I am so tired of the story that goes -

"Rural People find technology, and boy thats News!" that I could scream. But since I live in a rural area, and if I scream few will hear me, I thought I'd rant here awhile.

Rural families that farm and ranch have embraced computer based technology for years and years. Those of us that live out here are busy people with lots to do, and we have embraced labor saving devices always. When the first PC's came out, and with them spreadsheet programs, it was farm and ranch families that started keeping their books on the computer. I remember one time in the early 1990's when I was setting up a treatment program over here in Central Oregon that it was a woman who lived on a small farm that taught my bookkeeper how to use Quicken to do our accounting.

We have embraced Internet and other fast communication methods. Farmers download satelite pictures to plan out contoured plowing. Weather information from the Internet is very important. Heck, even the home schooled kids get alot from the Internet.

This technology is as much if not more integral to rural life than it is to urban life.

Why do our urban neighbors keep being surprised by this???

Let me answer my own question. They are uninformed. Out here in rural Oregon, we get the Oregonian paper and read it - along with the Central Oregonian or the Eastern Oregonian. But our urban neighbors, who spend way too much of their lives commuting, if they read at all only get to the Oregonian, or worse one of those elite little Portland papers that only discuss artsy fartsy stuff in Portland. Myoptic! The only reading or information the urbanites get about us are these stupid articles where with a tone of surprise they find out that the Indian wars are over and we have flushing toilets now.

On the other hand, we get all this information dumped on us. I know much more than I want to about the status of the big tunnel projects for Portlands new sewer system. I watched and read with interest the stories about remaking the St. John's bridge. When I watch the New Years eve stuff on TV, I see what is going on in Pioneer Square. I can see the 4th of July fireworks over Fort Vancouver via TV.

Yet, our little fireworks show on the Ochoco overlook, and the annual suspense as to whether the hill burns or not - nope, not news.

Well, I have a wireless connection for laptop in my house and on my property. I can go to the top of my 2.5 acres sit and be on the Internet anytime I want. Why I'd want to sit in the pucker brush is an entirely different question.

Frankly, these articles are a form of elitism. The elite urbanites think it is funny that these rural people read email sitting at the side of their onion fields. This evokes the image of the farming serf and the castle baron. Well ---

Enough ranting. I will just say again, I am tired beyond fed up with these formula stories about rural people having those things that urban people have being somehow news.

I live in Hermiston, Or and have to use dial-up, can not get DSL or Cable. How can I hook up to this wireless service?