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I'VE always been a gadget freak, with a particular fondness for electronic toys. Technology makes life
as easy as pizza pieThis is our golden age. With a pocket full of tiny silicon chips, you can be in touch with virtually anybody, anywhere at any time.
You can get a pager to send you sports scores or stock quotes anywhere in the world. You can use cellular telephones not only to chat with friends and business colleagues, but also to browse the Internet, check restaurant reviews and find your way around a strange city.
Add a laptop computer with a modem to your cell phone and you can fool your boss into thinking you're hard at work in the office when you're actually lounging at the beach.
The sad irony is that these marvels of invention came along at a time in my life when I have little need to be in instantaneous contact with anybody. Since I stepped down from my managerial duties at the Star-Bulletin, the world isn't exactly knocking at my electronic door.
I suppose that's the idea of retirement -- to kick back and escape the constant ringing of telephones and beeping of incoming email messages.
So my cellular phone silently mocks me, there's nothing to do on the beach but look at pretty ladies in skimpy swimsuits and I get my sports scores and stock quotes by turning on the TV that's always in front of me.
After I left the job, I wasn't even sure I needed a cell phone. But I decided I'd better have one in case I ever got in a serious jam -- such as being stuck in some remote and awful place with no other way to order a pizza.
I couldn't justify continuing to pay $29.95 a month for 200 cellular minutes I would never use, so I went with a pay-as-you-go plan where I pay $25 for 71 minutes I can use over three months. In my first three-month period, I used a total of nine minutes. That comes to $2.77 per minute and $8.33 per pizza.
My PalmPilot organizer, which used to be the nerve center of my busy life, now logs most of its time looking up the number of the pizza place and playing electronic solitaire while I wait in the driveway for the delivery guy.
Where was all of this technology was when I was a reporter and could have used it?
WHEN I covered volcanic eruptions in remote areas of the Big Island's Puna district, I'd have to drive to the scene to gather my information and then rush 15 miles back to Pahoa to dictate a story by pay phone.
With a PalmPilot and a cell phone, I could have written the story at the side of a lava flow and sent it in by modem in a fraction of the time it took me to drive to Pahoa. With a digital camera, I could have sent in photos from the scene instead of trekking back to Hilo to ship film in an airline pouch.
If I had a laptop computer back then, I could have spent all those long, boring hours at County Council meetings researching stories, sending snide comments to other reporters by instant messenger and pretending to be somebody else in Internet chat rooms.
But I guess it wouldn't have mattered in the end. I'd still be sitting here today trying to decide whether to burn my cellphone minutes on black olives and onions or mushrooms and green peppers.
David Shapiro can be reached by e-mail at davids@aloha.net.
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