Saving thoughts.
Had I wanted, I could have brought along a rather old and clunky laptop with me. Considering that I would have had to deal with converting North American current to Israeli, which would probably mean lugging along with me a heavy transformer, it was easier to simply bring a few disks with me, and rely on the hardware that was available wherever we went. And of course that was quite logical. If almost every day I copy files to disk to bring home from work or to work from home, why not do the same when away from home. And considering the amount of memory a CD offers us today, I could bring along with me just about whatever I might possibly think that I might need and still travel light.
So there I was, travelling thoughout much of North America with a set of CDs in my shoulder bag, and a floppy disk or two in my shirt pocket at all times. The CDs were, of course, for reference. They had copies of more or less everything I've written in the past eight years. They were for my own reference, though I didn't rule out the possibility of the outside chance that someone might ask me what it is I do. The floppy was for saving whatever writing I might get around to.
Today a floppy disk isn't a particularly technologically advanced tool, but I had no reason to think that it wouldn't serve my needs well. Considering that what I expected to prepare were Word and/or HTML files, one floppy had more than enough space for my needs. But space isn't really the issue. It turns out that accessibility is, and for that it's hardly the best tool for travelling. I found that the most useful tools I had for saving thoughts were slips of paper and a pen, and my pockets.
Go to: The Boidem takes a vacation.