Santiago Sans Computer

August 1, 1994

It happened right after takeoff from LaGuardia: I pulled out my laptop computer, hit the power switch, and ... nothing happened. Hmmmph! I thought. Odd. I pushed the power switch again, slowly. Nothing. I pulled out the battery, and inserted a fresh one. Still nothing. By the time the plane was over Washington, heading south for Miami, I had tried every conceivable trick I knew. The damn machine was as dead as the proverbial door-nail (a phrase whose meaning I've never completely understood, but have always accepted as the definitive statement of a dead thing).

Suddenly it dawned on me: I had no idea where I was going! The fellow sitting next to me on the plane, watching with amusement as I shook my computer in a frenzy, remarked, "Surely you exaggerate."

"Okay, maybe a little -- but not much. I know I'm going to Santiago, Chile -- but where in Santiago? I don't know what hotel I'm staying in. I don't know my client's phone number. I'm not even sure I can pronounce my client's name, and I'm damn sure that I can't spell it."

"Don't you have a Filofax or some other kind of address book?"

"You don't get it! Everything is on the computer -- everything! Names, addresses, phone numbers, my calendar, my things-to-do list, the manuscript for the book I'm working on, the slides for the seminar I'm presenting ... there are something like 10,000 files on that damn computer."

Ultimately, what saved me was the one-hour layover in Miami, before the connecting flight took off for South America. I called home, talked to my wife, and found out from her what hotel I was staying in, what my client's name and phone number were, and a few other essential details. Badly shaken, but without a backup computer or a backup plan, I got back on the plane and headed south.

Losing the use of my computer has been one of the most traumatic setbacks I've suffered in my business life in the past several years. I feel as numb as I did after the 1987 stock market crash, though hopefully the effects won't be so long-lasting. The immediate practical consequences: as my wife put it, I have no paper trail. No addresses, no phone numbers, no fax numbers -- so I can't contact anyone. No email, of course, so I'm cut off from all communication with clients, friends, authors, etc. No notes, no records, no manuscripts, no articles or papers. No calendar, so I didn't even know where I'm supposed to be next week or next month. No things to do list -- so I feel that I'm in suspended animation.

But it's interesting to see how all of this changes the rhythm of life. I've been chained to the computer for at least the past 18 months, maybe longer -- getting up an hour earlier to retrieve my email, responding only to stimuli on my "things-to-do" popup list, etc. As my wife suggested, maybe this has been a message from God, telling me that I need a vacation. It certainly has changed the pace of things -- I spent the first night in Santiago going through the massive pile of stuff in my things to do folder, throwing out half of it, and prioritizing the rest. Went to bed early, got up in a leisurely fashion the next morning morning.

Feeling a little calmer, I looked up Apple Computer in the phone book. The Chilean national headquarters was located somewhere in the southern part of the city, so I hopped in a taxi and went off to see if they could fix it. Unable to speak a coherent sentence in Spanish, I somehow made the receptionist understand that (a) my computer didn't work, and (b) I was desperate. She babbled something into the telephone, and a short man with kindly eyes and a Pancho Villa mustache came shuffling out, took my computer, smiled at me, and disappeared.

Ten minutes later, he came out and motioned to me. I followed him back though a maze of halls and offices, into a work-room with dozens of old Apple II machines, busted monitors, disemboweled printers, and ... my computer, sitting up on a bench, with the top taken off. The kindly technician pointed to it, looked at me with sadness in his eyes, shook his head, and said, "Muerto, senor."

That's one word I understand. Muerto means "dead."