Vacation……here I come…….

Every vacation deserves a good story……

On Friday July 9, 2010 I had my 2008 Prius synergistic drive hybrid electric vehicle serviced at my dealership. On Saturday July 10, 2010 I drove to class in Tuscaloosa Alabama, and back home later the same night. At 0500 on Sunday July 11, 2010 my wife, two daughters, all of our luggage and I, all packed into the sub-compact, hit the road en-route to Niagara Falls, New York. With only 98,000 miles on the two year old Prius, I was pretty confident that we would arrive in Niagara Falls at 1900 on Sunday night, just as the on board navigation system predicted.

Weathermen, or –persons to be more p.c. will tell you that predictions are just that. All of the factors must be considered when making predictions. Who would have predicted that 8 short hours after we left home we would be sitting in a Marathon service station parking lot on a hot Sunday afternoon with the oil pressure light illuminated on the dash panel?

Somehow the service technician had forgotten to tighten the oil plug. As one can imagine our hearts sank when the oil light came on. Then our hearts sank further when we realized that no one was open on Sunday afternoon, in Akron Ohio.

Technology to the rescue though. I pulled my trusty “smart phone” from it’s holster and quickly dialed my insurance provider’s 1-800 24-hour number. The associate at the other end of the call was so very helpful in finding a towing service. She was successful after only five or six attempts. The wrecker truck driver arrived within an hour, and didn’t complain when we sent him back for a flat-bed truck. The Prius has to be hauled, can’t be towed. When he came back with a bigger truck, he loaded us up, with most of our luggage in hand, and even went out of his way to make sure we found a good hotel to stay in that night.

At this point I should tell you how much more technology played into my vacation. But, this is where frustration clouded the senses. Recall that I mentioned the built-in GPS; I remembered it two days after we got the Prius back.

I demonstrated to my wife, after the fog of frustration lifted, that a simple touch of the screen quickly highlighted the nearest hospital, fire station, police station; and would you believe it……..towing service and Toyota dealership?

The smart phone was great for calling my insurer, and even for using the internet to search for local hotels, towing services, hotels, etc. But the very idea that the car we were sitting in had been pre-programmed to call the nearest dealership, in the event of problems………if we can only trust ourselves to rely on the technology which we spend so very much money to buy.

Can I relate this to the Ed. D. program? Yes. Every article I have read prior to this semester, I printed. That’s a lot of paper, ink, and money. I still have the papers for future reference, though. But this semester, I was able to step back, take a deep breath, and simply read the article on the computer screen. Yes, I had to forgo the highlighter, but I survived.

Sometimes it hard to accept that technology is really as good as all that……