2040

Frank woke up. He was 65 almost 70 and it was now 2040. His hip had been bothering him lately so he went in to see his doctor about it. When he went into the clinic the now familiar advertisement videos on the wall at the doctors office reminded him that he could replace almost anything now even his brain if he wanted to. Dying before 100 years of age was sort of unheard of now in America if you made enough money to augment yourself and kept getting preventative diagnoses in time to change things before you died. So, he picked up the Ipad like device so he could read anything he wanted that was published over the world from the office table next to him in any language. Paper was too expensive now so everything was electronic unless a hard paper copy was needed in case of Solar Magnetic Storms or power outages of different kinds. He drove his Solar powered car to the doctors office, even though sometimes when he was tired he let it drive itself places. Sometimes he just fell asleep. It wouldn't let anyone drive if they were drunk or too highly medicated or too tired. The car could look at your face and tell you whether you were present enough to drive. But, today he wanted to drive just to prove to himself that he was still alive and living on planet Earth.
 The doctor saw him and ran a scope over his hip that was bothering him. The doctor said, "I can fix that in about 10 minutes if you are willing to pay for it and let your insurance reimburse you for it."
Frank said, "You can do a hip replacement that fast." The doctor said, "Oh yes. With the new techology I can have you walking on it in ten minutes time from now. Frank said, "Okay." Ten minutes later Frank walked out on his new hip.

Frank thought to himself, "Boy. That was pretty stupid of me. I have been in pain for about 6 months from that hip. I wish I had known it was this easy before. He had watched as the doctor custom made him a hip by scanning his present hip while Frank watchd (with special Glasses) a 3d printer custom make his new hip. The doctor asked how squemish he was. Frank said, "Oh. This kind of stuff doesn't bother me as long as it doesn't hurt too much."

So, the doctor turned on the robotic arm to cool down the custom made robotic hip manufactured in one minute, pulled out his hip and replaced the joint as Frank watched. Frank sort of thought, "What an out of body experience this is?" as he watched his leg bone angled out for replacing the hip. It was all pretty amazing and there was no pain. So, ten minutes later as he walked out to his car he asked the car to drive him to his sons. This had been sort of stressful so he laid down and fell asleep after telling his car where to go. And hour later he was at his son's house. As he walked in his grandson greeted him, "Hi Grandad! Do you want to play a game with me?" Grandad said, "How long have you played this game." There was a ruthless look in his grandson's eyes. "Only about a week." Grandad said, "Just how active do I have to be to play it?"

His grandson said, "Oh. I can play it active and you can play it sitting down if you want. It has an adjustment for that." Grandad Frank said, "Okay. I just had my hip replaced so maybe I'd better sit down for this one."

His grandson who was 10 said,"Did it hurt to have your hip replaced?" Grandad said, "No. It was kind of fun to watch them do it. It only took 10 minutes." Grandson said, "Soon, I was reading in my Ipad for school that it will be done instantly as long as the ball joint is premanufactured to your specific needs." Grandad was really proud of his young grandson. This kid was really going places.

As his grandson Frederick powered up the game Grandad Frank could see it was a hologram. His grandson handed Frank a pair of special 3d glasses which would enhance the hologram computerized effects. Frank put them on and said, "Wow! This is really something, Frederick!" Frederick beamed and said, "Yeah. I just got these yesterday! They really make a difference playing the game.

Frank was really happy he had asked the doctor about his hip. His 6 months of pain was gone and he actually felt well enough to play games with his grandson. Life couldn't be better.


The next day Frank went to the airport to visit his daughter in Portland, Oregon. Since he lived in the San Francisco Area and didn't want to pay for parking while he was gone he drove his solar powered car to the airport and then programmed it by telling it to drive home and park in his garage there. He also told it to expect to be called on a specific day by him on the phone using a special code like an ATM code or key code so it would know it was him and not someone else. Then it would drive to the airport to arrive at the San Francisco Airport at a time of his choosing. This way he didn't need to park it at the airport. The Airport had turned most of it's parking lots into more terminals for planes to taxi up to since cars had become autonomous part or all the time(depending on whether the car owners could drive a car legally or not). When he boarded the plane it was one of the new type that you flew standing up to accommodate more people. You just hooked yourself into vertical bars with a small seat for the 10 minute ride on the airplane to Portland. Planes now went into space on the way to their destinations if the destinations were more than a couple of hundred miles away. This allowed planes to travel at up to 17,000 miles an hour for part of their journeys. Technology had come a long way from the early part of the 2000s.

When Frank got off the plane his daughter had been working so she sent her car to pick him up. She gave the car a picture of Frank and she sent Frank a picture of her car so they would recognize each other when they met at the airport. She even gave the car permission for Frank to drive it as long as he hadn't had a drink on the plane to Portland. So, Frank started driving to his daughter's house while the car told Frank the directions there. It dropped off Frank at the door and then went to look for a parking place on the street after letting him unload his stuff. His daughter's private robot greeted Frank and carried his luggage up the stairs which Frank was grateful for and told him jokes while it made tea and food for him like snacks to occupy him until his daughter got off work.




Note: a Solar powered car of 2040 could automatically plug itself into the local electrical grid. If it had enough electricity or too much of it, it could sell the extra to the grid so it could reduce or eliminate Frank's electrical bills. So, for example, if Frank kept his car in the sun and it kept itself plugged in and he wasn't using it he could actually make more electricity than he or his house could use from the sun on his car solar cells which covered all  surfaces that the sun can touch as it moves across the sky including new ones you can see through in the windows of the car. Also, the car was programmed to move itself at times when the sun was out for optimum solar power generation as the sun moved across the sky during the day. end note.

When Frank reached his daughter's apartment there were bicycle racks with many bicycles with solar assist electrical motors and batteries for going up hills. When coasting down hills every time the brakes were put on it also generated electricity. So, solar panels were set up between the bars in front and in between all the spokes were solar cells. Frank had been around 30 in 2010 so he remembered Portland with all the bikes not solar powered yet for hills back then. But he remembered how energy conscious Portlanders were even in 2010 and throughout the 20 teen years.

When Frank's daughter got off work they went out to dinner. However, Frank had forgotten his heart medicine and told his daughter how he was angry at himself.

But his daughter said, "But Dad, I have a messenger drone that can fly several pounds of weight to any location in Portland and I have a Portland License to use it anywhere in the city limits of Portland. Frank hadn't heard of personal messenger drones and asked, "When did it become legal for people to have messenger drones?"
His daughter said, "Oh. It's an experimental law here in Oregon specific to Portland. People often need medicines and car keys and things like that brought to them so a law was passed for this particular city."
Frank said, "Don't people send illicit substances this way?"
Frank's daughter said, "If you have a messenger drone you are required to have an internal camera so the police can monitor what you are sending."
Frank said, "Does that really work?"
Franks daughter said, "So far it works great."
Frank: "How long has this law been in effect?"
Frank's daughter: "Oh. About two years. I forget my keys or important mail sometimes so I have my personal household robot find what I need and place it in my messenger flying drone and it charts it's flight path with the Portland Airport tower and it flies to my location wherever that is. It hones in on my cell phone signal GPS."
Frank said, "This is amazing that drones have finally found a good use for personal service to the masses."
Frank's daughter: "Yes. There are hopes this law if successful will spread around the west Coast of the U.S. and eventually to the whole of the U.S."
Frank said, "I hope it isn't misused as drones have been worldwide by criminals and bad governments. Millions of people have been assasinated worldwide at this point."
Frank's daughter: "It's why I prefer not to travel to some countries because often people don't come back from those locations. They just become dust out in the country somewhere after being hit with a grenade drone which usually is no bigger than the one I own as a messenger drone."

Frank nodded sadly at how difficult travel had become many places on earth because of this.