Skype

We’re converts, here at the rancho, to Skype, the Internet phone service that works with video cameras so you and your interlocutor can see each other as you talk. My cousin Jerry in Dallas, a ham radio operator since the 1930s, got me onto it, and I talked my out-of-state sisters into it. So the four of us have now had conversations and video visits weekends since the middle of January from one end of the country to the other. The camera and a headset (or a microphone) are all you have to pay for. Skype is a free download, and so are the calls, if you have broadband, of course. The video’s a little jerky sometimes, but it’s still more fun than a phone call–and cheaper. Jerry talks to his son in England all the time. Maybe I can interest Snoopy the Goon in it. It would be fun to talk to Israel.