On Vacation, 2005 style

In case you can't tell from the decline of blogging volume, I've been on vacation these past two weeks. I've been climbing mountains, among other things: These shots are from Andrea and my summit of Mt. Blanc (with Alex and Jono, rock on guys!) last week in Chamonix.




I'm now in Prague with some great folks, and will be "back at work" soon. Which is good, because things are hoppin' back at the Galactic HQ, which I know because vacation, 2005, is not vacation, 2001, or even vacation, 2003.

This time, my cell phone works in Europe. No more lugging the old London Motorola Timeport, and no more buying Orange SIM cards and calling all my friends so they have the number. Want to talk? Call me.

This time, WiFi is everywhere. It was free in Chamonix. It was free from my friends in London. It is so cheap as to practically be free here in Prague.

And oh my god, Skype has arrived. I can't even count how many calls I have done on Skype. It's really is so cheap it's effectively free -- I can't remember when I put my 10 Euros for Skype Out in, and it's just worked and worked and worked.

Since I have been in Europe I have electronically talked to people in:
Japan
India
Greece
Serbia
England
The Czech Republic
and of course the USA. I have worked at least an hour every day (except when we summited Mt. Blanc) and a lot more on some days. The ability to be in touch is incredible -- I have successfully juggled two or three different major threads of activity, and still taken time to relax and actually *be* on vacation.

The world is gonna change a lot more real soon now, but it's worth stopping to recognize just how much it has changed in the past 24 months.