It is tough enough to travel around the world, but when you also rely on Cingular to retrieve mobile voice mail, then frustration becomes the order of the day.

Somehow the Cingular system decided to remove my voice mail from my mobile phone. I have no idea how this happened, but now anybody trying to call me on my mobile phone will not be able to leave a message.

Hopefully I will rectify this once I get to Australia because it is an impossibility from Japan (for those who have never traveled to Japan, be warned that international mobile phones do not work in Japan).

Sometimes I wish for the simpler days of business travel before computers and cell phones. I would travel around the world and would make one phone call back to headquarters at the end of each working day. Progress can be wonderful but it can also cause burdens and headaches.