Now it feels like the future.

I talked to Heather in Uganda on Thursday, and it was amazing. Of course, part of the amazement is in talking to the person I love. But I won’t trouble you with reading all about that. I was amazed by the technological marvel taking place.

(I will now begin speaking like an octogenarian.)

I had set up a Skype account. But, I don’t have internet at my house in Tennessee. And not wanted to try to have phone conversations from a table in the corner of the local Panera, I was at a loss as to how to call Heather at a cheap rate. But this week I discovered that by using Skype’s special “Skype To Go” service, I can place a call from my cell phone to hers for a paltry 15 cents a minute. How? As best I can figure, it works something like this: I call a number in my home area code (in New Jersey), which connects me to a Skype computer there; their VoIP network connects the call to Uganda; from there, another local call is placed, from some computer to Heather’s cell phone. Since the only traditional “phoning” being done is local calls on either end, all I have to pay for is Skype’s regular VoIP charge. Remarkable.

You know how I found out about this? I asked The Google.