Introducing "Roaming in the Desert"

Not long ago I realized the only way I was going to have a deep and meaningful conversation with my 10-year old son, John, was if the topic was Pokemon. He is passionate about his video games and he loves to read but he hates writing. I thought this blog would be a way for us to meet in the middle. I could explore some of the technological issues facing our family and he could have a venue for writing about his love of technology. We'll see how it goes.

I'm calling this blog "Roaming in the Desert" because I'm aware that technological change happens faster in the big cities than it does in towns like Tucson. My technological challenges are therefore different than what you might experience in a densely populated area. Last summer, as we drove from New York to Maine, the kids were happily playing Club Penguin on my husband's laptop in the back seat of the car. This was all made possible because my husband turned his cell phone into a mobile wi-fi hotspot. That is generally not an option on our car trips in Arizona. You can't make a wi-fi hotspot in the Salt River Canyon because there's no cell phone coverage. Heck, you can't even get FM radio reception in the Salt River Canyon!

I'm not a technophile and I'm not a technophobe. I'm just trying to navigate the onslaught of technology invading my life and my home. We're not on the bleeding edge of technology and I wouldn't necessarily consider us early adopters. But somehow these devices keep finding their way in and they cannot be ignored.

Living in the desert southwest I often find myself in places without wi-fi or cell phone coverage. I'm guessing big city people don't even need to worry about this on plane flights any more. However, I seem to fly in and out of Tucson and Phoenix on the only planes in the fleet not equipped with wi-fi. I also find myself resigned to "airplane mode" on much of the 5-hour drive to the Imperial Sand Dunes, the 3-hour drive to Apache Lake and the 4-hour drive from the U.S. border to San Carlos, Mexico. I mention these places because they are my husband's favorite places to go so we visit them often. Once I get where I'm going I often have spotty cell phone coverage or wi-fi. I can only get reliable cell phone coverage at the sand dunes early in the morning when everyone else is sleeping. The wi-fi signal is so weak in the hotel room at the ski resort on the Apache Indian Reservation or in our beach-front rental in San Carlos I can't even play Words With Friends or check Facebook. Sigh, life is rough.

I admit cell phones, wi-fi and the internet do make it easier for us to stay in touch with distant family and to travel to remote places. My parents got their first email account around the time I went to Antarctica in 1996. I was able to send them email on an almost daily basis so my mom wasn't too worried I was going to fall in a crevasse and die. When my husband and I went to Portugal a few years ago we were able to Facetime our sons, even though our sessions generally devolved into the boys pointing the camera up their noses.

To conclude our first blog entry I asked John to give me his list of his favorite video games. However, the challenge was to give me two lists, one when he has internet access and one when he does not. Here are the results:

John's top games when internet is available:
1) Dragonvale (iPad)
2) Gizmonauts (iPad)
3) Minecraft (PC)

John's top games when there's no internet:
1) Pokemon HeartGold (Nintendo DS)
2) Papertoss 2.0 (iPad)
3) Ninjump (iPad)