Saved By Google Docs

Last Sunday I was scheduled as the speaker at an event in Madison WI. Being the raving Google fundamentalist I am, I prepared for the event as I have done for each speaking engagement I have had since Google Docs came out. I wrote the sermon in Google Docs.

As it came time to leave for the event, I plugged in my laptop through my auto-air adapter. I powered up my EVDO modem from Sprint. I opened Firefox with 3 tabs open.

1. Open Sermon for last minute edits in Google Docs
2. Map Location to engagement In Google Maps
3. Open Email from GMail that has host person's phone number

I then proceeded on the trip. I had an audio book I was listening to on the trip as well. At first my wife drove, so I just made some edits to the text. Then as it was my turn to drive, we had turned off the audio book since there was to much commotion in the car with all three kids, and a friend who had accompanied us as well. 6 people does not make good audio book listening, but I digress.

So as I was driving, the power in my laptop was on, but nobody was actually looking at the screen. Unbeknown to anyone my auto-air adapter died and the battery on my laptop drained away as we drove.

When we arrived in Madison, I picked up the computer to look at the map, and the computer was dead. I had no map to the building, no contact information for the host, and no sermon to preach if I managed to arrive.

This is where the story get's great. This is why I will never use MS-OFFICE again. I called my brother in Alabama who was able to log into my Gmail account and get the host's phone number. Upon arriving at the church I was able to have the documented printed, though I had no battery, and no functioning power adapter on my machine. Had my document be in Ms-Office I would have been screwed! It would have been dead, with the dead computer.

Thanks to Google and Google Docs I was able to preach the sermon I had prepared. I will never go back to Ms-Office!