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Sunday 5 May 2013

Long Live the Internet

A few weeks ago I received a text from that certain special someone telling me it was a lovely day where she was and that she was standing in front of a webcam not far from her term-time home. My immediate reaction was to completely forget how to type as I fumbled about trying to get to the website. I must have clicked on half a dozen wrong links in my excitement before I finally forced myself to calm down and behave like a computer literate adult. And there she was, our beautiful daughter, waving to me down the internet. I know she could do the same with Skype, but this was special, a sort of sneaky wormhole through the 160 miles that separate us when she's at uni.
With this memory still fresh in my mind, the story of the U.S. Air Force man based in Afghanistan, who happened by chance to see his family on a Scottish webcam, really struck a chord. He had known his family would be visiting the site and was looking it up on the internet when suddenly, there they were, walking into shot of the webcam. The fact that he then called her on her mobile phone and told her she looked beautiful today is just the jolly sentimental icing on the cake.
You know, these computer wizards might speak a peculiar language and be in the possession of weird and mysterious skills, but when they get things right, they really get them right. Long live the internet, mobile phones, and webcams (and yes, computer wizards too of course!).

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