The Gremlins of Technology

As the videos and photographs pile up in the ol' digital archive, it seems that the gremlins of technology simply refuse to allow us to post them here for your enjoyment. Just this morning, I tried unsuccessfully to upload a few photographs to share from our most recent days in Florida. After an hour, the first photo had still not uploaded to Blogger, leading me to realize that perhaps it was not meant to be. And when it comes to uploading videos to YouTube, that now seems like a bandwith pipe-dream---at least for now. Perhaps later in the day the gremlins will take a nap and I can try again.

It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but in this Age of Information, that saying has never been updated to include video. Taking that oversight into consideration, how many words is a YouTube video worth, pray tell?

Life on the road has many frustrations, but it is also magically resplendent and wonderfully rich---sort of like life anywhere. One of my keen frustrations on the road is the considerable lack of reliability when it comes to cell phone service (curse you, T-Mobile!) and wireless internet speed, and these frustrations underscore for me the ways in which I am a spoiled consumer living in the industrialized world. We take so many things for granted, and when my inner consumer doesn't get what he wants---what he, in fact demands---his petulant and child-like nature is brought into stark relief, and it is revealed just how spoiled he truly is.

But let's face it, folks. For me, sharing our journey in words, photos and videos is one of the greatest pleasures of this sojourn. Waking up in the morning and knowing that many of you are looking forward to reading our posts is both energizing and inspiring. When I see that we've had more than 500 pageloads in a week (and numerous comments on individual posts), I'm driven to continue to write, reaching out to all of you, sharing our journey and bringing you along for the ride---virtually speaking, that is.

So many people travel, take pictures, keep a journal, or videotape their adventures, but a great deal of that material just gets stored on computer hard drives, pasted into photos albums or scrapbooks, or sent in emails to friends and family. For me, this journey is to a large extent about sharing our discoveries, pains, pleasures and travels with as wide an audience as possible, and this is where my frustration comes to bear when I have things to show you and simply cannot come through.

When bandwith is uncooperative and those pesky gremlins rear their warty heads in our direction, I need to learn to laugh, watershed my impatience, and simply reach out the old-fashioned way with words. As easily as those words come through my hands to the keyboard, it's also the visuals that I think enrich this blog and our ability to share it. No matter, we know you're out there, we know you enjoy this digital travelogue, and we'll keep trying to dish up a serving of enlivening travel stories for those wishing to satisfy their wanderlust a little by hitching a virtual ride with us.

And perhaps those gremlins will take that nap now.

---Keith