HIGH-TECH ‘MIRACLES’ KEEP US CONNECTED
My son came home from college last week. Due to the storm, his flight was 48 hours
late. My wife and I threw our exhausted
arms around him at midnight, three tiny drops in a sea of people at DIA. John Lennon once said “Life is what happens
when you’re busy making other plans.” I
guess we wound up with two days of life we weren’t counting on.
It’s fashionable nowadays to talk about how technology and
capitalism are divisive forces that weaken the personal connections in our
lives. I’ve most of my life to
technology and capitalism, so I take such criticism personally.
Still, those critics are way off base. It is capitalism and technology that enable
us to overcome challenges like weather and distance, while at the same time
maintaining and even strengthening human connection. Consider our family’s 48-hour misadventure.
Our son was on a flight from
How amazing is that?
How incredible is it that I, from the comfort of my home, surrounded by
a howling blizzard, can instantly communicate with my brother on a moving train
thousands of miles away? Even more so,
how awe-inspiring is it to live in a world that takes such things for
granted?
My brother said sure, no problem, if his nephew needed a
place to stay he was always welcome.
Now our son had a place to sleep, but when was he going to
be home? When would the runways at DIA
be cleared? When would the highway
patrol open I-25? When would my son’s
flight be rebooked?
Thirty years ago, if my parents had wanted to answer those
questions they’d be juggling multiple phone numbers, annoying busy signals and
interminable hold times. I suppose they
could also have watched one of the Big Three’s news channels, waiting in
helpless frustration until they were told what others thought they needed to
know. Cell phones were, of course,
nonexistent. In the heavily regulated
environment of the Bell System, the very idea was unthinkable.
But this is the 21st century. I headed to the internet and fired up my
browser.
First, DIA’s web site told me exactly what the situation was
and when the airport would reopen.
Next I visited the Colorado Department of Transportation’s
web site for highway conditions, refreshed automatically every two
minutes. Then it was on to the airline’s
home page, armed with our son’s confirmation number. At any time, a mouse click would tell us his
latest flight information.
So far, we had three windows open in a single browser,
impossible a few weeks ago but easy to do with Internet Explorer’s latest
release. The world’s most powerful
company had to add that feature in response to pressure from Firefox, a free
browser developed by some whiz kid not much older than mine. How about that competitive market process?
Still, a mere three windows was child’s play. I knew the display wouldn’t be complete without
every geek’s favorite internet trick:
Real-time flight tracking. When
our son’s latest rebooked flight was finally airborne, we watched a
superimposed image of the plane fly across a satellite map of
I thought about holding up a sign at DIA: “Max Fagin, home
for Hannukah!”, but changed my mind thinking it’d embarrass him. Still, he did arrive home on the last
night. His sister stayed up and had the
menorah ready when we stumbled in at 2 in the morning. We turned out the lights, lit the candles,
and began to sing.
Hannukah is a festival of freedom. Ultimately, it is freedom that makes the
wonders of the modern world possible.
You always chant two blessings on each night of Hannukah. But on the first and last nights, you add an
extra blessing of gratitude. With all
eight candles lit and our son finally home, we sang our hearts out. It just felt right.