When I woke up on Wednesday morning, I had already taped a yellow sticky to my phone: "No internet."
It was there to remind me not to slide into in my normal routine, since seemingly everything I do marinates in the internet.
First task on deck: exercise on my elliptical.
I climbed on board, positioned my iPad, and then remembered — no internet. That meant no Netflix or Hulu, which is usually how I manage to power through the mindless tedium of pedaling for 40 minutes. And of course, I hadn't planned ahead to download anything from Netflix the day before. Would that have been allowed? I'm not sure. Let's call it a grey area. But it's irrelevant, since I hadn't thought to do it.
I fell back on plan B: music on my iPhone. Yes, I have Spotify, but I also I keep my entire CD-based music collection on my phone — about 80GB worth. It's a bit of a throwback to an earlier time, but this week it was a lifesaver. Unfortunately, music no longer distracts me when I exercise — that's why I tend to watch video. And without the next episode of "The OA" to watch, I spent 40 minutes obsessing over every agonizing spin of the elliptical.
Midday, my calendar reminded me about something that we'll attribute to a case of poor timing: I had to take my girlfriend to the airport. After we got on the road, she noticed I wasn't using Google Maps. "I'm not allowed," was my response. She wisely pointed out that this was LA, where choosing the wrong route can turn a 20-minute errand into a 2-hour crawl. "Should I open Maps on my phone?" she asked. Nope, I replied, I think that violates the spirit of the experiment.
Google Maps has become such an integral part of my life that I literally couldn't think of another way to get driving directions.
And herein was the problem: I couldn't think of a non-internet-powered alternative to Google Maps. Thanks to Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell, I know that around 2005, MapQuest beat Yahoo Maps, but Google Maps was the best. But what if you had no internet at all? My dad (to this day) admonishes me to keep a paper atlas in my car "in case your phone breaks," but even if I had such a thing (sorry Dad), it wouldn't give me traffic-aware driving directions. Is there a service you can call? I have no idea. I couldn't even Google to see if such a thing exists.
So, we drove to the airport "blind." In the end, it took about 30 minutes, which isn't too bad for West LA. But honestly, we got lucky, and it could have easily gone the other way.