The Wonders of Technology

Every time Dad has a trip to the States we send him with an empty suitcase to bring back those things we realize we should have brought with us in the first place. He also throws in a few things he misses as well. This trip brought a lot of those horrible American foods you can't get here. Yellow mustard (that was for me), a box of cheez-its (Dad's contribution), and Velveeta cheese (ridiculous, but Mom already made macaroni). The velveeta is shameful considering the great cheeses out here, but sometimes I guess you just want some comfort food. He also brought a few kitchen utensils, including an ice tray, which apparently doesn't exist out here. I notice his bag was searched by the TSA, they were probably wondering who this crazy person was and what he was doing with all this food and weird crap in his suitcase.

The more important things in his suitcase were some larger transformers (the stereo is working yet again) and a Sling Catcher. For anyone not familiar with this, Sling technology is pretty cool. At the house in Arizona, we have cable hooked up and a TiVo box. The reason TiVo is better than the cable company DVR is that you can access it from online and choose the shows you would like to record, etc. The Sling Box is hooked up to the TiVo and streams whatever is on there so you can access it online from anywhere in the world. You can watch either live television or any of the programs you have recorded. Here in Switzerland we have a cable box that gets all the BBC channels. They are English language, but with the exception of the news, most of the shows are pretty stupid. One day we watched a marathon of movies all about different British monarchs. We have been able to access the TiVo on the computer, but the quality was not the greatest and its not as nice as sitting on the couchand watching TV. This is where the sling catcher comes in. This streams the sling box from home via your internet connection and hooks up to the TV here in Switzerland. Better quality than the computer, and on a nice big screen you can watch from the couch. Now we have access to all the regular cable channels available at the house at home. Mom has been watching the Food Network nonstop for two and a half days. She has also been lamenting that no one has emailed her for days, so drop her a note to say hi when you get the chance, it will make her day.