Technology Tidbits

I spent the weekend in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at the Wild Wild Midwest Conference sponsored by the Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan regions of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. The conference was informative, but it was also exhausting. So instead of writing a more thoughtful post, I will give you a short list of what I learned or was reminded about technology over the weekend.

• I can listen to a book on my iPod while driving, but the voice on the GPS will drown it out at the most crucial point in the story.
• GPS isn't always helpful, either. I asked it to take me from the conference to a nearby church, and it told me to proceed to Coliseum Blvd. Unfortunately, that wasn't one of the cross roads, and I had no idea how to proceed to it. So I took a guess and turned the wrong way, after which my GPS recalculated and gave me the necessary instructions. Coming back from church it still wanted me to proceed to Coliseum Blvd. without telling me how to get there. Fortunately, I remembered enough to retrace my steps.
• Technology is the difference between a contemporary church service and a traditional one. If you put a couple of screens in front of the church and plug a guitar and a keyboard into a sound system, all you have to do is add a few newer songs to a traditional service and you can call it contemporary.
• Twitter is on its way out--and I haven't even signed up yet.
• A cell phone does me no good if I don't turn it on.

Still, I'd rather live with technology than without it.