“If you have embarrassed yourself and are going to laugh about it someday, you might as well start today.” Unknown

You ever have one of those oh sh_t moments? I did. Mine was accompanied with sudden and extremely intense doubled-over with too-late-for-embarrassment, laughter. What else could I do!

I’ll tell you my story…

Last year, I posted Online Communication – For Better or Worse, rambled about some pros and cons, and offered my personal conclusion that I’ll do my part to keep the electronic information highway busy. As of the time I wrote that blog posting, I had just entered the world of Skype, and wrote about needing to find others using it. Today I can state, you’ve come a long way baby! Yup…been using it with increasing frequency.

For those not familiar with Skype, let me explain it. It’s show-n-tell two-way communication. You can talk and see each other at the same time. Pretty slick. Skype is the poor person’s (me) Cisco ūmi telepresence ($600+/- plus you must use a suitable computer, sufficient broadband, and high definition television) substitute. For Skype, under $100 and you can play in the world of show-n-tell all around the world.

Lost yet?

Seen those commercials on television (you must still have one of those) where people are performing in front of their televisions while watching someone from far away doing likewise? They are watching and talking with each other, more or less, in realtime. Live without being live. I think you get the picture. They are using the big brother (mucho expensive in comparison to ūmi…business users around $300,000) on those fancy commercials. Now, back to my Skype…

When using any of these hear-me/see-me devices, one needs to constantly remember you are not talking on the telephone. You are being seen while being heard. For the youngest and/or more tech savvy of you, this would be nearly second nature. I’m not young and I’m only moderately tech savvy. The dangerous to myself caliber…as you’ll see.

The other night, and for me it was a late night, I was using Skype to communicate with a member of what I refer to as my Montreal team. They are doing the things I don’t understand, in order to make my upcoming website a reality. Therefore, the conversation was, for me, very complex, as I tried to comprehend what team member X was saying about coding, Drupal, etc. Of course, I also had my moments as he didn’t really have a clue what I was talking about when I started on the nuances of the appraisal and abatement processes. We were well beyond an hour; I had prepared myself and had been consuming bottled water (from my Klean Kanteen, for those likeminded conservation folks) as well as coffee to keep the vocal pipes working, and my eyelids open. The price you must pay when your primary means of communicating is via a keyboard, you’re 55-years old, and used to starting your day within the first three hours of the morning.

My mind (what was left of it) was fadingly on what I was hoping (praying) was nearly the end of our conversation, as I started squirming in my chair. Quantity of fluid intake plus time equaled an increasing need for output. You get the picture. Well, the conversation kept rolling, and my chair squirming took on a clear amount of mounting desperation. In those last few minutes, I must have been moving as if an army of fire ants had used my bare legs as upward escalators. The call ended, I bolted, and then returned to properly shutdown my equipment. I needed to make certain my faceVision, wide angle, auto focusing, video camera was…smile…I had been on candid camera.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 6th, 2011 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Scrambled Eggs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.