The Essentials.
There are but a few really useful things that help us operate with ease, efficiency, and dare I say it, an element of pleasure in our day to day business lives… and do they ever stand out amidst all the other clutter, gizmos and tools we might be persuaded to surround ourselves with.
No doubt it is to each his own but my short list, a list growing shorter with every aging day starts as it always has with a bicycle, any bike equiped with the exquisite elegance of Shimano Dura Ace and that list now ends with my latest acquisition of real usefulness, namely a GPS. In between of course lies the Blackberry! Not just any old fruit, rather a vintage one dating to when the devices truly represented “Guelph genius”. When they ran seemingly for ever on a AA, sat snugly in the palm or pocket and had no pretensions to be a telephone, a game boy or a way to view loosing stock.. these were the 8/900 series.
They have kept me connected to kith and kin through thick and thin, helped me run businesses, catch airplanes, consumate deals and get kids to school while on the road and it is with some frustration and despair that I view todays “new and improved” offerings, cluttered with the bells and whistles that a majority are deaf to and with keyboards too small for a man’s hand… and thus has come about yet another swipe at the educated known as “predictive text”. RIM, the company behind the Blackberry had it all so right the first time around that all else appears to be change for changes sake. As I left a still not quite light and very balmy Ft Lauderdale the other day to hop and skip through a snow capped and sunny Salt Lake City en route for a cold and damp Portland the AA and the QWERTY allowed me to take in and impart all the information needed for another day in the flower business on a planetary scale. I still marvel at the little gadget as it summons and dispatches all one needs for another days trade in the global flower markets. RIM might think to revisit its origins for those that came of age with them.
Next most useful thing would be a simple, “Open GSM” CandyBar style cell phone that merely makes and holds a call, changes its clock automatically when traversing time zones and stores all the important people in your life and with nary an itune. No lid to flip, no half baked camera to annoy others or lay a claim to fame on Utube with and of course it posesses a ring tone that neither calls in the cavalry nor takes one to another astral plane. Did I mention it holds a charge as long as an elephant’s memory? It is simply an adult device.
Last but not least we come to the item whose usefulness I had failed to see for a long time. For years I have been supremly capable in getting myself lost when calling on new clients in cities unfamiliar. To be flustered, sweating, halfway annoyed… arriving late with dampened brow and Mapquest printouts in hand it was always a part of the day I detested. Now, I can read a map as well as the next scout but toss in a gritty city, a rental car, overwhelming traffic and a tight time frame and arrival at a destination looking calm and collected becomes something of a rarity.
Enter the TomTom GPS. A compact little box that suctions itself to the windshield of any car I choose to drive. Compact, elegant, efficient and supremly user friendly. (more so than those currently fitted as standard equipment in many upscale cars) This thing is a real blessing. In the last weeks I have made visits all along the California coast in cities from Eureka to Los Angeles and on down to San Diego and it has never failed to deliver me…on time, as cool as a cucumber. A few light finger taps at the nicely colored screen and I summon clear graphics and a voice chosen to best get my attention. No more, the last minute lunatic crossing of six lanes to attain an off ramp, no more manic meanderings of Beverly Hills to find the restaurant, no more guessing where the next gas station might be in order to avoid paying exhorbitant fuel prices to Avis, or worse, awaiting the tow truck. This device is simple genius and worth every penny of its price. Everyone from Ben Franklin to Ernest Shackleton would have appreciated this. When communications and navigation are this good it allows me to get back to that bike more often…the one that topped my list of useful things. The one that might begin and end a day, those times when even the above are left behind.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Hello Mark-
You are giving me a lesson in vocabulary. Kist is a new word for me. As for your electronic jargon that will not last as long as kist. That jargon will be swept away with the next wave of electronic gagets. Ask your sons what is BETA?
I’ll get up your way. Thanks for the blog.
Hasta, Carlos