I am traveling to Roanke, VA this weekend for a conference and looking forward to thanking Rotarinas, promoting my book and selling advanced copies, and enjoying spring time in the mountains. This morning, in a total time crunch, I realized I needed to make color copies to bring with me (in addition to packing, writing two articles due today, finalizing my airport transport details.) Even as a seasoned last-minute’er, I panicked about having enough time to get everything done.

I drove to Kinkos and in less than 10 minute I had faxed a copyright agreement, printed out a color proof of my order form, and then copied over 200 of them. The whole trip took less than 40 minutes. I will be the first to say that Americans take life at too quickly a pace, but this morning as I pulled out of Kinkos I was feeling really grateful for the way that 24-hour store operations, self-serve copy machines, my personal vehicle, and credit cards made it possible for a budding entrepreneur to make last minute marketing materials.