After a few days in a Vermont back-country camp....

...one realizes the incredible value of a few basic tools, such as a wood stove, an axe, and snoeshoes.

But then I think about my life at Williams. I'm using an incredible device that's easily transported, which can communicate with the rest of the word via over-the-air signals that, upon entering a campus wide network of routers, fly to parts unknown. This device can display false images on a backlit screen of literally anything, and provide instructions for any situation. I'm sitting a good 30 or 40 feet off the ground in a building that I enter by swiping a magnetically coded card, and I have 24/7 facilities and security services to call upon. I'm surrounded by some of the smartest and most talented people from across my country, which has the largest GDP of any, and I'm spending my time tapping a bunch of little keys with symbols on them, so that you can read these words over that same communications system I mentioned earlier.

Technology is incredible.