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Oh, For Those Good Old Days!

My apologies for the dearth of posts lately, and my tardiness responding to comments. The approaching trip to Wales mentioned in an earlier post has consumed my time, due to the technological tangle of communications equipment and services needing to be unraveled, in order to maintain a reasonable level of contact with my wife who will remain behind in the States.

Admittedly, one cellphone might suffice, were it not that certain areas of Wales are left bare of network coverage by some providers, plus I want to use my laptop for emails and general surfing while away.

Roaming charges make the cost prohibitive, and have resulted in the purchase of a new quad-band cellphone, additional “non-roaming” sim cards, and the rental of a multi-network data card for the computer.

With hindsight, it may have been less expensive to have simply paid the roaming charges.

OK, I know some geek is about to point out that had I just purchased such-and-such for $2.50 it would have managed all my needs for under tuppence an hour, but phone technology has never been my forte. I hark from an era when you stuck your finger in a hole, spun the dial half a dozen times and held a heavy, bakelite receiver to your ear. The concept of doing more than answering or receiving calls on a telephone is still foreign to my senses. After all, it’s only of late I’ve mastered engaging with the internet on a computer, which at least was designed for the purpose. Now I have to learn how to do it on a piece of plastic smaller than my hand, with a screen requiring a magnifying glass to read.

It’s all too much. Sometimes I just long for those heady childhood days with two old bean cans and a long length of string.

Life was so much simpler, then.

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4 Replies to “Oh, For Those Good Old Days!”

  1. I remember the two cans with string. I loved making those. 🙂

    Photos would be absolutely lovely. You might want to consider creating a Flickr, or Picasa/Google account to make it easier to share. Picasa seems to be the easiest way to go since it is a “complete” solution (and also free).

    Have fun!

  2. PM – given the exorbitant cost of downloading via GPRS ($15 per Mb) I doubt I can keep up an illustrated “running commentary”, but hopefully I will have time for a brief post or two towards the end of my stay. Any photos may have to wait till I get back.

    Mike – I have a Flickr account, but haven’t tried Picasa yet. I’ll take a look at it. The problem of cost is still a factor, though.

    Flimsy – I’m not sure if it would or not. We already use VOIP at home in the US. It’s not the cost of talking, though – I’ve got that down to about 28c per minute, which is acceptable, it’s the web access costs that are crippling for anything other than email. I’m working on it, though. Unfortunately, the area of Wales I’ll be in is very remote and the broadband coverage necessary for Skype/Voip, virtually non-existent.

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