Look Ma, No Modem!

And so the incredible continues...

I am composing this blog from our cabin in Double-You-Vee. Minus modem.

It's unbelievable, really.

Left work Friday afternoon and came straight up -- which meant I had my work computer, a laptop, as part of the luggage. That computer has a wireless card. I'd experimented a couple of times with WiFi, pretty much unsuccessfully, 'cause I just don't know how to work the dang thing. What signals are available? How do you find them? What secret decoder ring do you need to get in? These things are beyond my current understanding.

So last night, semi-bored, I just cracked the laptop open, hit IE and typed in the Google URL. And the thing came up!

I have little idea how. I have NO idea where, as in where this signal is originating from. It just works.

Unbelievable.

It was 1998 when my brother and cousin and I were in a minivan, traveling from MPLS to North Dakota for my grandma's funeral, and Crazy Cuz Harry whipped out his laptop to show us some of the crazy vid clips he'd downloaded. That was only 9 years ago, and I still remember those moments very clearly, because it seemed like a miracle. Road trips in my early years were AM radio (maybe, it there were any stations in the area), windows down for cooling, and four boys in the back seat of the station wagon. And thirty years later, it was AC with controls that let you hit the cabin temperature to the degree, captain's chairs front and middle, and freakin' Ashley Judd at the Academy Awards.

And now it's only 7 years after that, and I'm sitting here connected to the Web with no visible means of support.

People are always gettin' all down about stuff. Buck up, folks. These are incredible, cutting edge times we live in. I'm gonna go hit the AllFordMustangs site.