How has Skype helped my marraige?

That's a derned good question. One I wish people would STOP asking me. Yes, skype is free. Yes it's easy to access, easy to download, and easy to use. And oh, did I mention it's free?? Well yes it is!

So with all that, let me tell you how it hasn't helped my long-distance marriage. As you know (or if you don't you're about to...) my wife lives in Brazil while we wait for her visa. So you can imagine how expensive it has been for us to stay in touch. Everytime the subject comes up, I hear someone screach "SKYPE". Like that one word is all I need for blissfully free communication with my wife.


Well it isn't, my skype-ambitious friends. And I'll tell you why, so you'll stop giving me that interesting frown when I say that I still use my cell phone to call my wife.

In Brazil, while high-speed internet is available, the infrastructure is so friggin' bad that it annihilates (yes I said annihilates) all chances for a decent conversation using skype. Just this morning, my wife and I threw down our headsets in frustration after wasting another hour trying unsuccessfully to skype.

It started yesterday. My wife and I finally had a successful conversation with skype. But that was only after she had gone to 3 different internet cafes. In each one, a combination of either missing webcams, cams that didn't work, sound that didn't work, or generously proffered virus attachments thru msn messenger, forced her to look for another cafe. Finally yesterday we got all the planets aligned, and to our glee we talked, for free, for about an hour.



Ye-haw! Right?



Then this morning, Camila returned to the exact same cafe, exact same computer, so we could skype again. Only this morning, the cam didn't work. Why? Well according to the owner, the cam had been stolen. He replaced it with a POJ that didn't work. Apparently this is a common problem in all cafes. When I was in brazil we had fairly good success with Skype, but that's because I know my way around a computer and can trouble-shoot most problems. To a point. My poor wife however, not s'much. So if anything, skype has brought unneeded stress to my life as my wife jumps from internet cafe to internet cafe getting more and more frustrated each time.

Given the fact that most internet cafes in Brazil are POJ's with crap hardware and manned by adolescents who are only of help if you need to decipher instant message acronyms, the safest bet I have of a solid conversation with my lovely bride is still,


over the phone.


Thank you, I'll gladly pay my $0.15/min international calling plan rate, and call it good.

[Plug for Vonage]
I just bought a Vonage phone adapter with a local Portland-based phone number. I got the thing configured (it came with a wireless phone), and sent it to Camila in Brazil. She'll plug it in to the internet, and voila, we'll be able to talk for just the cost of the service. My cousin Michael who lives in Colombia does this, and tipped me off to it. I'll let you know how that works out. But already I like it. No cafe hopping...