Rock formations around Kingman, Arizona
Overlooking park of New Kingman
High atop the mountain between Old and New Kingman (on bike ride) This is New Kingman
Rock "People" surrounding Kingman
A brief respite before another climb between the two Kingmans
Many are preparing for St. Patrick's Day tomorrow - thinking green; green beer, green frosting on cupcakes, green clothing, green hats, and green hair. Many people will participate in parades to celebrate the day regardless of their individual ethnicity; a reason to have a party.......to celebrate life.
My thoughts are far from celebratory on the eve of St Paddy's Day. I am frustrated! The source of my frustration is tecnology - specifically - cell phones and the ability to be connected to the blasted things, especially the internet.
Over two years ago I had a major melt down with At&T. For the sake of brevity and my sanity, I will not go into the crazy details of the cause of my melt down. I don't think the Blogger site would allow the space it would take to tell my story of the AT& T debacle of trying to get a connection to the internet. I have let that go (not really) and have been extremely pleased with the Broadband 760 device from Verizon that I joyfully replaced the AT&T non - connection with. Until......yesterday. . Suddenly in Kingman, Az Verizon disappeared from the Broadband scene and I was no longer able to get connected to the internet. My cell phone is fine - no problem with signal strength at all but the "stick" for the computer simply gave me an error message with a number on it. I called Verizon and they tried to walk me through the problem with a fix. A band aid at best. A couple of hours later the same problem popped up. Another call to Verizon and a no go. I was informed that the device must be "defective" and, joy of joys I was due for an Upgrade on this defective device!! They convinced me to order the relatively new MiFi card, a device that will allow up to 5 computers to ride in on the signal from this new card. Sounded great and they would overnight it to me via FedEx. It arrived this morning as promised. I immediately called Verizon to get my new little tecnological wonder hooked up and activated. After 30 minutes of trying everything under the sun, the representative asked where we were physically located at the present time. When informed that we were in Kingman, Arizona she stated that we couldn't activate in Kingman. We would have to drive to Phoenix to activate. It appears that this area is one of the very very few "dead" zones for Verizon. The device, and I will quote " needs to be in a direct line of the Verizon towers" to be activated. "Once activated, you will be able to connect almost anywhere in the contiguous United States". (Amen)
I took a deep breath, said a couple of bad words under my breath, thanked the very nice Verizon representative who had tried everything to get the device activated. Both Richard and I decided a long hard bike ride was in order.
I realized (after the long hard bike ride) that we have become so dependant on the available tecnology which is out there now. We have come to expect to be connected to the rest of world with a touch of a key on a computer. What happened to post cards, letters, not to mention phone calls., or the simple communication by the spoken word with those around us. What will occur if we lose all the high tech, high speed tecnology?
The tragedy in Japan brings all this into crystal clear focus. All the above is nothing. Absolutely nothing. What is important in life is the ability to connect with the people around us in whatever manner is natural. Water, food, shelter, safety is what is important, not the high tech tecnology that we have come to depend on - like texting on cell phones; computers and.......nuclear power plants. Our attention has been diverted; we have allowed it to be diverted to anything and everything that is faster, easier, convenient...instant gratification.
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