Garazon’s Den

Ah the wonders of a notebook and and a wifi connection! :) Sitting out on the deck now on my second day off of this three day break. A much needed one too I might add. I was worried these days off would be similar to the ones we have had all month with heat indexes near 100 every day, but my break was blessed with a couple of days of cooler temps and a nice breeze today. Unfortunately the wind is coming from the North and the house is blocking most of it, but still its nice out here. With one exception, the heat pump unit is right here at the end of the deck so its always running this time of year and sometimes a nuisance. I guess over the years you get used to it though. I was thinking to have a Skype session with my baby here in a bit, but i dont know if she can hear me over the noise. worth a try though, I love hearing my Geordie girl’s voice, music to my ears. That really is one of the best programs we have used to keep in contact. Most times its crystal clear and no lag at all, amazing to me continuously how technology has advanced even from a couple of years ago. Her I am sitting out on the deck of my home, a wireless connection on this laptop and I took the pic above with my phone and sent it straight to the pc to put in this post. And with the built in webcam I can put in my own photo of me sitting here…

Pretty cool huh? Now let me add the tags and other little tidbits and I’ll post it right to my website. Just a few years ago this would have taken half a day to do probably to get the thumbnails and edit the html.. love it, 10 minutes tops to do this all, just still amazes me  now let me get this done and get on with more importsnt things, like loving up my Cyprus Angel! She’s off too today! ;)

This is the first of likely many more posts to come on this topic. No matter how much we try to appreciate the things we have everyday, there seems to come a time we find ourselves all of a sudden realising how much we depend on them and how much we do take them for granted until they are gone. From the mundane things to those most important to us, we should always strive to appreciate the things we have been blessed with rather than to moan and groan by those we seem to think we are missing or needing.

What brings me to write this particular post was something that happened yesterday when I go home from work and went to sit down to the pc to spend some time with Alison before she went to bed (I hate the 7 hours time difference, but not nearly as much as the distance!).  Anyway I sat down to the pc to open Google talk so we could chat… then nothing.. no connection at all. Well it happens occasionally the modem resets or they do something and I just have to power down the modem and restart it and I’m back in business, well that had no effect at all. I won’t go into all the things I tried to get back online as that’s another sort of post, suffice it to say I did everything i could think of to fix it, only to find out in the end there was an outage in my area affecting a lot of us and it would be the late hours of the night before it was back on. :(  Well we have been blessed by not having any really bad problems staying in touch with one another as we always have the mobile texts to fall back on if one of us loses a connection. well what do you think the odds would be that the same time I loose my Internet, Alison’s cell stops working! I had sent several texts since walking in the door and had no replies which I knew was odd as that time of day we are right there to speak to another. well just thinking she was busy with something I didn’t really get worried, just anxious of missing our chat and not being able to tell her. well anyway a little more time passes with both of us sort of getting into a panic that was beginning to grow. I tried calling her and only got a message saying that number isn’t available. Real panic then thinking the worst! It was a few more minutes passed that I even thought to ring her landline! :o) How everything these days has sort of gone to where we communicate though mobile phones, pcs or some other technological marvel ( not just us, i mean the world in general) I didnt even remember that she  had a home phone! well once I did I rang her right away and she was at the time doing the same thing, rummaging around her drawer looking for my home number!  Well finally we managed to speak about 2 hours later from what we hoped to but at least it was relief to speak and we got to say goodnight :)

I guess from this story alone I could pull out 4 or 5 different things we  take for granted on all levels of life all the time but for this post I will just stick to the communication aspects, the “”instant communication” which is the Internet and wireless technologies. In ou case being 5000 miles apart, we depend on this always working. I will stop for just a minute and add one of the most important things in life, to never take your love for granted either. meaning in this case if you are blessed to have to have your spouse or love near and close, always be thankful you can speak, and if you are one thinking now you are fine not talking to your spouse, maybe you have already taken too much for granted… think about it… Anyway not to preach right now, just saying that we have become so dependent on all these techno things that they often become a part of us, a way of life even. Thats’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is true, I was really at a loss for a while yesterday not being able to reach my beautiful bride and I couldn’t even think logically. not that i do think logically a lot of other times either, but that aside it made me realise just how “wired in” I am in this world.

I depend on our emails and emails to my friends and family, instant messages, cell calls, all of that, even the news I read online having years ago canceled my newspapers. Its all convenience isnt it. So easy to come sit here and click a button or two and speak across the ocean or send a photo or video tot he web, just to keep in touch with friends and family. Instantly.. So that is the first thing I think many of us do take for granted in this, just one of many. and its not just having the Internet, its having the fast one! I have had a broadband connection now for many years, only very rarely having service disrupted. those few times it was in the early years it wasn’t so important as it is now with my Bonny Brit on the other side of the pond. I need it! I need her! :) Well I found myself last night really at a loss of what to do to pass the evening as so much time I do spend online, whether its for amusement or communication with family or even in my work with photos, browsing for some filter or some certain tutorial or resource to aid in my restoration work. I depend on it being there and working. I still have my AOL account which I maintain for my sister inlaw  mostly so she can get online, and in emergencies for me to get online too. like last night. :) well it has been so long since I have even signed in I never realised how slow it really is now! even the browser oon my phone is faster than dialup! It took what seemed t be the longest time to load any of the pages I normally view online. it wouldn’t even load the speed test applet at all, after two minutes I just closed the page in frustration. Well it was enough to get my mail and just thankful I didn’t have any with large attachments! I ended up just writing our normal morning mail on my iPhone and sending it to Alison from there. Our friend Mike was mentioning dial up in one of his posts or comments somewhere not long ago, I think saying he could go back to dialup if he had to, I cant remember the exact things he said right now or which post it was in… well after last night I don’t think i could ever go back to dialup on these pcs. not with the things I am interested in anyway photos and videos and streaming content, not to mention these intensive websites we have these days. It would be impossible to maintain I think now. i would go berserk waiting for a file to upload or download on dialup… like i said my phone is 5 times faster than dialup, and I would use that first.  Well things are sorted and back in order now and  everything is back to working, Alison’s cell too. I just wont take for granted anymore that each time we speak its a blessing and i am so thankful for all these things we have to keep in touch while we are apart.

Guess that’s it for this post, but just remember to look around and be thankful for those things that any of you take for granted and don’t realise it.. everything is a gift if you are willing to see it.