This is the future (insert space noises)

When I was growing up, my family visited Disney World fairly often. In Epcot Center -- inside the giant golf ball -- there's a slow moving ride called Spaceship Earth that takes you through the history of human communication. It sounds boring, maybe, but as a kid I loved "the future" on that ride: a family communicating via video phone. It seemed crazy at the time, about as crazy as flying cars, and yet here we are, FaceTiming and Skyping like it's no big deal (related: Everything is amazing right now and nobody's happy).

Although I use technology approximately 100 hours a day and shouldn't really be amazed by it anymore, I still kind of am -- especially when I'm across the world from my life and still so connected. 

Y and his grandmother FaceTiming with his mom

By the way: When I mentioned that I would be going to Israel, I think a lot of people (myself included) assume visiting the Middle East would be like traveling backwards in time. In some tiny ways, Israel feels primitive, and by that I mean that there are a whole lot of clotheslines. We stayed at Y's aunt and uncle's house, which came complete with a clothesline outside... and, at one point, five iPads at the kitchen table inside. And I'm sure ours wasn't the only house with so many devices. Israel's high tech industry is booming, and the country has been dubbed "start-up nation". One example: pretty much the entire country uses a crowd-sourced Israeli traffic app called Waze that basically put radio traffic reports out of business. 

Not exactly primitive, right? I think we've all learned our lesson: don't judge a book by its clothelines.