia. I know.

What will they think of next? Such wonderful modern conveniences.

But, there is that "big brother" watching feeling to having a camera on top of the computer. Creepy. Our son and his wife gave us this fantastic Christmas present of a digital frame of hundred of pictures of the grandchild. Every once in a cycle, we will see a picture we have never noticed before. Was it a picture stuck in the loop? Were our son and his wife able to somehow load more pictures through the electrical wires?? The mystery remains. When Bob first openeded his present at Christmas, he did not know our son and his wife had pre-loaded it. We were wondering how to work it, and asking our other son about the chips and connectors when the son that sent it asked about it, and suggested we just plug it in---and to our amazement---hundreds of pictures! From their phone cameras, from their digital cameras, and we were in picture heaven.