I got Skype a few years ago, when Peggy and I decided that we would try it for free phone calls between here and Australia. Unfortunately, she then moved out of the Perth area into a place where her bandwidth is very limited, so Skype became not a possibility for us. I have this lovely hand set, like a cordless telephone, which has been gathering dust because there was nobody else to talk to, and I wasn't going to troll for strangers to chat with.
But then Laurel got pregnant and I told Tom that since I was going to live so far from them at least during the early years of Brianna's life, that I wanted us to get web cams. Bless him, he bought me a web cam for Christmas last year and said that he had gotten one just like it for himself.
I had my guru set the camera up for me. I could probably have done it myself, but as long as he was going to be here anyway, it was just easier to have him do it so I knew everything was right. But Tom hadn't set his up, so we never did have a test call before Brianna was born.
But then along came the Morning Stories Transcribers Club, and the suggestion that we all get Skype and start having chats.
My first Skype chat was with Kate in Florence, Italy.
What fun it was! Especially since she had a web cam too, so we were able to see each other. I learned about Calcio Storico, historic soccer matches which take place in early June in Florence. The game answers the question "what do you get when you cross soccer, rugby and Renaissance costumes?" Kate explains that at the start of the game, players are wearing bloomers and colorful tunics, "but as things heat up, the boys strip -- much to the [female] crowd's pleasure."
(For a fascinating description of this game, check here.)
Later that same day, I had a chat with Lynn, from New York. Lynn is our "Wonder Woman" who is faster than a tickertape, more powerful than a BlueGene/L computer, and able to leap tall piles of transcription in a single bound. She swears that she primped and made up, but I did not see her on the webcam she swears she has. But we still had a lot of fun and giggled a lot on our Skype call. (We had another chat today and she still hasn't gotten her web came working--but I know it's only a matter of time.)
However, today was the first call I'd been waiting for. Tom and Brianna called. The video was great, but Tom's sound was too low for me to hear him...or rather I could just barely hear him. But I got to see my little granddaughter live and in color. I tried to take a screen shot, as I did with Kate's chat above, but it didn't work and I realized too late what the problem was. I'll do better next time. (But check the photos below for cuteness).
I'm going to have a great time with this Skype account. So...come up and Skype me sometime! :)
Today was also the first day I felt really good about Miles to Nowhere. Yesterday I managed to walk a mile and a half, to make up for the day I only did half a mile. Surprisingly, I did it in two longer stints. What kept me going was watching something interesting on television.
Last night we went to a dance concert, which I reviewed. My favorite section was danced to Simon & Garfunkle's Old Friends and was a beautiful, poignant piece about two older women (older than I am) and the young girls they had once been. I watched one of the women with the young girl who was her younger self. The girl was about junior high age and I looked at the two of them together and for the first time it was very important to me to have the experience of standing with Brianna when she is in junior high.
This means I have to get serious about the miles to nowhere (among other things--but it's a start). I didn't walk a mile and a half today, but I walked a solid mile and I walked faster than I've walked since the treadmill arrived (mostly because I didn't want to stay on the treadmill that long and was determined that I was going to finish the full mile).
I'm noticing a change. It used to be that 5 minutes at 2 mph left me panting. Today it was 15 minutes at 2.4 mph and I was sweaty and breathing hard (which Dr. G always told me is when exercise starts to become effective), but when I finished, I didn't feel like I needed to collapse somewhere.
So this program is actually working and I'm starting to adjust to it. I still hate putting on the shoes each day and actually getting on and I still set a goal for that particular segment and don't go .1 of a mile or 1 second longer than the goal I set, but I'm setting longer goals, both in time and in distance, and higher speed goals, and adjusting to them.
I don't envision actually running on this machine, but I envision keeping at this and continuing to improve.
I have a date with my granddaughter in about 14 years and I want to be around to keep it.
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