COMMO

No, NOT cammo, but COMMO, as in communications ! As we wander about our wonderful Nation, enjoying and marveling over all of the cool and sometimes not so cool stuff, we are challenged with the mechanics of keeping in touch.
In the previous blog entry I was raving about the great 3g connection here at the Lake in Kansas. Here is the reason why:

It is usually about proximity to the cellular tower, though not always. Line of sight can be almost as powerful of a factor as proximity. For example, in Colorado we found a place up on a mountain where we had "line of sight" to a cell tower over in New Mexico some eighteen miles away and had a good enough signal that we could upload lengthy videos. Locating that gap in the mountains was a wonderful thing and it allowed us to hook up our next job in North Dakota, while camped at 10k elevation !
The North Dakota job, Sugar Beet Harvest, had a cellular tower so close by that we could hear the North wind howl through it's metal beams at times.
This conectivity, or, commo has made it easier to pay bills, visit with friends, video confrence with the Grand kids and post here on the blog.
Our digital camera is another commo tool that we use to post pix to the blog and to various forums, ect.. The kin folks back in Arkansas like to see what we are up to these days, and a quick photo can show folks what it is that you are talking about on a forum. Our camera is a very early Kodak Easy Share C813 that is travel worn to the extent that the finish is worn thin in many places. He, he, while up in the Rocky Mountains earlier this year, it traveled to the continental divide about 12K elevation, in the bib of my overhauls, and that was when I first noticed that it had developed a hick up of sorts. It would turn on and run the lense out as usual, but the lense cover stuck in the closed position, keeping the LED display on the back blacked out. The cure seems to be a simple flick with a finger nail and it opens like it should. It is a 8 mega pixl resolution camera and when it finally succombs to the rigors of travel and my redneck neglect, we will likely move up to a 10mp or better unit. Hey, I mean, after all, we need to improve our commo ! Right ?
Here is a look at the camera's case, note that is quite travel frayed also:

Our easy share is a battery consuming machine, if, you use the regular AA batterys. But the Ultimate lithiums last quite a bit longer and we are trying a newer battery that we are just beginning to learn about, the Lithium Photo. Here is a look at both:


Yeh, commo, ain't it cool ?