This posting is more or less continued from this one.
The other thing I was oddly aware of on this trip was how much of it was made possible by technology that didn't exist a decade or two ago. This is leaving aside all the improved hardware and software components which the airport, airline, rental car company, etc. employ to do what they do. I'm just talking about things I was able to do for me because of the Internet, my laptop computer, my iPad, my iPhone and a few other little inventions that handle data. Not all that long ago, I would have booked this trip by calling a travel agent I had named Brenda…or at least, I would have phoned a couple of airlines and asked them when their flights were and then I would have had to find a hotel…
Here's a probably-not-complete list of technology-type things I did that made this trip a breeze. These are not necessarily in any order…
- Via home computer, researched flights and prices online.
- Via home computer, booked trip online.
- Via home computer, researched hotels online.
- Via home computer, booked two of my three one-night hotel reservations.
- Via iPhone, booked the other one three hours before check-in.
- Via home computer, researched car rental rates online.
- Via home computer, booked car rental with Hertz.
- Via iPhone at appropriate times, confirmed all of the above.
- Via home computer, wrote and printed out copies of my itinerary.
- Via home computer, researched driving directions online.
- Via home computer, uploaded addresses to Hertz NeverLost website so they would be transferred to the GPS in my rental car.
- Via home computer, printed out driving direction maps to have along in case GPS failed or was unavailable.
- Via home computer, researched needed addresses (restaurants, supermarkets) near hotels.
- Via home computer, researched airports to see how to get around and where to eat during layover.
- Via home computer, booked space at parking lot near LAX for my car while away.
- Via home computer, transmitted various details of trip via e-mail to folks I'd be seeing on the trip.
- Via iPhone, checked in for flights and verified departure times.
- Via iPad during flight, used Delta app to track progress of flight (I told one flight attendant what time we'd be getting in and at what gate).
- Via iPad during flight, used Delta iPad app to verify that my luggage had been transferred from first plane to second.
- Via iPad during flight, used wi-fi to answer e-mail, Tweet, post on blog, play Sudoku and, using Kindle app, read books.
- Via iPad at airports, did some of that while waiting for flights.
- Via laptop at Indianapolis Airport, wrote much of a Garfield script, Tweeted and caught up on e-mail while waiting for flight.
- Via laptop in hotel rooms, did some writing, e-mail, blog posting and Tweeting.
- Via Hertz NeverLost GPS, found my way around Indiana.
- Via iPad during business meetings, took notes and synched them with iPhone and laptop.
- Via iPhone, located RadioShack to purchase a needed computer part.
- Via iPhone throughout trip, kept in touch with people (calls to my home number were forwarded to it).
- Via Bluetooth Headset, used iPhone while driving.
…and I'm sure there are others. The biggie may be that next-to-the-last one because it's like being able to carry your home phone around with you wherever you go. Remember when we had to find pay phones every hour or three and use little beepers to call in and see if we had any messages? I was actually able to handle some important matters while driving the freeway thanks to the last two. And throughout the trip, I always knew where I was, where I was going, how to get there, what to expect when I got there and so forth.
Years ago, I was the first person I knew to get a TiVo. In fact, for the first few months I had one, I had to demonstrate it to practically everyone who came over. When some asked me what good it was, I had a very simple explanation: From now on, I am in control of my TV watching. I watch what I want when I want. I do not have to rearrange my life to be home to watch a certain show or even to program its recording. The shows I want to watch are on when I want to watch them and I can pause them in the middle, go do something else, come back to them, replay something I want to see again, etc. I own my TV instead of the other way around.
In a similar way because of technology, I no longer feel as "owned" by the problems of travel. I no longer feel as disconnected from the life I've configured for myself here. I take my phone with me. I take my work with me. I know where I'm going and how to get there and a lot more about what's going to happen when I'm there. There are variables and alien experiences, true…but they now feel like the exception when I travel instead of the norm.
Just before I left L.A., I delivered a foreword I wrote for a forthcoming book. Not all that long ago, to deliver my writing would have meant printing it out on paper, stuffing it in an envelope, addressing the envelope, calculating and affixing postage and dropping it off at the post office or Fedex, and it would arrive in a day or three. Now, it means addressing an e-mail (two seconds), attaching the file and hitting "send" and the recipient, if he's checking his e-mail, will have it in well under a minute.
I did it the modern way from my home computer just before I left Los Angeles. While in Muncie, I was in a meeting with Jim Davis and other folks involved with The Garfield Show when I received an e-mail from the editor for whom I'd done the foreword. The file was somehow corrupted.
Something like that happened to me on a trip to New York about twenty years ago. I was up at the DC offices and I called home to see if I had any messages. There was one sent several hours earlier from an editor (not with DC) saying that a script I'd sent before leaving had not arrived and FedEx had no idea where it was. Could I send it again?
What I had to do back then was…
- Call my assistant and tell her to rush over to my house.
- Call her later when she was there and talk her through turning on my computer, navigating to the proper file and printing out a new copy.
- Tell her where to find the publisher's FedEx number and address so she could prepare a new mailing.
- Have her go to the FedEx office and send off a new copy.
From the time the editor left his message telling me of the need to the time the new copy was printed out and sent was about four hours and then it took 18 more for it to get to him. Plus, there was all that hassle for my assistant having to drop everything and rush to my house.
Last Thursday, I got his message instantly, hit a few commands on my iPad and he had a new copy of the manuscript three moments later. It was on my iPad, by the way, courtesy of Dropbox.
I love technological advances. I can't wait to see what we'll have twenty years from now that will make those three moments seem like an eternity of wasted time and effort.