By RICK KARJALAINEN

Is it just me or do others feel the way I do about the “information at our fingertips age” we live in?

These “user-friendly” devices seem to be less friendly and more complicated. For example, my 30-year-old son came home for the holidays and brought with him his “office.” It’s a 4 by 5-inch cell phone/wireless computer/video camera/12 mega-pixel still camera/organizer/appointment calendar/coffee-maker/rubber plant holder piece of modern technology! The things it was capable of doing took my breath away (so did its price). We sent far less computing ability to the moon with Neil Armstrong.

He wowed me into mental submission as he demonstrated this modern marvel of technology. He explained that he could, as the president of his company, oversee its many operations through this engineered business brain-on-a-stick (I like to call it). This means he would only need to be physically in his office once or twice a week! He reassured me this was a wonderful way to enjoy life as his phone vibrated and made some kind of show tune-type sound. He handled whatever was needed to be done in a conference call with two others, a salesperson in Nebraska and a customer in Kansas. I was impressed, but keep in mind I’m still impressed by pop machines that take paper money.

My other son, Mark, called needing help hanging some drywall in an airplane hangar in Port Angeles, so we went over to give him a hand. We arrived and immediately went to work. Every so often I’d hear a show tune from the top of the scaffolding where I’d hear, “Premier, Kurt here,” and then a hands-free discussion about some deal happening in Denver or Omaha as he screwed in drywall. I must say it was impressive.

At dinner in Port Angeles that night, it happened. My son realized he’d left his charging unit for his thing-a-ma-jig at my house in Coupeville. The look of panic on his face was disturbing. It was too late to catch the ferry (we were planning on staying the night). He thought WE might have to drive around to Olympia and back up to the island.

“Call your office,” I suggested. He couldn’t remember the number. So I used the phone on the wall and called home. I asked my wife to look up the number to his office in our old, antiquated, hand-written address book. She’d left it at my office. She went to get it and would return my call. Now inaccessible to his company, he could only wait. We got a call 30 minutes later with the toll-free number to his company. After wading through the endless electronic prompters, he was finally able to leave a message with the right person’s voice message recording…thing.

He gave me this sheepish thanks.

I thought, should I let this slide? For those of you who know me … well, you know me! No way.

I simply said, “That labor-saving device of yours came real close to making us drive all night.”

You know, being here, way in the back of the pack isn’t necessarily a bad place because as I see it, at least I’m still in the race.

Rick Karjalainen lives in Coupeville.