You know how on Friday afternoon, the work week sometimes seems to just grind to a halt? This perception has often been dismissed as simply a psychological by-product of waiting for the weekend to begin. Through the modern miracle of the iPhone, I offer here two concrete examples of this phenomenon, but first you most listen to me prattle on about bicycling.
The photos with this post are from my Friday morning bicycle ride in the Park. This was the first ride in some time that I could actually see the sun rise. On the way home, less than a mile from the house, I saw a fox. It was in somebody’s driveway and it just stood there and looked at me as I rode by. I stopped to try to photograph it, but when I next looked down the driveway, it had run away. I then noticed a dead rabbit lying in the driveway. It appears that I must have interrupted the fox’s breakfast, or maybe dinner? I got 15 miles.
Anne and I live in the modern world of internet communication. In this modern world rapid communication is a hallmark. And what device could be more iconic of this communications revolution than the iPhone? On Friday afternoon, I received an email from Anne that included a picture showing some men working on the house. Also on Friday afternoon, Anne responded to a text that I had sent her. Anne had taken and then emailed the photo using her iPhone and our text message exchange was iPhone to iPhone. So, what’s the big deal?
Well both Anne’s email and my original text message were both sent on Tuesday. Anne’s email was sent to my work email, because my iPhone’s battery had died at work that day. It apparently had spent three days worming its way through the company’s firewall and finally had just popped through. I’m not so sure about the text message, although I suspect that Anne might have finally noticed that there was a text message waiting for her.
In Anne’s defense, she has turned off audible notifications for text messages. In school, the students are not supposed to text, so having the teacher getting a text message in class just doesn’t look good. Plus she doesn’t get all that many text messages. We still use email to communicate with most people. Yeah, we’re just like that. I thought that these two instances of delayed communications made for an interesting juxtaposition, plus it has been kind of a slow news day all around.
1) A fox walked right by me this morning (in the city, not at the cabin), something dead hanging out of its mouth.
2) It would take a serious power outage and a couple of dead motor vee-hickles for my iPhone ever to become uncharged. I am a fanatic charger who probably *should* let it discharge once in a while.
3) I am an inveterate texter. It’s my favorite way to communicate with my immediate family. I keep my phone on vibrate at work. Nobody can hear when a text message comes in but me.
I thought I had set mine to vibrate, but Mark’s text on Tuesday beeped right in the middle of a test. All the kids had been warned if anyone’s phone went off, everybody’s test would be invalidated. OOPS! (I was exempt, but still.)
–Pooh
This morning, I was watching scenes from the 1987 movie, 3 O’Clock High, on YouTube. In this movie the protagonist, the wimpy kid, is challenged to a fight after school by the school bully. Try as he might, the wimp can’t escape his fate. Eventually he is forced to man-up. The way the movie played with time, as the fateful hour approached, was reminiscent of my afternoon, on Friday. Checkout the movie, its on YouTube.