Skype Adventures

This evening, as I was on the phone with my mom, I heard my dad in the background muttering, "Why isn't she answering? Why not?" I asked my mom what was going on and she responded that he was trying to call me. I listened for my cell phone and didn't hear anything. Then, I heard my dad say, "Why isn't she answering me on Skype? I want to be a part of the conversation, too!"

As soon as I quickly logged on and answered my "ringing" laptop, my dad said, "Thanks for letting me in on the conversation!" which just made me laugh.

Sidenote: I've noticed that my dad is much more outgoing and social-butterfly-ish than he was when he was younger. By the way, my dad is in his early seventies. He built our first computer in the early 1980s, encouraged us to learn how to type using Typing Tutor, and is very computer-savvy, just not entirely up to date on modern computer applications.

We discussed what needed discussing and I wondered if my sister was logged on. I talked my dad through where the "Add Callers" tab was and how it worked. He said, "Everything is in Korean!" I told him what the tab should look like and after my mom wondered why everything was in Korean, I suggested that he change his language. So I talked my dad through where the language selector was located. The exclamation of joy when everything changed from Korean to English! I wish you all could have heard it - it was a combination of joy, relief, and surprise and my dad's Korean "AH!" if you know what I mean. Incidentally, my sister wasn't logged in on Skype.

My video stream froze and the infamous "Can you hear me now?" turned into "Can you see me now?" "How about now?" "Now?"

After we took care of language and video issues, I started to have some speaker issues (still not sure what happened), so I ended the call and IMed him a quick note to let him know what was going on. He tried to Skype me, we talked for a brief time, then my speaker issues happened again. I ended the call again and IMed him another note.

He called me on the phone to answer my IMs, as he didn't know how to answer my messages. So I helped him understand the IM section of Skype, which he found to be lacking in intuitiveness.

Fun adventures with Skype and my parents. I'm having a blast, although my laptop seems to be having some issues.