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GETTING CONNECTED


After living outside the United States for twenty-eight years, I am finally connected.  At least that's what everybody tells me.  You see, I completed my circumnavigation around the world on my sailboat, I'm back in the USA, and I now have a cell phone.

Don't feel sorry for me because I wasn't connected for all those years.   I was connected to other things, and I didn't need a cell tower to feel my life was good.

 

What exactly did I get when I got connected?  I got an overpriced handheld fit-in-the-palm-sized plastic gadget that I have to carry around with me wherever I go, and whenever it makes noise, I have to pay money.  It's like a slot machine, a no-armed bandit, and every time the cell phone rings, I lose, and the cell provider wins. 

What did I learn when I got connected?  First, I found out that getting connected costs lots of money and staying connected costs even more.  I also learned that in my new world, I can only be connected for 500 minutes each month without having to pay another mountain of money.  It turns out that I am connected to a bottomless money pit that would like nothing better than to suck my finances dry.

Being connected does have it's benefits - I do get to talk to my family whenever I want until I run out of minutes or money.  When you're connected, you enter into a time warp in which time is split into two dimensions.  The first dimension is called "ANYTIME MINUTES", and I am only allowed to visit this dimension for five-hundred minutes a month.  Apparently this dimension is very crowded, and they won't let me stay longer unless I pay more money.  The second dimension is called "NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS."  I can do whatever I want for as long as I want in this dimension, and it doesn't cost anything extra.

 

In my new life, special messages appear on my phone from outer space.  They are called text messages, and every time a message appears, money comes out of my wallet.  I have decided that I don't like text messages.  I hope people living in the two dimensions don't send me text messages.  I'd rather talk to them while I'm living in the "NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS" dimension.

I don't want to complain about my new life, but I confess I liked my old one better.  I got along fine without a cell phone, and I was connected to other things that talked to me and sent messages without sending a monthly bill.

Take a look at Exit Only sailing downwind into the setting sun with headsails unfurled.  The sails are connected to the wind, and Exit Only is connected to the sea as we slide over the waves heading westward around the world.  I am totally immersed in blue skies and crystal clear water, and I am connected to everything that makes my spirit soar.  I don't need a cell tower to hear the messages that surround me on all sides.  I listen to the sound of the sails and sea, and I know life is good.

I hope I don't get disconnected from my old world; that would be selling my birthright for a bowl of porridge.  I am going to have to come to a new agreement with life.  I already miss being connected to the trade winds, the sea, the stars, porpoises, and pilot whales that I communed with for the past eleven years.  During those years  I didn't have to split my time into anytime minutes, nights, and weekends.  I was connected to everything I loved all the time.  My old world had plain vanilla minutes that worked just fine, they didn't cost anything, and I didn't have to sign a one or two year contract to make it all happen.

 

I'm sure I will survive the transition into being connected.  After all, I've survived the deep deserts of the Arabian Empty Quarter and Australian outback, and I've survived sailing on the seven seas.  Right now, getting connected is a bit like sailing to windward in forty knots of wind.  It's time to reef my sails, sheet them in, and hang on, because it's going to be a wild ride.

 

Life is good.
 


Log 1 Peter Pan Around the World
Log 2 Weapons of Mackerel Destruction
Log 3 Pirates of the Malacca Straits
Log 4 Kissing Cobras
Log 5 Debriosaurus Rex
Log 6 Go Ahead - Live Your Dreams

Log 7 The Man Who Built His House on a Rock
Log 8 Ambivalent Eagles
Log 9 One-Shovel Full at a Time
Log 10 Hitchhiker's Guide to Planet Earth

Log 11 Keeshond

Log 12 The Red Sea Blues

Log 13 Feel the Freedom

Log 14 The Danger Zone

Log 15 Lucky Man
Log 16 Dream Machines - Land Rover Defenders

Log 17 Trade Wind Dreams
Log 18 Logs With Fins
Log 19 Everywhere, Everything
Log 20 Shark Slayer Is History

Log 21 Viking Funeral - Burial at Sea
Log 22 Improbable and Impossible

Log 23 Keep on Trucking
Log 24 Dream Machines II
Log 25 Bodysurfing Whales
Log 26 Hitting the Wall
Log 27 Surviving the Savage Seas

Log 28 The Next Step
Log 29 Welcome to Barbados
Log 30 Atlantic Rally for Cruisers
Log 31 The Man with the Unplan
Log 32 Dali Dolphins
Log 33 Flying Like a Turtle
Log 34 The Foolish Man Built His House on a Pitch Lake
Log 35 Go West Young Man
Log 36 Crossing the Atlantic in a Row Boat
Log 37 The Unsinkable HMS Diamond Rock
Log 38 Catamaran Capsize in 170 mph Winds
Log 39 When Are You Coming Home?

Log 40 Master and Commander of Anegada - Frigate Birds
Log 41 Baths of Virgin Gorda - Batholiths of Central Arabia

Log 42 Free at Last
Log 43 Stalking the Wild Manatee

Log 44 Spreaderman
Log 45 Attack of the Flesh Eating Bees
Log 46 Sharks and Coconuts
Log 47 Stingray Picnic
Log 48 Boo Boo Hill
Log 49 Whale Slayers
Log 50 Noddies (Not Naughty)

 

Log 51 Exumas Land and Sea Park
Log 52 David and Goliath
Log 53 Turquoise Clouds of Paradise

Log 54 Momma Nightjar
Log 55 Maximillian The Great
Log 56 Chiton Kingdom
Log 57 Flying and Holding On
Log 58 Far Horizons
Log 59 Clouds Are a Sailor's Friend
Log 60 Getting Connected
Log 61 Fear
Log 62 Grand Schemes and Other Important Things
Log 63 If Jellyfish Had a Brain
Log 64 Cousins That Don't Kiss
Log 65 Swimming With Sharks
Log 66 Perfect the Way You Are
Log 67 Space Travelers
Log 68 Aliens
Log 69 Monsters of the Mind
Log 70 My Butterfly Collection
Log 71 Somewhere Other Than Here Societies
Log 72 Five-Hundred Pound Spiders
Log 73 Red Sea Sunsets
Log 74 Gibraltar Sunrise
Log 75 Big Sea - Small Ship
Log 76 Just Cruising
Log 77 Castle Mania
Log 78 You Must Know the Sea
Log 79 Flying Like a Goat
Log 80 The Joy of Photography
Log 81 Universal Camouflage
Log 82 My Rainbow Collection
Log 83 Indian Ocean Reward
Log 84 Fiber W
Log 85 Turkish Reflections
Log 86 Mirrors and Mirages
Log 87 Lycean Tombs Rock
Log 88 Rigging Emergency
Log 89 Pamukkale
Log 90 Volcano Land
Log 91 Sniffing the Air
Log 92 Why I Don't Kite Surf
Log 93 Resurrecting Exit Only in Turkey
Log 94 Greased Pole Competition
Log 95 Tsunami Damage
Log 96 Afraid of Living
Log 97 Living on the Edge
Log 98 Borneo Adventure
Log 99 Uligamu Tree Tender with Full Benefits
Log 100 God's Fireworks Display

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This web site is a companion to Outback and Beyond.com.

http://www.outbackandbeyond.com