Technology today

When I first began living far from home, international phone calls were still rare, major events. I think I spoke to my family on the phone only twice during my year in Kenya, and equally sparsely during my first years in Costa Rica.

Fortunately, the days of the semi-annual $40 phone call are over. I'm actually paying about three times as much as necessary on my ¢9/min callback plan, but we don't use it enough to bother switching.

Anyway, Alex was out of town for much of our first week here, so we didn't hear from him at all at first. He called when he got back home on Christmas Eve and talked to all three of us for quite a while. He called again on Christmas day so the girls could talk to his parents. They were already looking at the photos I had posted earlier in the day.

I was kind of surprised to hear from him again a day or so later, but happy to pass the phone to the girls for another little chat. When I got it back, I discovered the true motive behind the call, as he had me walk him through finding the scanner software on my computer and sending an icon to the desktop for next time.

Robin is at Mom & Dad's house (about 150 miles away) so we've spoken with her a few times this week as well. Last night, Dad called to say Alex had his parents up at our house and wanted them to talk to Robin on Skype. They had connected the call easily enough, but were having trouble with the webcam at the Costa Rica end. I told Dad where Alex needed to plug it in, but that had already been tried and it was decided that I should speak with Alex directly.

When he called (from 1500 miles away), I picked up the phone and immediately heard Robin in the background.