Back in LA, and the Wonders of Technology

It was hard to leave my parents with so much still unresolved. But I've started a company, and I have a job to do. I stopped in at the acute care facility to see my dad on the way out of town. He's finally out of ICU, and he was with a physical therapist when I showed up. Still not exactly playing eighteen yet, but the arrow's pointed in the right direction.

I landed in Burbank and wandered out to the longterm lot where I'd parked my bike. It was dusty, but otherwise fine. I jumped on, flipped the ignition, and... nothing. Not even a click. It was dead.

Even when a vehicle is off, there's a slight drain on the battery. Since my bike has a smaller battery, just two weeks was all it took to kill it. And I knew all of this, but remember when I pulled into the lot two weeks ago, I was racing to AZ to see if my dad was going to live or not. I was distracted. Battery cables weren't on my mind.

I asked a shuttle driver if they could send someone out to give me a jump. He came back and said they didn't have the right cables for a motorcycle. Huh?

I knew I could call a tow truck. But then I'd be sitting there for a million years waiting for him, and I'd get raped for money I didn't want to spend on somethig that would take the driver all of ten seconds. Shit, nothing could be easy, could it?

Then I thought... Wait, isn't there a way to push start a bike? I'm not exactly Mr. Mechanic, I didn't have the first idea how.

So I pulled out my iPhone and googled "how to push start a motorcycle." This led me to an instructional video on YouTube. I sat in the bike and watched the video. It seemed really easy. I put the bike into second, ran it down the parking lot for a dozen yards or so, hit the starter and... Voilà! It started!

I shifted it into neutral, got my stuff together and rode it around the lot a few times to charge it. Then I went home. Amazing.

At any other point of time in my life, this would have been a massive, expensive pain in the ass. But I was able to reach into the air and pull down the little piece of knowledge I needed to help myself in this situation.

My script IMPLANT is about this kinda thing, the ability to download whatever skills or knowledge you need into your head. There's even a scene in which the protagonist downloads a mechanics program so he can hot wire a car and escape. And here, I'd just done something very, very similar (pull down information so I could start a vehicle and leave a parking lot) in real life. We've reached the stage at which story elements that are considered "sci-fi" have a shorter and shorter shelf life.

I think that's pretty cool.