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the people in the computer

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

For some time, now, we've been using Skype to call up my mother as well as my brother and his wife to show them The Boy. He really seems to love his grandma (or "mmama" as he calls her) and gets pretty worked up when he wants to talk to her. This weekend, my dad joined the fun.

For some time, I've been pestering my dad to get a web camera so that The Boy could see them. He's now done so, and we ran through a test earlier in the week to ensure that it was all working out.

The Boy knows the sound that the Skype software makes when it starts up, and he came running over as soon as he heard the sound. He was yelling out, "mmama!" over and over (his word for "grandma"). But when the screen lit up and "mmama" wasn't there, he just sat and stared mutely with a blank look on his face. I tried explaining that it was Oma and Opa, but it took him a while to get it. It helped that the grandparents on the screen were waving and cooing.

Soon enough, he was laughing and doing his usual antics. It all went well enough. The technology's still not perfect of course. When we subsequently called my mum (she's dogsitting in Vancouver) it took her about ten minutes to sort out how to get the microphone unmuted on my brother's PC. But it's sure better than the bad old days.

Back to the '80s and how we had no video capability when making (hideously) expensive long-distance phone calls that kept us at only one or two phone call windows a week. And in the '70s when we lived on the farm we had a party line and could only use the phone when none of the neighbours were doing so.

So yeah, I'll put up with some annoying side-effects and the fact that the Skype service might soon be pulled altogether of some bizarre legal ramblings.