"Technology False Security"

As previously mentioned, Mike is out of the country. He has his trusty Blackberry which, annoyed as we get with AT&T sometimes, really does have a good global range (and without all those herds of people following him around like SOME mobile phone companies would have you believe - can you imagine the cost to a Verizon customer with all those folks following him onto international flights in BUSINESS CLASS??? Doesn't even bear thinking about.) But every once in awhile, I simply cannot get hold of him. And today, current location Algeria (in Algiers for those who flunked geography or thought it was a math class subject) is one of those times evidently.

As much as Mike travels, I'm always comforted by the fact that 99 times out of 100, I can phone him at a moments notice on my trusty iPhone and be able to get him. Back in "olden times", I was lucky to get a phone call, albeit brief, once a day from him in a foreign location. I even started keeping a journal for him in one of the kid's spiral notebooks, recording what was going on with the kids day to day lives so he could catch up when he got home.

Then came the Internet - I could get that one call (shoot, sounds like I was in jail or something - my "one phone call") PLUS email the days events in a more newsy, less time constrained manner. When the boys were younger and were, well, "being boys", I could email all the particulars of their misdeeds, wait for the phone call knowing he'd been "briefed" and had all the "background information", and he'd have a little chat with them - not sure how they do it, but stern warnings from daddies, even over the phone, have greater effect on the pubescent male than all the threats, rantings and ravings of a mother. Peace would once again reign in the home without precious "one call" time being taken with dealing with what happened, how to deal with it, blah, blah, blah.

So the advent of the any time, any place mobile phone call has been a GREAT progression in the lives of those married to the Frequent Business Traveler. Except when it doesn't work. Like today. While he's in Algeria. And I want to talk to him. Grizzle and Gripe...I can understand not connecting when on rigs out in the frozen tundra of Siberia, or in remote islands of the South Pacific (where the only signal he probably gets is something connected to the Dharma Initiative - and all those Lost people are so frustrated because he connected and immediately hung up after a quick "Sorry, wrong number") But Algeria? They are in the 21st century as far as I know! They are mainland at least - not some remote island in the middle of nowhere.

So today I feel like I'm on an island - cause I want to talk to him but he really seems far away. Funny how a little handheld device can make the difference between feeling connected and feeling 6000 miles apart.

Technology - can't live with it; can't live without it. And Mike, if you read this - CALL ME!!