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| Obligatory wingtip pic |
In case you don’t already know, I’m currently away from my familiar Alberta stomping grounds as I spend a couple days away at a training course. This involved stuffing a carry-on roller bag on Wednesday night (what, you really think I’m going to trust baggage carriers to get a checked bag to me through a connecting flight?) and taking a cab to the airport at 4:30 AM yesterday morning with nothing but my pairs of socks and undies and the anticipation of a productive couple of days getting my learnin’ on.
How is this related to technology you ask? Well let me tell you! Not only did Google Now reap my itinerary information from the document I received from my email and let me know when I had to leave my house to make my flight, tell me the weather in Houston and Dallas, and present to me my hotel info – but to my great delight, my flights offered in-flight WiFi! Man, I have never seen a 4-hour travel day go so quickly! $10.95 bought me all-day access to all the cat videos and doge pictures I could ask for at blazing-fast 0.5 Mbps upload/download speeds.
Okay so the connection speed wasn’t breaking any records, but it beat thumbing through the SkyMall catalog and wondering if the life-size bronze bald eagle statue would fit in my living room.
Not only did the flights have WiFi, but the hotel has complimentary WiFi as well! This meant I could check in with the wifey once I arrived using Google Hangouts video chat, and was able to say goodnight to my baby daughter before going to sleep. I don’t believe there has ever been a time in the history of our civilization when we’ve had this kind of opportunity to stay so connected even while being (and whilst traveling) hundreds (even thousands) of kilometers apart.