Friday, March 21, 2003

By Rick Ryckeley
Fayette County Fire & Emergency Services

Last week I lost a little yellow sticky note The Wife handed me as she left for school, so I was late for an important meeting. When I arrived, a friend of mine was sitting at the front of the room. As I sat down next to him, he was busily tapping away at one of those new electric-think-pad-notebook-thingies with what looked like a giant metal toothpick.

Throughout the day, my fellow meetingeer tapped away with his giant metal toothpick; imputing dates, times, and short notes into the calendar section of his organizer. During the breaks he talked about his new electronic toy. "This thing is great! I have my whole schedule for the entire year in here. You can view calendars for the day, week, month, or year by just tapping a few keys."

He went on and on about how handy it was to have his whole day, nay his entire life in the palm of his hand. "This year I'm going to be organized, thanks to my new electronic note pad."

I told him, "I'm gonna be organized too, thanks to my little yellow sticky pads and my trusty #2 pencil." Then I asked him, "How do you input the information?"

"Well, you can type in the information you want to store three different ways. First, you type the information on your computer and it will send it to the organizer. But in order to do that you have to buy a cradle for the organizer to stand in and a computer program so your computer can interface with it. Second, you can pull up the key board on the organizer and tap in the information with this. (He held up his giant metal toothpick.) Third, you can just write yourself a note on the special electronic note pad and save it until you get back to the office. Once there, you download it to your computer, type it out, and then transfer it back to your organizer."

"Seems like a lot of work," I said. "I'll just input information with my trusty #2 pencil onto a little yellow sticky pad." I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but his new $250 organizer sounded very much like a $10 toy us kids used to play with called Etch-a-sketch.

He went on to say that he's input over two hundred and fifty phone numbers into his organizer. I told him I didn't think I had that many little yellow sticky pads. Besides, I don't even know two hundred and fifty people.

He also told me he could set the alarms on the organizer to go off first thing in the morning to remind him of important meetings. Great, I thought, that's just what I need, another alarm in the morning. He went on to say that the only meeting he'd ever missed was when the battery went dead. I told him if an important meeting was coming up, The Wife alarms me by leaving two little yellow sticky notes ­ one in the house and a second in my truck. The only meeting I ever missed was when the second sticky note fell off the sun visor.

"Last month I thought I'd lost this thing. I looked for three days and finally found it under the back seat of my truck. It was a little dirty, but it still works okay. For awhile there I was really scared - almost lost my mind. This thing is really important to me; I don't think I could get through the day without it."

"I know how just you feel. Thought I'd lost my trusty #2 pencil yesterday, but found it when the cat ran by with it in her mouth. Aside from a few extra teeth marks, my #2 still works just fine. I just hope the cat doesn't find my stack of extra little yellow sticky pads."

He went on to say that once you get one and get accustomed to working with it you can't live without it. Of the ten people in the meeting, five had electronic organizers and all raved about how much easer it is to keep track of appointments, dates, and phone numbers. Convinced that they might be right and not wanting to miss out on the new high tech electronic toy, I told my friend that I would look into buying one. The next day I tried out the new electric-think-pad-notebook-thingies at the local high priced electronics store, and decided to buy one.

Once home, after over an hour of tapping in dates, information, and phone numbers of all the people I know, I tapped the wrong key and my Pilot crashed. There were no survivors. The next day I took it back to the store for a refund. I asked if I could keep the giant metal toothpick; they said no. I bought a case of little yellow sticky pads and a large box of #2 pencils instead. To prevent any disasters in my schedule, I just need to find a safe place in the house so the cat can't find them.

[Rick Ryckeley is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at firemanr@bellsouth.net.]

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