Speaking of Technology...

Back home, I was consciously working on reducing my reliance on technology... had gotten rid of TV service for TVs sake figuring that I could watch things online if I needed to. I do really like movies though, and discovered that I could rent 'older' flicks at Video King for just a dollar a night. That is pretty cheap entertainment, when all is said and done... and sometimes I need entertainment in order to get those whirling wheels to stop turning in my head.

You know what I mean... when there is so much to do and so many things going on you just can't stop thinking about it all.

So I set about to watch as many British based things as I could... like Beatrix Potter, who happens to be one of my favorite authors, illustrators and conservationists of all time. Multiple renditions about the Boleyn's, Queen Elizabeth, various kings etc. etc. I wanted to hear the British accent, see the countryside, learn something about England before I got here. Even if it was the Hollywood version!

But I digress.

Technology. Right. So, I only had a land line, no cell phone. And I have to say, people found that a bit odd... I was forever having to remind people I only had a land line and no, I couldn't really call them when I was 'en route' to get directions or let them know where I was.

I did have a laptop... which had a cracked LCD(?) screen for the last 2 years or so. You know how if you write something and while the ink is still wet, put something over top of it that doesn't absorb the ink, but rather makes the ink bleed out? That's what my screen was like and it was getting so bad I could not see what I was doing. It was at least an artful crack... it looked like a pear. The initial spot being where the stem and leaves would be and then curving out, and down and around in two directions. It had almost come together again at the bottom... but not quite.

How did it get cracked you are wondering?

I had my laptop, in my suitcase, well-cushioned, or so I thought. My suitcase gently plopped over, on a carpeted floor, and that was all it took. To this day, I have no idea how it managed to crack the screen, but, cracked it was.

(Nope. I do not ever pack my laptop in my suitcase anymore. Sometimes. Yes, sometimes I am capable of learning from my own mistakes.)

I spent the next two years watching it grow from a small blob into a pear, and hoping I was not somehow subjecting myself to toxic somethings emanating from the screen.

Finally, on the 4th of July, when I almost had enough money saved up to buy the new, lighter laptop with all the current bells and whistles that I wanted to replace it... it crashed. Took it to the computer doctor who said it was gone for good.

Bye-bye Sony.

I went a few weeks without a computer and that, my friends, was a challenge!! Not to have immediate access to my email, or the internet at my fingertips was awful and wonderful all at the same time. Prior to the crash, I had been spending oodles of time on the thing- I had been job searching and apartment hunting the eighteen months or so before, non-stop. Looking for work had in fact, become a full time job in and of itself!

At that point I was still looking too and had a couple of inquiries "out there"... having not gotten responses back from any willow places in England yet. And not having yet stumbled upon Johns website.

The laptop I wanted was on sale through the end of July and I, not being techno savvy, and wanting to keep the money in my savings account as long as possible, waited until the very last day to go buy the laptop at Staples. It seemed like a good plan to me, but, guess what? They were out. Not only were they out, so were the stores in South Burlington and Williston. As a matter of fact, there was not a store in the state of Vermont that had one, or in all of New England for that matter.

Huh...

Really, what went on in my head at that moment was more like you frequently see in comic strips... with all the exclamation points and ampersands etc... etc.

!?@#?%&*!?$

I mean. How was I supposed to know that that particular laptop was on sale because there was a newer version coming out with a few more bells and whistles, for alot more money. To the tune of $150 bucks to be exact. That's $150 more than the original price, not the sale price of that other one...

Crikey. No wonder everyone else bought up the one I wanted. How did they know?

Sometimes I definitely feel 'out of the loop'.

As you've probably surmised by now, the end of that little story is, I bit the bullet and bought the latest and greatest, more expensive, laptop.

Despite my desire to have less technology in my life it seems I've ended up having more...

I had contemplated getting a cell phone once I arrived in England. After my initial train ride down to Bore Place, where the train was delayed and I was late with no way to reach John to let him know. I decided it would be good to be able to reach people and have them reach me. Guess what I did? I bought a cell phone. Granted, it was the least expensive one they had at 12.99 GBP, came with a free SMS(?) card which is the type my friend Mark K. suggested I get, but by the time I paid for the service and topped it up the mandatory amount (plus a little bit more) it came in at something like 55 GBP, which is just under $86 in US dollars.

I hardly ever use it so the money I put on it seems to be going far, which is a good thing. But, hardly ever using it means that sometimes there are messages and texts sitting out there in cyberworld that I don't know about. For instance. Pat, of Pat & Terry, that I met in Tunbridge Wells called to verify I got home okay the day I was traveling because there were lots of strikes happening here in England that day... I never turned the phone on until 3 days later at which point I got her voicemail message, and returned her call.

All I can say is bear with me English people... and sorry American friends and family... I did not spring for the international calling option. You can always send me an 'old-fashioned' email. When I'm home, I check the inbox frequently.

And BTW, I love to get old-fashioned emails (or blog comments)... so please, could you write every so often??? It helps keep the homesickness dragon at bay... and thank you so much to everyone who has emailed or commented so far. You know who you are.

The phone has one feature I am really excited about which is an alarm that works and the phone doesn't even have to be on. I brought a little digital kitchen timer with me, which was one of the suggestions I'd read in a travel guide. It's small and compact for travel... but, you actually have to know what time it is before you can set the thing to go off how ever many hours later you want to wake up... The other issue with it is that it has such a sweet little sound, "Dee-de-dee...dee-de-dee" which is fairly easy to either ignore or I don't know about you, but my subconscious can work things like that into a dream pretty efficiently.

The alarm on the cell phone is annoying enough to wake me up without scaring the heck out of me in the process. It keeps going off every 4 minutes for about an hour, until you turn the thing off.

Yes, I know that by experience.

Do I think about all those 'waves' bouncing all around me and through me from the cell phone to whatever tower it's getting it's signal from?

Yes.

Does it bother me?

Yes, but only when I think about it.

One other positive note, is that the plan I chose (O2) seems to have pretty reliable coverage, everywhere I've been in my travels so far. That said, it has given me a certain sense of security in theoretically being able to reach someone if I was stuck somewhere, and in some sort of trouble. However true or false that sense of security is... I don't know.

I spend oodles of time online here blogging, trying to find lodging and checking on train and bus schedules... ad infinitum. Also, in case nobody has noticed, I am checking in on facebook more frequently than once in a blue moon, striving to maintain some sort of contact with family... I lost Jordan. Where did he go?

I did spend a goodly amount of time on one train ride down to Kent figuring out how to 'reply' to a text message from John's wife, Mandy. I did manage that, but, still have no idea how to compose my own message, let alone send it. Jeepers. Just to type a word I have to go through all those letters to get to the one I want... sometimes I press the button one too many times and end up with a very mis-spelled word... so have to backspace and then go through them all again. I can tell you right about then my eyes start to glaze over. Capital letters? Punctuation? Forget it. Do I blend in better with most of the other people on the train engrossed in their various forms of technology?

Yes.

Oh yeah... and my phone has a radio that came with those little tiny speakers that are supposed to fit in your ears. Don't ask me how, when I tried it they either kept falling out or I had to shove them in so far they hurt.

"Wow" I thought, "this is f-u-n."

Or not. so. much.

On the one hand I did feel sort of like a grown up, with a phone and everything... and then there was the 'blending in' and being like everybody else. On the other hand, I have pretty much marched to the beat of a different drum my whole life. I mean, being the unique person I am, how could I not, really?

How am I doing at reducing my reliance and use of technology? I guess I've got a little internal conflict going on... 

It is nice to be free of it when I am working in the woods... to hear the birds, the sound the billhook makes when it is cutting through green wood (not by my doing, mind you, because I have not managed to cut through anything bigger than a small branch with mine. Don't ask me to hit the same place twice if it needs another whack either, if I do hit the same spot, it is purely by accident.) John can fell a small tree with one powerful swipe of the billhook. Nick pretty much too. Impressive. I like the sound. The pheasants. The wind in the trees...

On the other hand, when I get home, one of the first things I do is check email.

I guess ultimately I want to use it, not have it rule my life. Whether I am here or back in the states. It's a balancing act as is so much of life.

For now, "it is what it is"...

susie here... signing off quickly before my battery di