From Sam Kanish of IWBlogger
I recently came across a couple examples of why I didn’t and still haven’t fully embraced the high tech instant communication era that we now live in. First of all a couple nights ago at our regularly scheduled dinner ride a guy showed up with one of those blue tooth (?) things that looks like a big cockroach stuck in his ear. Since he’s retired, not a doctor or drug dealer, isn’t married and doesn’t have a girlfriend I wondered aloud what could be so important that he needed to be able to field a phone call while he was riding his bike. Maybe his dog had a phone and was calling to bring home more Milk Bones.
Call me old fashioned, or just plain old but what’s the point? I mean I cut my motorcycling teeth during Harley’s “Great American Freedom Machine” era. Back then people rode motorcycles to get away from work, problems at home or with that significant other. A bike was a sanctuary, your own private little space and no one could invade it, that‘s part of what the Freedom meant. Take a ride and clear your head.
Then the very next day I was in a shop watching as the service manager and sales manager were trying to program the ‘Infotainment’ center on a 2014 Street Glide. They were having a little problem doing it. It seems someone in or near the shop had left his Smartphone on (don’t look at me, there’s no use of a dummy carrying a Smartphone) and every time someone called his phone it was ringing in on the new Street Glide.
Looking around the showroom they spotted a guy and asked him if XXX-XXXX his brother’s phone number. When he said yes and asked how they knew that they asked him if he had a Smartphone and had left it on. He said yes and it was in the tour pack of his bike which was parked downstairs in the service area. Once he shut the phone off they finally got the bike programmed. Now if those two, who are supposed to have been trained on how to do that stuff have problems imagine what will happen when someone who couldn’t program his VCR tries to program his bike.
Like I said I’m now enamored with gadgets. Back when I bought my Ultra in 1996 one of the options was an intercom system so the rider and passenger could communicate. When asked if I wanted it I said no. I mean how much effort does it take to turn your head and say, “No, I’m not lost.” and “No, I’m not stopping again so you can pee.”
