Blogging from Mid-Air

As I write this entry, I am flying to Omaha for a wedding this weekend. No, I am not writing this in a word processing application and then porting it over to Blogger-I am literally on-line in midair!!!! Air travel just got a lot more fun.

I remember how bored I used to get while traveling to India as a young lad. The hours passed by interminably, the movies were bad, the stale air seemed to leach into my skin, drying it out with each passing minute, and, by the time I arrived in India, I felt as if I had been on a prison for the previous 18 hours.

Slowly, over the years, things started to change. I first noticed the changes right after the turn of the century, when my numerous flights for the biotech firm I worked for became shorter thanks to my iPod and to my PSP. Even having a computer on the flight was a blessing, for I could watch a movie and kind of tune out the rest of the world. Bringing DVDs with me soon gave way to me saving my DVDs in iTunes format on my hard drive so that I would not need to worry about dvd damage. I made most of my tv show dvds iTunes files, and it seemed as if this was the best it could get. No longer was I a slave to the awful in-flight magazines (you know, the ones that have the world maps at the end just to rub in the fact that there are so many places you will never visit). No longer did I peruse Skymall, thinking that a life sized Yoda would, in fact, make a great addition to my study. I could fire up my laptop and be lost in a tv show that I needed to catch up with. Of course, I also purchased a Slingbox-those nifty devices that allow you to stream live and dvr'd tv shows straight to your laptop. That enabled me, when I was on the ground, to move some of the files wirelessly to my laptop so that I could watch it while in flight.

Still, even with all of these extra-sensory stimuli, I always felt kind of disconnected with the real world (especially on a long flight). As of today, however, I recognize just how much air travel has changed. Once the flight reached cruising altitude, I was able to fire up my laptop and within minutes was surfing the web. I read about Matt Stafford's record setting contract, signed into AIM, and checked my work e-mail. I was even able to log into my work document retention database. How much freedom can one take?

So now I must end the post-I might pass the time by watching Sportscenter...live...on my laptop...while in the air....

I love the age that we live in!