The Wonders of Modern Travels

PS: and yes, I realize that the word 'modern' in my title has become outdated the second I typed it. 

How many times do you go through the day and think “Oh, brother! I wish I would have come up with that idea!”?! I know I do about half a dozen times! I had one of these moments the other week, when on a trip to DC, I had my first Uber experience.

My more worldly friends will chuckle, but yes, I am a provincial. Always have been and even now that I live in America, I still am. Provincialism is something that speaks to me, and probably runs through my veins. Sort of a weird melancholy that you only understand that you like to hang on to, kind of like the passe, moldy smell of country cottages.

So, although I am more worldly than most people living in Utah, I am still a small town girl. And yes, Uber has been around for a while, but I never needed it. Out here, in the West, we are in charge of our own driving, in the remote place we live. Anywhoo … forced by circumstances at the time, I had my first (and second) Uber experience.

The whole concept of the deal blew me away: you install this app on your phone, and you spot the “Ubers” in your area. You put in the address that you want to go to, and you are given several options of Uber vehicles close and far away from where you are (the phone detects where you are, you see, if you activate “Locations” on it). You choose one car, and you are given their distance from you, their name, and make and model of the car you are waiting for. It might be more, but I was not the one placing the request and this is all I was given when I asked how it works.

While waiting, you know exactly what car you are looking for, and you can watch on a map exactly where they are at the moment, how far, etc. I wondered, in one of our instances of using Uber, whether we'd all fit in one car, as there were seven of us waiting. The person summoning the Uber (I am still new to this: do you hail a Uber? Call (up) a Uber? Order an Uber?! Not sure.) told me to relax: “we are getting a Uber-X, they know we have 7, so we're all going to fit.”

Once you are picked up, it feels kind of like you are in a cab, only a cleaner, more comfortable cab. No weird and doubtfully working credit card machines strapped with duct tape to the back of the passenger seat, no faded ID picturing an angry chauffeur with an unpronounceable name hanging from the rear-view mirror, no antiquated meter, mounted crooked on the dash. It feels like you are in your friend's car and they're just giving you a lift on their way somewhere.

Our Uber-X was a GMC Yukon and yes, we all fit in it. The inside was pure luxury: all leather, smoky windows, nice smells, and incredibly clean – it was definitely a newer car, not your usual run down cab in a large city. The driver was wearing a suit and white button-down shirt, with no tie. Our passenger in the front seat was having a cold that day, so the driver promptly pulled out a box of tissues and gave her a bottle of water to take for the road. I have never had that kind of service from a cab driver in my life, in any country I have ever traveled.

Sonja, the driver of the second Uber (a Volkswagen Jetta), was super friendly. One of our passengers was from Raleigh, and Sonja talked about her cousin who lives there and how she probably should take some time off to visit her down in Raleigh. It was like watching old pals catching up. She was friendly, without being intrusive, which is my favorite kind of strangers, but hard to find.

We gave the wrong address first to Sonja, so, the person who called the Uber had to rectify that: with a few taps on her phone, she corrected our destination address, and the address updated immediately on Sonja's phone, sitting on the cradle on the dashboard. And I mean immediately: the second our friend hit “Update” on the map on her phone, I watched Sonja's phone refreshing and the map finding the new address. At the end, we all said good bye and moved on with our lives. I asked my friend who was going to pay for all this. She said “the app takes it out of my credit card.” No money, no tips, no dirt, no fuss, really. Just a ride.

I am sure you can worry about hackers breaking into the Uber database and stealing the credit card numbers, but I don't much worry about such things. After all, we're all Amazon shoppers, right?!

So, yeah, I was pretty blown away about it all: the convenience, the speed, the ease of the process, the courteousness of the drivers and the comfort and the politeness they offer with their service. And just the idea of this service, from the ingenuity of the app to the seamless process of knowing your driver, and what car you're getting into before it happens, the map system, and everything – would you have wanted to come up with that?!

And I must say: the phone has come a long way since Mr. Carson allowed it into the pantry. 

Overpriced and Nondescript Print Media

I still subscribe, believe it or not, to three magazines. Not sure what to tell you, other than sometimes, for some kind of “news” I need the paper version. I have a desktop computer in my office and a laptop that travels with me all over the house. And of course, a laptop at work, that travels with me back and forth every day. Online is how I get most of my “news” and information, and I’ll make no excuses about it. No, I don’t have the phone plugged into the internets. I don’t think I’ll ever do that, unless it’s free, or some kind of a requirement to be fed!

But I do subscribe to magazines. Sometimes, at the end of a busy day, I want some easy reading and that’s when I grab those. When my regular book seems heavy, I turn to them. And as a perpetual habit over the years, I have been buying magazines every time I fly! That’s like my treat and my escape! I buy magazines I don’t subscribe to (evidently) to keep me company.

I usually try to buy something that will catch me up on the entertainment gossip and on the technology and politics points of view. That’s usually my niche, I guess. Historically, my go-to magazines while flying were People and Entertainment Weekly. Sometimes, if the cover looks good, Time and Newsweek would be amongst choices, too! Sometimes Rolling Stone.

This last trip, I also added Bride magazine or Weddings to my possible selection, for reasons you find evident, I am sure.

But I had the hardest time picking an issue of my “usuals” anymore. Those (Entertainment Weekly and People particularly) as well as the “bridal” ones are made of nothing, but I mean nothing, but pictures and ads! Call me picky, or old fashioned, but I did think that print media, magazines included, is the kind of media that has words to go with their photos. They are not just photo books that require your brain to shut down and you to turn the pages mechanically and be done browsing in 10 minutes: cover-to-cover.

You can say I am cheap, but $5.95 is a high price for picture viewing. Yep, that’s all you get: pictures: ads to perfumes, hotels, diamond rings and Vera Wang couture, and pictures of fat or newly slimmed down celebs or the season’s fashionable lipstick shades.

It took hopping several magazine stores in airports like Greensboro and Detroit to find ONE magazine that had words to go with their pictures …But those were not the “light” kind of books, either! I had to “settle” (hardly) for more serious prints like Time and Business Week. One had book and movie reviews I was interested in as well as health information, the other an in-depth recap of today’s job and house market (you’d think a “hip” topic, no?!) .

These are all topics I used to find easily in more “easy” reads, like People and Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone before! But those don’t offer real reading anymore: only overpriced picture viewing on printed paper. I guess the more serious news comes from magazines like Time and Newsweek that are becoming skinnier and skinnier every time I pick them up.

I am not sure which is more depressing: the page count getting frightfully low? Or the superfluous -ness of the content? I’d go with the latter. At least the first group of mags don’t insult you and themselves.

As a print media employee, I hear it all the time, that people buy papers for ads. But as a reader, I am here to tell you: people buy print media for content! And I mean news content, not picture and ad content! That is fortuitous. We don’t want to pay close to $6 an issue for pictures. We get those for relatively free all day long while browsing yahoo, and msn or while driving down I-40 in roadside billboards or getting The Clipper for free at the mailbox! Words is what we look for.

So, I am not caught up on the latest celeb gossip, and I have no clue how to plan a low budget wedding, either. I guess I am back to google, and searching for pertinent key words! And in the meantime, some print media lost a reader.

I had a pretty heavy reading flight back and forth to Michigan! But at least, no regrets for wasting money! I would say: if you bother that much to print, folks, just make sure you’re saying something!

“Bigger- (Not) Better- (Definitely) Faster- More …“

I think it’s official. NO matter how hard I try (and I have to tell you, not very hard!), I cannot keep up with the kids nowadays! And by “kids” I mean everyone from 18 to 60 year olds that are buying into all this faster by the minute technology and gadgets! I guess you can say I am not hip. – do they even say that anymore?!

I have talked about my technological communication challenges before . I have an old and antiquated phone that does nothing but ring and dial: no pictures, no text, no emails, no internet, no APPs, for God’s sake!!! It does what a phone was intended to do. ‘Cause all those communication devices they have nowadays that do everything from tell you the weather, tell you where you’re going in the car, and maybe cook you dinner are not phones! Are some sort of newly invented, Star Trek – like props, but no phones!

I do not have an ipod – never had one, and not missing one, either; I have never played a video game, wii, or any kind of other extraterrestrial invented game. I JUST got a GPS, but that was a gift, I didn’t seek it out for myself. I will tell you, however, the GPS I like! It’s the second thing after a computer with internet that I find completely useful in this world. Something that can indeed improve my existence!

But I cannot keep up for another reason … You see, I am amongst the very few Americans out there that still send cards. I mean, hard copy, paper, with a stamp on it cards, for all sorts of occasions. Sometimes, for no occasion at all. When someone means that much to me, I think it’s a way of saying just that. But I do email, a lot, too, when I need to get my point across and get it across fast. It’s useful. It’s not personal, but it fulfils a very specific task that stamped mail doesn’t: instant gratification! For me. I know you texters and Twitterers out there are chuckling.

So, as a user of both forms of communicating, I have always thought the opposite of “snail mail” has to be, in our world, the e-mail, right?! Even I, without a fancy communication device (that others call “phone”), can get an email out to Romania, for instance, faster than any hard- copy, paper letter can reach. But the other night, at one of my meetings, I was awakened at how deep I am buried in the past, once again.

I am a member of a certain civic organization in Guilford County. And we have a weekly news brief that lets people know about our happenings and when the meetings are, as well as a monthly newsletter that covers even more news about our organization. Both these are send out electronically, by email. For months, the leaders of this organization have complained (and rightfully so) of low participation to our meetings. We even have a website – that apparently no one reads, because they don’t come to check us out. People just don’t show up!

Well, a new era has apparently begun for our little organization, because this past meeting, we had a fantastic turnout! According to the membership VP, it is all because we just launched a Twitter account.

His rationale was simple, and daunting (paraphrase): “Thank you, all new members and visitors, for coming. We’ve been waiting for you. Apparently, you open a Twitter account, write on there at noon ‘membership meeting at such and such place at 6.30 PM’, and Boom! – you get turnout!”

It made me wonder: WOW! Could e-mail be obsolete??? No way! But I thought for a minute, in despair (I don’t do well with yet another new invention to encourage your hands to work less, your patience to be even shorter, and your brain to think even shallower!), about the “new” faster than fast future ahead of me:

First off, Twitter “hits” people faster (and shorter?!?) than email: I guess email takes, my Gosh, effort - even precious seconds you can be using to get home and wii?!?, or text your mom about the bloating the beans gave you over lunch - to click and open, and read through all the other crap you’re not interested in, but with a sweet and short (not sure how sweet) message on Twitter (you don’t need anyone’s email address for that – extra effort!! ), you get straight to the point, and if people follow, they act on it right away! It’s amazing how the modern world works nowadays: new thing- faster-less words-less brain power-I’m THERE! I wonder what Pavlov’s dog would do…

So, that begs the question: is email the new snail mail?!? Because, oh my God, if that’s the case, I will be stuck in the “past” forever! There is no digging me out of the email and blogging paradise I am in, comfortably.

How much faster can we move? How much faster can people want to be moving?? We’re already multitasking as a culture, and we’re all developing accelerating A.D.D. from it, now, we’re supposed to move even faster and respond to “life” even in a shorter yet time?!? I am dizzy!

On top of not taking pictures with my “communication device”, I do not text either. I do not have caller ID at home, and I do not Twitter. And I do not update 89 of my friends and acquaintances on Facebook of my every move. Nor do I get their updates on my Facebook page until I get home at night.

And these are things I will not plan to change any time soon. So, if I’ll have something to say, and you’re interested in hearing it, please read my emails. Or my blogs – whichever you think is … faster… ?!?

PS: Thank you, 4 Non Blondes, for the title inspiration… Do people remember them, anymore, or is that too old school, as well?! I can’t keep up!

A Thought on Technology … Again

Dali once said : “Don't bother about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid.”

I believe the same thing about technology. We cannot escape it: from the way we fill up our tanks, to the way we dial numbers from a pay phone anymore, to the way we work the credit card machines at WalMart, we are surrounded by it, and we would not make it through the day, had we not a clue how to use it.

I realized we cannot escape technology any longer, when about a month ago, my 58 year old aunt was … texting me at 2 AM from Paris. I realized that if a 58 year old Romanian woman can learn how to … text of all things, and she is bright enough to get an international roaming phone to be able to use it anywhere in the world, we cannot help but being … well… techy!

But there is a difference with me between need and obsession. I have a cell phone, a cable connection, internet, a desktop and a laptop (and a work laptop, so I guess I AM a victim of computers there, if you wish). I have a dvd player, digital camera, and a video camera, and dad is getting a dvd recording video camera for his birthday. I have an MP3 player, with 100 songs tops, and plenty happy with it.

I don’t have and I am not planning to get any of these any time soon: a flat screen tv, a blackberry, a palm pilot (are those outdated? – not sure!!), any sort of video game device, including a WII, an IPod nor its millions hook-ups, digital cable, a digital picture frame.

I am contemplating to get, maybe, if I wake up on the left side of the bed one morning, MAYBE: a dvd recorder -vhs combo, a digital camera that’s more than 3.2 MegaPixel, which is what I have now.

And yet, although most people around me have all these gadgets – some of which I have not even mentioned – I don’t feel deprived. I also don’t feel deprived (annoyed is what I am) when the random guy wants to “text” me (I am still having trouble using that word as a verb – but then again, I am a broken record here) and I tell him I don’t text. Then they look at me like I ate their steak, meaning: “What planet am I from??”. A planet where we like to meet and chat over dinner and a glass of wine – that’s what planet.

I feel pretty accomplished, and pretty happy without all the other “stuff”. And let me tell you, I have been fortunate to dine with princes and paupers. I have been to births and funerals of people who make anywhere between millions of dollars a year and minus thousands of dollars a year. I have seen families in laughter and in sorrow, from all walks of life. And at the very end of the day, or life, all that matters is humanity!

We all cry, and laugh the same. The pain is similar to all in all walks of life. What unites us all has been sown millions of years ago in each and every one of us, and we inherit it the minute we take our first breath. We cannot escape it, and we’re not going to find it at Best Buy. That, I know. What we do need is to attend to that: to what’s permanent, and to what’s human, and to what makes us whole as a being. The rest are just accessories.

So, with that said, I will keep jumping in my 2001 Toyota in search of that humanity rather than search of the next gadget; my Toyota with crank-up windows, and no remote power locks, I will keep using just 50 peak minutes a month on my cell, which has no camera, nor “texting” capabilities, to call for emergencies, and I will listen to my music on cd’s in my car, without the XM radio nor the mp3 player hooked up anywhere.

Now, maybe, just maybe, I might get a 12 MegaPixel camera to accompany me in my wanderings … But just maybe. In the meantime, I’ll just look for the perfect light, like Ansel Adams used to do!

This is a shot of the Capitol on my recent trip to DC. I really like it: it’s … unsettled but such a presence, much like me, lately…

An A.D.D. World – or : An A.D.D. America, Revised

I have discovered that we cannot get frustrated or in the least bothered by the A.D.D. in our co-workers, partners, family folks, etc I believe we all are, to some extent, somewhat A.D.D. Think about it?! It's the society we live in that REQUIRES us to be that way: you hardly ever see a job ad in the paper that does not require us to be "multi-tasked". Well, you cannot be multi-tasked unless you're paying attention to 10 things at the same time: answer the phone, while reading a new e-mail, while opening the postal mail, while talking to your boss who's giving you yet a new task and all these have to be done efficiently and fast, so that we all can meet the deadlines! And it doesn't stop there: we drive home and the cell rings while we have to drive, and yield, and look for a jay-walker or another jackass driver who's cutting us off, and grab a snack from the purse since our blood sugar is low from spreading ourselves too thin in the first place, and we need an afternoon jumpstart, because we're driving to school, after a 10 hour work day! Then we get home, and we have to feed the pets, while opening the mail, and turning the TV on to see what else has been going on in the world, while the phone rings and it's our friend Alice who wants to go out for a drink tonight or maybe Saturday, and we're listening to the news while trying to figure out what in the world is on our calendars for Saturday anyways, while the cat decides to flip the water bowl and make a mess on the carpet, and oh, shit! we have a "sales" party tomorrow with a bunch of "fancy ladies" and the carpet is now wet and stained"Sorry Alice, let me call you right back"! It makes my head spin just to think about all this, although it's pretty much an accurate description of my (and many of the people's I know!) daily routine. And our brains get "trained" to constantly LOOK FOR the next thing to do. Never for the "what's here and now", but for "what else" I need to be doing to keep up...
The opposite of A.D.D. is focused, but you cannot be focused on ONE thing alone anymore: you would be stampeded on by the world, run over and left behind! The only way we can keep up, we think, is by rushing onto the next thing on the list while still doing the one before. I wonder sometimes where and if all this will stop one day?!
You know, Napoleon was so unique because him doing 5 things at one time was really a RARE, and indeed special talent: it's not customary for the human brain to function like that! (I am obviously not a doctor, but I don't think it is). By pushing our bodies in this manner, to make something so rare be part of our usual life, we're defying nature in the first place, and something, somewhere, is gotta snap! And therefore, we're all "diagnosed" nowadays! (man, wouldn't Freud be proud of me??!!). We should all be, anyways. Should we all be on Ritalin then?!
I go to Yoga class, and I lie in Savasana and the instructor says "let go" and you're supposed to LET THE HECK GO and just focus on breathing and just being and I am thinking: "Shit! Bills need to be paid tonight!" and "I haven't vacuumed since 2 weeks ago" and I hate myself right then and there. And yet I move on. Gotta catch up!
The only thing we don't do while doing other things that "have to" be done is relax, and breathe. We never think of that as a part of our "multi-tasking", and it's a shame. I read in one of my Yoga books one time, that "the giant turtle breathes 4 times a minute, and is calm, and lives many hundreds of years, whereas the dog and the monkey breathe 40-60 times a minute, and are restless and excitable and live 10-15 years only." It seems to me, we all have a lot to learn from the quiet and calm turtle. Don't you think?! Happy new week, everyone! And PLEASE, remember to breathe, amongst all the other things ...