Gone Fishing, Took Computer

Setting up my portable office in the cozy confines of the cabin was fun. There was only one electrical outlet, behind the refrigerator, but with the use of three extension cords and a clamp, I soon had a study light affixed to the frame of a painting of a mountain, overlooking the kitchen nook.

I plugged in, booted up, and printed out copies of the six-day vacation plan I had created using project management software, individualized for the four members of the family. I had assigned each family member a separate beeper frequency.

No sooner did I plug in and boot up than I received my first fax, from Kip, my repairman: "Mike, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. That problem you describe with the key sticking isn't something I can talk you down from on the phone. You'll have to bring it in. Hope this gets to you before you head out on vacation."

The sticking key -- the right arrow -- was really no great hardship. I simply had to make the mental adjustment to write all my sentences backward, starting in the lower right hand corner of the page and working backwards to the top left.

Some problems were more resistant to technology. The first day I poked a hole in the cabin screen door. Nothing in my arsenal quite covered up the hole I made -- even a Velcro patch, which solves most of my problems, didn't want to stick to the screen mesh. The hole was big enough for a half dozen mosquitoes to play red rover in.

On earlier vacations, when the children were younger, they slept in longer, and I could tiptoe around in the cabin, and get a bit of work done. But not any more -- the second morning of this vacation, they were all over me, dripping milky Sugar Pops onto the keyboard membrane.

The next day I was ready for them. I ran an AC converter cord down the shower drain, under the cabin crawlspace, and out to the car cigarette lighter. I worked merrily for twenty minutes like this, typing away on the bathroom floor, just me and the mosquitoes, with the Toshiba resting on the toilet seat. The ergonomics were not as bad as you might think. It worked great until my 5 year old opened the door on me and the mouse fell in.

There was no activity on this trip that was not enhanced by my technology. The kids were awed by the facts about the different fish I was able to summon out in the rowboat on the CD-ROM we had brought along. There was some grumbling to the effect that bait would have been nice, too, but it was all in the spirit of fun.

During the day I ploughed into important correspondence. One was a letter to Sears asking if it was common for the 1.2 horsepower motor during normal operation to be on fire. Another was to the makers of Cutter's bug repellent asking what was the highest survivable DEET exposure.

Then I had a half dozen memos to clients. It was as nothing to print them off on the 2-pound thermal printer I had brought along, and then drive two hours to find a mailbox out in the country to drop them in.

After a robust dinner that night of Kraft Dinosaurs and Cheese, the mosquitoes followed us out of the cabin to the campfire, where I surprised everyone by opening a bag of s'mores I had been able to pre-assemble earlier that day. It was a great demonstration of the kind of productivity I was achieving. The kids were speechless.

Later, they kids were in bed fast asleep, the calamine lotion spots on their angelic faces gleaming in the moonlight. Rachel and I sat alone on the dock under the starry sky, contemplating the serene majesty of creation. There were so many things I wanted to say, and with the Sony pocket microcasssette recorder, I was able to say them all.

My technology plan goes into overdrive next year. I intend to have a completely automated vacation in which I stay home and the desktop unit goes north instead of me. Utilizing a wireless virtual reality glove and an interactive touchscreen televideo hookup, I will be able to participate in vacation activities as my schedule permits, my face displayed on the monitor screen, expressing every leisure-time emotion with no loss of productivity whatever.

My family is all for it.

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