September 28 by boatchick (3036 found)
Let me tell you a little story...But let me preface the story with this: My mom is my "tech support" person. If i am having troubles with my computer, i get my mom to fix it. Mom helps me with digital cameras and video recorders. She is a techno-geek in her late 50s.
So why was obtaining this webcam photo such an ordeal? Well, here's the story:
I called my mom when i was visiting GC8B79 nearby. And mom has taken webcam photos for me before, most notably at the Alamo in San Antonio. So she knows the basic idea.
But the problem is not mom's knowledge and understanding of technology, but rather, the equipment she's dealing with. Mom's internet connection is dial-up. So, in order to try this out, we had to hang up on her land line. Mom has a cell phone, but it's one of the prepaid ones, and she said that she was perilously low on minutes. Oh, and did i mention that i forgot to email her a link to the camera?
Well, from GC8B79, i gave mom the instruction to Google "Shawnee OK", find the city hall website, and locate the link to the webcam. While she was doing all that on dial-up, i drove to the appropriate place, which i had already scoped out. Fortunately for me, there was parking right in front of the (encrypted hint). Super! So i sat there and waited for her to call back on her low-minutes cell phone when she was ready. And i waited. And someone parked in front of me, and the passenger went in the building. And someone parked behind me, and he had his leg in a cast, and he went in the building. And the passenger came out, and the truck pulled away. And broken-legged guy came out, and he drove away. And i waited.
I actually pulled my wireless-enabled laptop out of the bag and fired it up to see if i could grab an unsecured wireless signal, but i couldn't. Finally, mom called. She could see the back of my car in the cam, so i got out of the car and stood by it. And waited. And waited. And in the background, i heard my dad scream "There she is!" Presumably, he was hanging over poor mom's shoulder, and she refreshed the page. And dad saw me, through the magic of teh internets. (Dad's techno-skills are... very limited. So this was like magic to him.)
I asked mom how the picture looked, and asked if she could see the GPS in my hand. She said she could see something in my hand, so i assumed it was OK. Now that i see the pictures, i wish i had been standing closer to the webcam. Although, with all the people milling about, i would have been more self conscious about that, especially given the cell phone issue. See, i use a bluetooth earpiece, and people often look at me like i am some kind of crazy person talking to myself. I don't know if they just don't *notice* the bluetooth, or if the are like my dad and don't know what the bluetooth is, so they think i'm nuts. Either way, i get weird looks sometimes.
Mom and i were discussing photo quality of webcams when a white haired man walked by, and he kind of gave me that *look*. He actually appears in one of the two photos. Yes, i was there for a while as mom and i tried to figure out what she could see on her slow-refreshing dial up internet screen.
At any rate, there i was, with my bright blue Dodge Nitro, and there were my parents, nearly 1000 miles away in Ohio, trying to get a screenshot of me. The whole process took about 15 minutes, and i really wish i had a screenshot of the "history" page to see how many thumbnails actually contained the rear end of my car as i was waiting for the dial-up internet.
If my mom had 21st century technology at her disposal, instead of just 1995-era stuff, she'd be a force to reckon with.
Thanks for the webcam cache!!
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