When technology fails

I am traveling for a few days and am going to rely heavily on Remember the Milk and Google Calendar and SMS notifications.

I didn’t get my reminder for my flight 3 hours in advance. Don’t worry; I did make it to the airport on time.

Beginning to get worried, I sent myself a test event from my phone. It was sent back, saying that my cell phone wasn’t registered with Google.

I decided to blog about this experience and the first time I tried to make this posting (from my mobile phone) the mo-blog posting got kicked back.

I wondered if something was wrong on Cingular’s side. To check what was being sent via SMS, I sent myself a quick email, planning on checking it when I got to my hotel. And then it was time to get on the plane.

When I turned my phone back on in Oakland, there was an SMS notification waiting for me, reminding me of the phone number to call for the shuttle to take me to the hotel. Luckily, I wasn’t reliant on this, because had already printed out the email with that information.

I had a conference call shortly thereafter and I got reminded about that one too. So SMS notifications were working. But when I got to the hotel room, their wired internet service wouldn’t assign me an IP address.

Argh. I’ve really come to rely on this technology and this is unfortunate. I almost didn’t set my alarm this morning, planning on relying on my SMS notifications. Good thing I didn’t. One of the lessons I learned in the Army (which is still holding true): communication gear will always fail in the moment that you need it.

Finally, the internet in my hotel room is working. My apologies to those who read the partial post from my phone. I can't tell where it will stop when I moblog!

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