The hundredth birthday of the social invention known as a vacation is due right about now. No one bothered to record the actual date of birth, but the idea of vacations was first conceived in the very late 19th century. And, in the Western World, similar to some Stone Age tribes in Papua New Guinea and Iran Jiya, a connection between conception and the delivered event are not acknowledged. So those who took the first holidays really did not know what they were doing. Prior to a century ago the concept of the vacation did not exist.

It seems that everything has a lifetime. This applies to the idea of vacations, and also to individuals, corporations, inventions, innovations, and even countries. Some lifetimes approximate that of humans at their maximum. Certainly under 100 years. What comes next? We had cars, then vans, then mini-vans. How about mini-vacations?

Mini-vacations started some 20 years ago. Not everyone took two weeks off in the summer. Some started taking winter holidays. Then what travel agents call "shoulder season" (fall and spring) became popular. This enabled many tourism locations to operate year round. Some spots grew and attracted more people, people with disposable incomes to scatter around. Scatter it they did -- on all continents, as the world rapidly grew smaller, thanks to the 400-passenger Boeing 747 jumbo jet that could fly 500 miles (800 km) an hour. (The latest in that family, the 747-400 series, can fly nonstop for 18 hours and carry 500 passengers. Imagine what opportunities for travel this offers mini-vacationers!)

For all these reasons, increasing numbers of busy affluent people are starting to take mini-vacations, stretching weekends into long weekends. They are leaving when they can, or creating time if they are self-employed. Many combine business with pleasures, so-called vacations. Most people with the most disposable income feel they cannot afford the time for a two-week or three-week holiday, or they could lose their higher-income advantage. So they go fast. Like via Concorde. The higher cost is the price they pay for putting such saved time into more productive earning power. Like those 3,000 "kids" at Microsoft who let the interest on their $1,000,000 past earnings (much of it from Microsoft stock splits) pay for their trips.

What next? With some newer Boeing versions (like the 777) with only two engines, other efficiencies fall into place and fast trips become more reasonable on night flights and charter runs. Travel packagers create "good deal" combos that appeal to many. Increasing competition keeps prices down. Hotels have rooms they would rather fill than leave vacant.

Entrepreneurs are coming up with "instant attractions" like the sightseeing submarines of the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the islands of Micronesia. And other new concepts, like the natural lightning displays in Arizona, where huge, 20-foot (six metre) rods arranged in an artistic vertical manner encourage Mother Nature to perform her startling art.

According to the tenth edition of the electronic CDROM version of Merrial - Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, a vacation may be defined as follows:

1. a respite or a time of respite from something: intermission.

2a. a scheduled period during which activity (as of a court or school) is suspended.

2b. a period of exemption from work granted to an employee for rest and relaxation.

3. a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation.

4. an act or an instance of vacating.

So now is the time to enjoy a vacation, be it spring, summer, winter, or fall. With our rapidly changing times, the vacation could vanish back to non-existence like before the late 19th century.

It may develop that only some types of people will ever have long vacations again. Often people have the time but not the money to enjoy their leisure. Others have the money but not the time.

If life is a compromise, which way are you leaning?

Among my flashing screens, a statistic (via canoe.com) catches my eye: Silicon Graphics Inc. of Mountain View, California, distributes 75,000 pages of information daily from their web site on the Internet. Otherwise they would have to print it and send it out by surface mail. Their web site saves them $100,000 a day. That says something.

What a big successful company does one day, I can do tomorrow. Generally, I gather information. Now I do not have to attend all trade shows and conventions. I bring the convention to my houseboat -- for free. I can retrieve a lot of that information from the Net by electronically downloading pamphlets and brochures that once used to burden my luggage.

Filling in an electronic trade-show registration form while reading the latest updates sure beats the hassle of convention travel, hotels, and walking for kilometres, the way everyone did in the distant past. There is an alternative. One has to make the decision to do it physically or virtually. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

The big advantage of attending conferences virtually is the savings in time and the savings in costs of airfares, hotels, taxis, meals, porters, doormen, and bellhops. Jet lag and wear and tear on the physical system is also considerable for some.

People with the street smarts to attend such cyber fairs can do more, more quickly, more efficiently, and more cost-effectively. However, it cannot be done, not completely, at least not yet. Until really low-cost videoconferencing is available, and in Canada the Rogers WAVE cable delivery may provide this, it will not be the only way. Like it or not, there are two worlds: the real and the virtual. There are two kinds of people: the knows and the know-nots. There are two kinds of income: the growing and the descending. A graph would show all three of the above in lock-step.

Not only can we attend a trade show from home, we can meet people, exchange business cards, and e-mail addresses (tomorrow@helix.net), refer others to our web pages (www.drtomorrow.com), and "import" information, books, magazines (zines in zap talk) -- tax, tariff, and censorship free. Few government bureaus have acquired the skills to track the import of electronic data traveling at the speed of light.

Virtual trade is not in the distant, airy future. It is already here. For two years I have been marketing my seminars, books, CD-ROMs, and videos via my web page. If I were office-bound, I could still do it all from here. I am a virtual corporation. No one has to be here, including myself. Everything is outsourced. The world is changing, and I am changing with it. So should you.

I have done business with people and organizations around the world that I never would have met without the new networks. Revenue Canada asks why I purchased four computers in one year. I told them I use them to make more income than ever previously possible by conventional methods. Governments still do not understand.

Bureaucracies are entrenched in the culture of the Industrial Age that will take years to convert into the requirements of the new Information Age. It will be accomplished mainly by downsizing and layoffs. if they understood how the new system works, they could be spinning off new revenue flow centres instead of always costs.

Why cannot government produce a profit and distribute it to citizens without interfering with the private sector? All it takes is creative thinking.

Oops! I might have answered my own question.

Bold New World Below

When humans first started to roam, in the early days of pre-history, they walked. Much later, with the camel, the burro, and the horse, they rode. Even later, they floated in the dugout canoe, the Nile river dhow, and the Mediterranean caravelle. All these modes in their ways provided man with more mobility and experience than he had formerly known, as people who moved (if they lived through it) more, saw more, learned more, and encountered other cultures, even though (as in Papua New Guinea) these were located across a river, a mountain range, or a desert.

Later came large cargo-bearing, sailing ships, and then military vessels that could relatively easily cross oceans. A long time later came the luxury liners of the 19th and 20th centuries. Airlines followed during the first half of the latter century. And air traffic exploded when long-range jets "shrank" the globe.

On land, the horse did its part, both in farming and in transportation to change the world. At one time, the stagecoach was "the only way to go." The romantic and legendary stagecoach was, of course, replaced by the "horseless carriage," the automobile, which took people to places they had never known ... mountains in the sky and below sea level (Death Valley). Because of the convenience, cost and prestige, car culture boomed, and it is still booming with us.

All these modes of travel provided some understanding of the land, the sea surface, and the air. We learned en route that the air, like the sea and the highway, could be a jealous mistress. It was some time before the development of radar and IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) which made the domains of sea and air considerably safer than they were. Our highways have yet to reach that level of comfort and safety.

The Aqua-Lung or SCUBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) was developed, in large part by the late undersea adventurer Jacques Cousteau. It has allowed a very small portion of the world's population to actively penetrate upper areas of the oceans. Now the modern tourist submarine allows almost anyone to penetrate the realm of King Neptune in ordinary everyday clothing and without the burden of heavy oxygen tanks, special headgear or footgear, and training on the dangers of the deep.

Submarines, once the private domain of the military or the rare ocean scientist, have moved men and women into the world of commercial tourism as a soft adventure, into the Blue Grotto of Capri and other waters of the Mediterranean, or round the coral-studded islands of the Caribbean.

As for the submarine, I rode this aquatic "living room" into the undersea world, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) off the Spanish Main, near the island of Mallorca. Like the work animals, ships, and planes that led the way, this fantastic tourist attraction will eventually change the way we see the world. The Spanish sub currently carries about 50,000 passengers a year during its five-month summer season.

In the early days of each phase of transportation, riders usually wore some type of distinct apparel to ease wear and tear. Saddles and cowboy clothing; awnings, hats, and uniforms; helmets, goggles, and scarves; diving bells, fins, mask, and flippers, etc. As modes of transportation matured, riders would climb aboard, unencumbered with additional attire or equipment. Stagecoaches shed the need for saddles; ships for rainwear; planes for goggles; and divers for breathing apparati. Travellers today can board just about any transportation device in comfortable leisure wear.

Why not live a little? Adventure is so much more comfortable today. Go try it.