Monday

[susandennis]

Apparently, most of the pool regulars made it through the snow last Friday for the early morning swim.  One of the lifeguards lives near me and she did say that there were a couple of rough spots that made it kind of dicey.  I'm still glad I didn't try.  Today's swim was good.  There were some new peops there clearly home on college break and the high school team that trains before the public swim was missing.  Such will be the next two weeks, I suspect.

I have nothing going on today.  I may try a grocery trip but there's nothing I desperately need so I may give that a pass as well.

I do want to clean up my TiVo.  I think my next gadget purchase will be a TiVo Roamio.  I'll move the living room Premiere to the bedroom and move the bedroom Series 3 to...  I don't know. I hate the thought of fucking with eBay but there is value as it has lifetime service attached to it.  But, it's a now 4/5 year old computer and who knows how long the hardware will last so is it worth the eBay hassle?

I'll probably pull the trigger at the first sign of a deal and worry about the old one later.  Maybe.

My friend, Scott, who lives in New Zealand, called me last night on Google Hangouts.  There was a bit of a lag but not too bad.   It was fun to just have a casual chat.  When I was a kid, you only called 'long distance' for emergencies.

You could call Person to Person which was very expensive.  But, if your 'person' wasn't there, you paid nothing.  Station to station was not as expensive but you started paying the minute someone answered.  So if your 'person' wasn't home, you were stuck paying for a call to whoever was home.   My grandparents - both sets - lived half a country away from us so talking to them on the phone cost money.  On holidays we'd orchestrate the call so that everyone could say hi but not much more.  I think I remember Daddy saying it was $5 to call them.  This would have been in the 50's/early 60's.  Calling local, at that time, on a pay phone, which were everywhere, costs a dime.

I talked to Scott last night for 20 minutes.  And saw him while we talked.  And it cost nothing.  Really incredible when you think about it.

Comments

[mhaithaca.livejournal.com]

Though of course the telephone was "free" back in the Ma Bell days, and the monthly price to have the line was just a couple of bucks. Today, you've spent hundreds on the hardware you used to talk to Scott, and you're paying dozens of bucks a month for the "line." So, it didn't cost "nothing," but at least there wasn't an incremental cost. (Still, yes, I love that it's possible!)

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Then there was the trick of calling home to let your parents know you'd arrived safely at some remote location by calling person-to-person for yourself; whoever answered the call would say the person wasn't there, so no charge but message transmitted.

[susandennis]

I one time (and one time only) suggested that trick to my parents and was instantly the victim of one of my Father's lectures - a 30 minute tirade on stealing and the evils of cheating anyone, even (what was then) a public utility. So, I knew it was a popular trick but not one I ever had the nerve to use.