A week without the Internet

Moving to a new place can present its challenges, but technology dependency has raised the bar in challenge impact. For instance, our new home is located next to a large hill, and although this hill is beautifully covered in untamed vegetation that is relaxing to gaze upon from our back yard, we have terrible cell phone reception! So, since we're of the ilk that abandoned the land line in favor of having low doses of RF* beamed at our heads on a daily basis, I now miss most of my phone calls. In addition, we took our time transferring our cable internet connection from old abode to new--thus another level of technological isolation! How am I to know what my friends are doing, blogging, thinking, reading? I can't call, I can't e, I've lost any intuitive abilities, such as those ascribed to the aboriginals in Mutant Message (of course this happened long before cell phones and internet), and to top it all off, the LA times didn't get my change of address notification because I forgot and I couldn't get online, and . . .

It was really terrible. I had to read books, play with by baby more, unpack my boxes uninterrupted by my life as I know it, and life as it is filtered to me through media. Hmmm . . . perhaps I enjoyed this low tech experience.

*RF, Radio Frequency. Exposure limits are set by the FCC for cell phones, using a measurement called a Specific Absorption Rate, or SAR, which measure sthe rate of absoprtion of RF energy by the human body expressed in units of watts per kilogram. The safety limit for a human is 1.6 watts per kilogram. I wonder how many kilograms my baby weighs and what is his SAR of RF. Perhaps its a good thing our new home has poor reception.

Signing Off.