iGoogle Latitude

We've had an interesting week using a new web device that #2 son, the techie guy, installed for us.  He bookmarked iGoogle for us and set it up so that what is displayed is the location of his blackberry, presumably always on his person.  Since he and his family were driving across Canada (in our car) we were able to track their progress, practically hour by hour.  It was fascinating, until Wednesday, when there apparently was no progress to report once they left Kenora, Ontario.  For 7 hours the icon said, "Kenora, 1 hour ago" right up to "Kenora, 7 hours ago".  I found it frightening.  Where were they?  What had happened to them?

We looked at the map and saw that between Kenora and Thunder Bay there is precious little in the way of population.  Could it be that there was no way to track their position, because they were out of reach of any positioning devices?  (towers? satellites? who knows?).  

We finally tried to call them on his blackberry, but had to leave a message, as there was no answer.  

Aha! Finally their icon reappeared in Thunder Bay, their destination for that day's drive.  A few minutes later they called us, and confirmed that the problem had been in a lack of Rogers coverage over the area of their travel for that day.  

Yesterday we were delighted to track their progress through Toronto, and safely to their destination in Niagara Falls.  

New technologies: often marvelous, sometimes frightening.

On the home front: 7 pints of raspberry jam, 12 quarts of Red Currant juice, goodness to be consumed in the winter months.