What a world we live in

[burnsbyrne]

My wife is presently in Italy, visiting family there and in Switzerland (Locarno, Amar). Yesterday she called me here at work from her aunt's in Switzerland to say that she had decided that she needed to rent a car and would I do it on line, using her frequent flyer ID#, because it is much cheaper if the car is rented from the US. So, last evening I got on line and I finished the whole deal in about 20 minutes (or less). This morning (Thursday) she had a car reserved in her name at the Milan airport.

When we were married 30 years ago a ten minute telephone call from Cleveland to Locarno cost us about $30. I had a 45 minute call on our last telephone bill that costed $6.75.

Sometimes I just sit down and think about things like this and am amazed.
Mike

[avanutria]

When my brother, grandmother and I were in Italy last year we decided to go to Venice. While driving to the Venice ferry from elsewhere in the country, my brother used his cell phone to ring his wife in Houston. She got online, found and booked an appropriate hotel, and rang him back with the confirmation information. Two hours later we were checked in and relaxing.

My grandmother couldn't believe it.

[Will O'B]

That is amazing. I wish we had thought of doing reservations like that when we were driving around Ireland looking for rooms to spend the night. We were there for 2 weeks and just winging the trip. We had a rough idea of where we wanted to go, but didn't want to be bound by a schedule if we liked or didn't like some town. We also wanted to be able to break away from the planned route if we heard of somewhere else interesting. It usually resulted in us spending at least an hour looking for available lodging in each town. That was smart thinking on both of your parts.

Our 12 year old takes the whole computer/word processing/internet thing for granted, just as we took television for granted and my parents took the telephone for granted. It's incredible to think that there is an idea that hasn't been thought of yet by somone who is still unborn which will change the future of our descendents lives, yet be so commonplace at that time that they won't give it a second thought.

Will O'Ban

[beowulf573]

A couple of years ago I was driving from San Antonio to Houston with my now wife and her room-mate, who was sitting in the backseat talking to her mom on her cell phone. Her mom was in a hotel in Iran having just completed her obligatory haj to Mecca.

[izzarina]

Our 12 year old takes the whole computer/word processing/internet thing for granted, just as we took television for granted and my parents took the telephone for granted. It's incredible to think that there is an idea that hasn't been thought of yet by somone who is still unborn which will change the future of our descendents lives, yet be so commonplace at that time that they won't give it a second thought.

My little ones are convinced that there is a "dot com" for everything. They constantly ask me if I'll go to "suchandsuchaplace.com" so they can check out their favorite new toy, movie, or whatever. Unfortunately for me, they're usually right....there IS a dot com for everything

[SteveShaw]

My wife is presently in Italy, visiting family there and in Switzerland (Locarno, Amar). Yesterday she called me here at work from her aunt's in Switzerland to say that she had decided that she needed to rent a car and would I do it on line, using her frequent flyer ID#, because it is much cheaper if the car is rented from the US. So, last evening I got on line and I finished the whole deal in about 20 minutes (or less). This morning (Thursday) she had a car reserved in her name at the Milan airport.

When we were married 30 years ago a ten minute telephone call from Cleveland to Locarno cost us about $30. I had a 45 minute call on our last telephone bill that costed $6.75.

Sometimes I just sit down and think about things like this and am amazed.
Mike

I could ring you in Cleveland from Cornwall and speak to you for 45 minutes and it would cost me just over $2. When I was in Australia this spring I bought a "Daybreak" phone card for $20AUS, which is about $15, which gave me over 600 minutes' call-time back to the UK, any time of day, any number of calls. The only problem was that you needed a degree in Maths to understand how to dial all the various codes before getting to the actual phone number!!

Steve

[Will O'B]

. . . The only problem was that you needed a degree in Maths to understand how to dial all the various codes before getting to the actual phone number!!

Steve

When my son was born 12 years ago I called my mom a couple of times from my wife's hospital room. She lived just over 300 miles away. The phone in the hospital room would not allow me to dial direct and bill it to the room, or to bill it to my home or to charge the call to a credit card. All long distance calls had to be made collect (reversing the charges to the person being called). There were a bunch of prefixes that had to be dialed to get through the maze at the hospital and to get an outside line, and even more numbers because it was a collect call through some funky long distance carrier, and then the long distance prefix, the area code, and finally my mom's phone number. I made 2 or 3 phone calls like this to her. Collect calls are always at a higher rate per minute and we talked in total for over an hour at premium daytime rates. I told her to let me know when she got the phone bill and I would pay her back for the charges. A couple of months went by and she kept insisting that no collect charges from Illinois were showing up on her phone bill. Then one day in talking she mentioned that the telephone company had threatened to shut off her service for refusing to pay almost $200 for accepting 3 long distance calls from JAPAN. It turns out all of those dang prefixes I had to punch into the phone equalled the string of numbers for a call to (or from) Japan. My mom said she kept telling them that she didn't know anyone in Japan, but the company still wanted its money. It took the hospital working with us to convince the long distance phone company that the call came from Illinois and not Japan. :roll:

Will O'

[Jack]

Yes, it's amazing indeed!

Also amazing are those billions of people on this planet who live without a telephone, without electricity, without medicine and without food. We are such a global society of deep contrasts, if nothing else.

[Denny]

Will,
You call person to person collect to yourself at the other number.
You are not there to accept.
You ask the person answering to have you call you when you get in and leave your number, room, etc.
The person that answered calls you back direct.

Person to Person costs more than any other assisted call. But you can leave messages...if they are not there.

Ah, short ones...

[SteveShaw]

Cranberry, that is a very fine avatar. I reckon it's the best one on the board.

Steve

[Darwin]

Cranberry, that is a very fine avatar. I reckon it's the best one on the board.

Well, I think that beowulf573's is the best he's had so far--and a good sig line to go with it.

[Redwolf]

My daughter hates to hear me going on about when I was a kid: No computers, no Gameboys (or even TV video games), no microwaves, no CD players, only one TV (and only three channels!), no VCR or DVD player, no pocket calculators (at least not until I was in high school, and then they were huge and cost over $100!) only one car, only one phone (and it was fixed to the wall and was a party line!)...she can't imagine how anyone can live like that! I tell her it's why I'm an avid reader and musician.

Redwolf

[Denny]

Cranberry, that is a very fine avatar. I reckon it's the best one on the board.

Well, I think that beowulf573's is the best he's had so far--and a good sig line to go with it.

More cowbell!

...it as my favorite

[burnsbyrne]

My wife is presently in Italy, visiting family there and in Switzerland (Locarno, Amar). Yesterday she called me here at work from her aunt's in Switzerland to say that she had decided that she needed to rent a car and would I do it on line, using her frequent flyer ID#, because it is much cheaper if the car is rented from the US. So, last evening I got on line and I finished the whole deal in about 20 minutes (or less). This morning (Thursday) she had a car reserved in her name at the Milan airport.

When we were married 30 years ago a ten minute telephone call from Cleveland to Locarno cost us about $30. I had a 45 minute call on our last telephone bill that costed $6.75.

Sometimes I just sit down and think about things like this and am amazed.
Mike

I could ring you in Cleveland from Cornwall and speak to you for 45 minutes and it would cost me just over $2. When I was in Australia this spring I bought a "Daybreak" phone card for $20AUS, which is about $15, which gave me over 600 minutes' call-time back to the UK, any time of day, any number of calls. The only problem was that you needed a degree in Maths to understand how to dial all the various codes before getting to the actual phone number!!

Steve

You're right Steve. I suffer from that old man's forgetting malady. The call to Switzerland I mentioned above was actually 44 minutes long and the charge was $1.85.
Mike

[Will O'B]

Will,
You call person to person collect to yourself at the other number.
You are not there to accept.
You ask the person answering to have you call you when you get in and leave your number, room, etc.
The person that answered calls you back direct.

Thanks, Denny. Others have also educated me on that little gimmick since the "Japan" fiasco. I now know better if there is ever a next time.

What I found curious is that the hospital said we (obviously) were not the only folks who had that problem, and they were changing their long distance carrier for that reason. But I was amazed at the fight we went through with the carrier on my mom's behalf when such complaints (apparently) were not that uncommon. Perhaps they thought the little old lady would just cave in and pay the bill.

Will O'Ban

PS: In thinking about this a little more, it seems like the charges on her phone bill were showing up as if she had made the calls to Japan from her phone. I can't really remember anymore. Suffice it to say, it was as odd then as it is now.