Yikes Skypes

We've come a long way from the Picturephone at the 1964 Worlds Fair in New York City. As a school child, I visited the Fair both with my school and with my parents, and can remember the long lines to see it. (I never did).  Now fast forward 48 years.....

Planning a mini-family reunion in this electronic age has brought me to the realization that I am the last person in the United States to not have Skype.  And, in the last day, whereever I turn there seems to be an article about Skype and how these people use it to keep in touch, and so on, and so forth.
 
**Sigh**.  I am going to get an education in the next several days.

Several of my relatives and I are gathering (the old fashioned way - in person) this weekend for a mini-reunion.   But there are people who can't attend due to distance.

Yesterday, I got the bright idea to use Skype, something I've heard of but never used, to be able to have these far flung relatives visit with us virtually. I had remembered that my uncle, who lives in the American Heartland, used Skype to communicate with his far flung children, one of whom lives on another continent,

So....luckily for me, most of my family has embraced technology to a greater extent than I have.

Two attending cousins replied, sure, we have Skype accounts. We'll bring our laptops; just be sure we can connect to your Wi-Fi.  The Wi-Fi is my son's responsibility, along with the security he set up to safeguard the account, and hopefully he will get them on smoothly. (if not: yikes, I'll have to get a Skype account!)

One far flung relative replied to my email, saying how delighted she would be, gave us a good time, and by the way, her Skype account name was __________.   Her brother can't  make it, but she is going to research if she can save the conversation for his later viewing. (If anyone knows about that, could you comment?)

I'm waiting to hear from the uncle and his children.

In the middle of this, my neighbor comes by and invites me to test drive his Google Tablet. (More on that later this week).  Sure enough, he had Skype on it.  (I didn't poke around).

In these waning hours of the Ultimate Blog Challenge, I am going to ask my readers familiar to Skype to leave a comment and tell me about their experiences.  I could read the FAQ on Skype's web site but that would be too easy.

And not as much fun.