E-Book Revolution-Prepare Ye the Digitizational Road

For those of you who do not follow the latest gadget trends [and by latest I mean 3 years to the present], you might have missed something.

The book is going electronic. Now, I am NOT talking about the reading of books on computer screens or iphones or pda's, or some other lcd screen. Those will kill your eyes. Just ask anyone who has to stare at a computer screen all day how they feel at the end of those 8 hours. Nope, ereaders [the dedicated reader, dedicated meaning that it does one job and one job only] use something called E-ink. No strain, no refresh beyond your vision that makes you squint or get headaches. It is literally electronic paper. Go google it and find out about it.

Most ereaders are about the size of a paperback. The technology, the format of the ebooks themselves, all that is still sorting itself out. Think BetaMax vs VHS but with about 6 or more different contenders.

I have been lusting after one since sometime in '05 when Sony came out with the PRS-500. Since then, they have gone to the PRS-505, Amazon has come out with the Kindle, Kindle 2 and now Kindle DX. Interead has the Cool-er E-reader in a variety of colors and more companies are jumping on the bandwagon. Good for them!

I have seen the future. And the size of our bookroom has too. I think we have about 9 6ft tall bookshelves. They are not all filled up, but we can both see it coming. Therefore, I have decided to start downloading and converting to the, what I hope will be, standard e-book format, .epub. It is an open format and both the PRS-505 and the Cool-er support it as do many in the publishing industry. I have software for converting other formats [.pdf .lit .txt .rtf .doc etc, etc] into epub. Open format means it is NOT drm'd so I don't have to worry about problems with sharing them or some company locking out my access to MY files.

I am in the process of digitizing our library. Mainly all our scifi/fantasy stuff. Downloading them from online sites for free [We've paid for them already, so we shouldn't have to be paying for them all over again in electronic format. Just like you can put your cd's onto your computer]. Once that is done, I'll be organizing them, cataloging them and generally making them ready for the day that we DO get an e-reader.

It is a great project for someone like me who likes to make lists, organize and foodle around with computer stuff :-)

Adventures...

Crystal and I went up to Maine to a camp meeting for the weekend, that our area church was hosting.

It was just over 4hrs away. Went up Friday afternoon and it was a nice drive. Much nicer than I was expecting anyway :-) We had used Googlemap and everything went fine right until the end. The road Google sent us down turned out to be a hiking trail. We pushed on, thinking "it can only get better", but with only a 1/2mile to go, it petered out to barely a hiking trail. Thankfully, we had some alternative directions and weren't left cursing Google and lost in the Wilderness.

Speaking of wilderness though. We were in the middle of Nowhere, that was for sure. I sure wouldn't want to live in that area.

The weekend went well. Nothing was on time, usually 10-15min behind, except for the meetings :-) We canoed, took a hr long hike, I read, Crystal visited some horses. I ate vegan for the first time and last, if I can help it! There is nothing quite like vegan "mac and cheese". I manfully plowed through 3 spoonfuls, realized my stomach had waved the white flag at spoonful #1 and so I surrendered before being conquered.

The guest\main speaker was a vegan, naturopathic M.D. Yeah, believe it. Nothing else I can really say about that.

Left Sunday morning. Crystal wasn't feeling good, so we took off a little earlier than initially planned, but it was a good drive home. Took it slow, stopped several times for her to take some pictures and just made it a nice comfortable trip home. No pressure to "get home and be done". It was nice.

So overall, saw lots of really nice scenery on the trip, relaxed on a lake and got away from the familiar for a bit. A success. But glad to be home.

Isn't This the Truth?

and let me tell ya, there are more and more every day! Bleh...

My Post-Crystal Bucket List

If Crystal dies before me, I have decided that I will let out all the stops and fulfill the deepest, darkest, most hidden, criminal desires of my heart.

1) I will stop a UPS truck, tie the driver up and go through ALL the packages, just to see what is in them.

2) Using aforementioned UPS truck, I will proceed to give a love tap to however many bicyclists I can find on Chestnut Hill, at a mere 60mph. Just to show them how much I appreciate them riding on a road with no shoulder like they own it.

3) For my final trick with the UPS truck, I will hijack an armored truck, preferrably a Brinks.

4)With the guards' guns, and awesomely cool truck, I will proceed South of the Border, and shoot out as many Mass'ite tires as I can before the National Guard is called in to deal with me.

Ahh, the fantasies of a "criminal not to be" can be sweet...

Best Wife Ever!

I watched LOST last night. It was a recap episode, so I didn't pay super attention. After I was done I went into the bedroom and there Crystal had a wonderful surprise for me.

There was a whole basket of those colored plastic eggs and 2 wrapped up presents. In every egg was a little gift.

So we spent the evening like this: I'd open a gift and laugh and be happy and Crystal watched me be made totally HAPPY by all the wonderful things. She had spent considerable time putting this all together and that meant a great deal to me too.

I love being married.