Travels With Tonoose

Archives of Traveling Blogs

By Anthony Buccino

BUS - TRAIN LIGHT RAIL AUTO FOOTPATH

Laptop, Who Has a Lap?

My colleague Mike has a two-hour one way trip into work each day. Most of his trip is on a train, and because his is one of the early stops (both in time of day and stops along the way) he usually has a seat.

Mike uses his laptop to listen to music. It's a rather cumbersome CD player.

But he also uses the time to write music articles for his daily paper.

When he has no news deadline, he works on the play he says he is writing.

He asked me why I don't use my laptop on my commute ... I could write bad verse, blog a little, make PDFs ... and have lots of fun before I get to work and the fun ends ...
... I was lucky earlier this year to buy a top-of-the-line laptop weeks before the prices fell into the water closet.

So, sure, I have a laptop, but I've never taken it more than one town away.

It's got wireless connections and more memory than my desktop. So it has the power to run a simulated city, if you know what I mean.

But as for taking it on my commute. That's a boxcar of a different color.

It's a rare day when I have the chance to sit on the PATH car.

And at night I don't usually sit because, frankly, I've been sitting all day, mostly in front of this 'hopeless little screen.'

But, hey, I'd like to use my commuting time to write bad verse, blog a little or make PDFs from my literary handiwork.

However, the reality is, I don't usually have a lap. I could borrow one but you can't count on one being available when you need it.

So I put on my thinking cap and my wife suggested that I think MARCHING BAND.

She thinks it's time someone invented a laptop harness like the one marching band drummers use.

Perhaps I could bend a few metal clothes hangers together like Bob Dylan did for his harmonica ... and make history.

That way I could type till my fingers fall off on my laptop while commuting and get all the fun out of my system before I get home at night.

Excuse me, I have to go GOOGLE Inventions Unlimited right now and see if I have to invent this myself ...

... one thing the marching band doesn't need is a safety strap ... something - besides other passengers - to keep you from flying across the cattle car if for some reason the car hits a little bump or something ...

-Happy Trails
-- Anthony