Close but no banana

There's a lot that's challenging about communicating with people who aren't just far away, but which have between you and them issues with line quality, connectivity, and technological limitations.  So today I spent more than a usual time for me trying to do some workarounds.  I figured if I can't even get something off my mail program to the server, then it's going to be a bear, if not impossible to retrieve back off the server.  It may even get stuck in transit.

As far as voice communications you can't appreciate the marvel known as the telephone much less the miracle of cell phones until you try to talk to someone via a program like Skype.  As much as I love this advance in communications, the technology is imperfect and it's actually easier to chat than it is to hear someone's voice and interpret sentences that transmit at uneven speeds and volumes and often drop entire or parts of words.  I'm hoping that these limitations will go away or become mitigated as I gain access to better technology and connection speeds, but unfortunately, there's a good chance that the problems originate as much on the other end as they do with me.

All is not lost.  Far from it.  I love firing up the ol' confuter first thing in the morning, knowing there's a decent chance I'll have some email or a chance to chat with someone I care about.  Not so very long ago I would have been waiting for some sign of life in the mail, a letter that's two weeks or more old and which can only interact with my thoughts–as-words in a limited way.  Letters are conversations, but not the kind of conversations we take for granted in our world today.  So life is good.  But I'm eager for better, because I see the possibilities just within reach.  It's ... right ... there ...!