There are times I love and am amazed with technology, and there times a loath it with an intense passion. This morning at 7:30 a.m. at the First Christian Church in Guyton was one of the latter.
Despite my relatively advanced age (late 50s), I am moderately proficient with computer technology. I am just old enough, however, to continue to be amazed that I can carry my entire work life around with me on my laptop. With my home WiFi and my cell phone, I am about 95% as efficient sitting at my kitchen table as I am at my desk at work.
All is wonderful…until it isn’t.
To make a long story short, I was out of bed at 5 am this morning for a breakfast Rotary Club talk in a small town about an hour away. When I arrived and turned on my laptop, I discovered the folder with all my Powerpoint presentations, was empty. It was not a great piece of news at 730 in the morning. This particular group had already heard my basic overview talk. I had borrowed a presentation from our director so I would have a fresh act. It was not something I could ad lib without the Powerpoint support.
My hosts said, “Why don’t you just take a few minutes and tell us about some of the things going on there?”
OK. I can do that. So I got up and talked off the cuff for about 15 minutes. I repeated some basic background information about who we are, and talked about some of the current projects I have written about over the past couple of months. I doubt if I would win any “best presentation” awards, but it filled the time and no one walked out or threw the remains of their breakfast at me. I guess I came out ahead.
(For you technogeeks out there, the problem turned out to be a sync problem between my laptop and the server at work. I don’t understand it, but the files are now back and things seem to be working again. In the future, I’ll also have my presentation on a flash drive as a backup.)
And speaking of technology, I ran across this very funny blog post about a journalism professor who forced his class to put together a newsletter using 1980 technology like manual typewriters. It is funny. I can relate.
Another Beautiful Day in Paradise! 
Sorry to hear you had such problems. What poor timing! It sounds like you ad-libbed well enough, so you should be proud. I’m not sure I could remain as well composed as it sounds like you did.