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OPINION: Two tech inventions Dad would have loved
(The Tribune-Star Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Dec. 24--There are about a million reasons I wish my dad were still alive. Two of the little ones are satellite radio and automatic Internet flight tracking.
Both of these technological wonders were made for my father.
Like his mother and his many siblings, Dad loved music whenever and wherever he could get it. When the stereo or radio was silent, Dad made his own music by whistling or humming. The variety and affordability of the merged Sirius XM satellite network would have been Dad's idea of Nirvana.
As for flight tracking, Daddy was like his brothers, Bobby and Buddy: The thrilling miracle of aviation never lost its power. The idea that an ordinary, non-pilot person here on the ground could keep up-to-the-minute track of a flight from takeoff to touchdown would have blown their minds -- in the best possible way.
Over the past few days I was reminded how much I appreciate these tech treasures, and how I wish my dad were around to enjoy them.
First, the music. Only a few days from Christmas, I was faced with re-trimming my Christmas tree. The initial decorating job had been done on a small live juniper that had jumped out at me at the nursery because it was the perfect size and shape and could eventually be planted in my yard.
The problem, I discovered, after the tree was in the house and covered with lights and half its ornaments, was the smell. Not clean, tingling evergreen but pure, unadulterated cat pee.
A gardener friend has since told me there is at least one kind of juniper that smells this way. (No wonder the tree was on sale.) Loath though I was to dismantle my handiwork, I could not stand the stench. The juniper was stripped and put out in the unheated garage for the winter.
By the time I got a replacement, I was not in a very festive mood. (Who has time to decorate one tree anymore, let alone two?) I needed help to start all over again. Already sick of Christmas music -- it's been playing since Halloween, right? -- I punched in one of my favorite channels on Sirius XM: No. 4, the 1940s.
I'm a baby boomer so my chronological era is "Blue Hawaii" Elvis, Motown, the Beatles and rock before the metal. I still like that music and punch in No. 6 (the 1960s) when I want to hear it on satellite radio. But when I really need to be pulled out of the now, I head for the '40s.
It's my dad and mom's teenage and young-adult era, the music they played in the house when my sister and I were kids. Consequently, I can get as swept away by Artie Shaw's version of "Dancing in the Dark" or Billie Holiday's "Lover Man" as I can by any music of my generation.
In addition to channel 4, there is the post-merger "Siriusly Sinatra" at channel 73. Its programming consists of the American standard songbook, all day and all night. Between the two of them, I sailed through the second decorating job -- and figured that if Dad had known satellite radio, he would have had to give up sleeping.
Then there's Internet flight tracking.
One of the good things to happen to the airline industry since 9/11, several sites offer real-time monitoring of U.S. and some international flights. Although each site differs in presentation, the general idea is the same: Type in the carrier and flight number and follow the plane from start to finish of its flight.
Immediately, you know what kind of jet you're "watching," be it a Boeing, Airbus or Embraer. Check its airspeed and altitude. See it vector from one heading to another. Learn its revised ETA as it inches toward its destination.
Like my uncles, Dad was one of those people who just loved to watch planes take off and land. Back in kinder, gentler times, anyone who wanted to could park on a road near almost any U.S. airport and view the comings and goings at extremely close range.
Those days are over, but the virtual connection to air traffic control is not a bad substitute. Earlier this week, I used four different sites to track a two-leg Indy-to-San Francisco flight on which traveled my niece and her dad.
The weather forecast the night before for Indianapolis and the transfer city, Chicago, was not comforting. To up the anxiety ante, a Continental jet had veered off the runway and burst into flames in Denver just two days before.
But the flight tracking sites -- United's, FlightStats, FlightView and Travel.flightexplorer -- allowed me to dial down the uneasiness. As soon as I woke up, I checked to see if the short, pre-dawn flight had made it from Indy to O'Hare. Yes -- and in time to make connections, thanks to a crew change delay in Chicago.
For the next four hours, I took occasional peeks at the cartoon Airbus A320's progress. I watched it pass over the Rockies and nudge into Nevada at 36,100 feet and a speed of 439 mph.
Sometimes I would zoom in and watch the jet jump forward over brown or green wilderness. Other times I'd zoom out and see it as a mere pin dot on all of North and Latin America and part of South America and Russia.
About a half-hour out of San Francisco, just past the Sierra Nevada, United 137 began its slow descent. When the jet passed the 4,200-feet mark and cut its speed to 270 mph, I pictured my niece craning her neck to get her first-ever glimpse of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.
"Landed" and "Arrived" popped onto the tracking sites. It was 52 degrees at SF International with sunshine, some clouds and an 11 mph wind out of the west.
I called my mom to tell her our people were safe on the ground with a pretty nice weather day ahead of them. Then I called my niece's cell phone.
"Are you at the gate yet?" I said. "I've been tracking you across the country."
"I figured you would do that," she said.
"Well, it's just so cool," I said, "I practically watched you land."
She had no idea how much her grandpa would have agreed.
Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.
To see more of The Tribune-Star or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.tribstar.com/.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Tribune-Star, Terre Haute, Ind.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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