It's interesting how reliant we are on the technologies that make our lives easier. For instance, many of us couldn't imagine existing without our cellular telephones, but a little more than twenty-five years ago, we would've done all of our communicating from home, from work, or from tiny confined little boxes known as phone booths. But today, we take for granted the innovative communication devices that comfort us, and make things just a little bit more convenient.

In the "old days", it wasn't unusual to even have to share a telephone line with another person (known as a "party line"), and we were more dependent on answering machines (usually known as "mom" or "dad"). It wasn't unusual for a phone-call to go unanswered back then, but if it happens now on a cel-phone, we just assume that we're being screened. Back then, telephones didn't tell us who was calling, which was why we had to ask: "who's calling please?"

Today, I walk around with a cellular phone (a smart one don't you know), a PDA, an MP3 player, and a digital camera, even though they can all be wrapped in one device. Everywhere I go I see people with Bluetooth devices attached to their heads, I see more cellular towers and repeaters than I ever remember seeing television antennas, and more businesses in operation using paging devices, wireless technologies for short and long range systems, satellite receivers, global positioning systems in their vehicles along with services that can open your car with a simple wireless phone call.

I can't imagine what would happen if we were to regress to an earlier time. I was watching a popular television series where a man gets transported back in time, but only back far enough where cellular phones seem to work. I've often wondered what it would be like to travel back in time. I'd bring my laptop machine with me, but if I go back too far, unfortunately I'm not going to have any Internet access, and who knows how many calls I'm going to miss without proper phone reception?