Anatomy of a Skype Call With The Parents

For Christmas last year, I bought my parents a new laptop with webcam and all software installed and configured. I thought it might be nice for them to have the ability to webcam with me instead of simply talk on the phone. Little did I know that each call would start as a production...

This is a fairly common pattern of the start of each weekend's Skype with my family:

9:36 AM - I login to Skype and skype the parents

9:37 AM - They pick up after 10-15 rings.

9:38 AM - We begin the "I can see you / I can't see you / Can you hear me? I can't hear you." game, which lasts for a couple minutes.

9:40 AM - They finally figure out how to start their video. Mind you, this is six months after I bought them the new laptop.

Like clockwork, this is pretty much for a spend a portion of my 9:30-10:00 AM half-hour on Sunday mornings.