Apopheniac

My wife the digital artist

Here is Jean's newest project for her illustrator class.

Here it comes to save the Day!

I awoke to find my email notification informing me that my replacement Palm was shipped via Airborne early yesterday afternoon. I allowed myself 30 seconds of jumping up and down like an excited puppy before regaining my composure.

I miss my Palm

It's been almost 5 days since my Palm pda stopped working and I had to send it in for warranty repair/replacement. It has been a true lesson in how much I use this tool. I've had to print out a planner/calendar with FranklinCovey planning software and dig out a binder from storage so I would have my calendar, todo list and phone book with me. I've had to print out all sorts of information that I am used to having at my fingertips. I can only read or listen to audiobooks at home at my computer, when most of my reading time was away from home. On a couple of occasions I needed directions and couldn't just pull up the maps and directions on mapopolis.

Because of the holiday and the weekend, Palm support does not even show it as having been received. (It was delivered UPS on Friday, signed for by Garcia.) It was a note on Nafta that the repair facility is in Laredo, TX and the work is no doubt driven across into Nuevo Laredo, Mexico to be done by workers at a fraction of the cost. I don't know whether to marvel at the efficiency of the free market system or rage at all the missing silicon valley jobs.

For 50 minutes its been Thanksgiving

Well, the clock has rolled over into Thursday. I was supposed to work today, but due to covering for someone who called in sick on Tuesday, I got Wednesday and Thursday off.

Thanks are very much in order for so much in my life. I am grateful, first and formost to be able to share my life with Jean. After over 23 years together, she is the center of my very happy life. Before Jean I was a solitary I - - but those lonely days are but a faint memory of an almost forgotten time that preceded years comfortably spent as an us.

I am thankful for my son Kirk. It is privelege to know him. His ongoing presence in my life expands my horizons in delightful and unexpected ways. It has the added bonus that his computer powers and abilities (far beyond those of mortal men) allow me to enjoy a digital life well in excess of that enabled by my meager capacities.

I am thankful for so many things which I may happily take for granted yet others might not enjoy. I am healthy and have always been so. I live in country which, for all its shortcomings is free and stable and richly blessed. I live in a time where we are surrounded by phenomena which not so long ago would have been thought miracles, if they could have been thought of at all. The challenges of this time are built on a foundation of so much allready accomplished, so many people fed and clothed and cured and freer than at other times, that we may hope for even better days ahead.

Opus Returns

It's been about a week since my last entry and I must say that I have been a little intimidated by the idea of having something worthy to post. I'm sure I will hit my stride and find my voice for blogging as time progresses, but today I have something worthy by any standard. Opus, Berkeley Breathed's loveable cartoon penguin has returned to America's funny pages after a ten year absence and my local paper has him. The first installment which appeared yesterday was a perfect reprise.

How I recaptured my reading via my Palm

I got my first Palm Pilot within weeks of its release in 1998. I had religiously used paper planners, Daytimer and then Franklin Planner, since 1984. I kept track of much of my business on my computer and in my paper planner. I didn't like having to double-enter everything. I abortively tried a Sharp pda which had computer backup for a while but went back to paper because I still had to double-enter everything. Franklin planner offered some improvement with their software which allowed me to keep track of my appointments on the computer and then print out pages I could carry in my looseleaf planner. But I still carried my planner with me and appointments and entries written in the field, where I did most of my work, still had to be copied and manually entered into the computer. Franklin then came out with a revision of their software which would synchronize with the new Palm III and anything entered on your Palm would synchronize onto your computer and vice-versa. I didn't know if it would work for me and, feeling I had been stung with the useless and somewhat expensive Sharp PDA purcase, I was careful to buy the $400 Palm-Pilot from a retailer with a 30 day return policy so I would have a month to see how it fit into my busy world. I bought the Palm III and within a couple of days I knew I was home. I used it for appointments, to-do lists, reminders (via a great reminder program called bugme). Finally I could organize and track a great deal of information with an outlining program called Brainforest.

In 2002 I upgraded to a Palm TungstenT. In the process of exploring software available for the new model, I discovered Palm Reader and e-books for my palm.

Through my careers as student, photographer/writer and then Realtor, I had read avidly, always keeping a book with me in my camera bag, backpack or briefcase. I read when I had time to pass waiting for a class, an appointment or for the right light for a photograph. When I had entered retail, carrying a book did not lend itself to my movements and I had gotten out of the habit of reading. Imagine my delight when I found that I could download books right into the Palm that I always carried on my belt and open it with a flick of my wrist to just the page I had left off in my reading. I could read while waiting in line at the grocery or dmv, while waiting for a movie or during a lunch break. I began my recaptured pleasure by re-reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings in anticipation of the release of the first of the films.

One of the nicest features of the Palm Reader is that it integrates a dictionary and, as I read, I need only touch a word on the screen to lookup its meaning, derivation and correct pronunciation.

Because the Tungsten-T also had an earphone jack and played sound files, I could download audio-books from audible.com and play them during activities like driving which precluded visual reading.

Since I have waxed on this long about this, my most useful possession, I will complete my account of my most used applications by saying that Documents to Go lets me use Excel spreadsheets and write Microsoft Word files on the go and that I also have mapopolis which allows me to download and display roadmaps and even lets me connect a GPS receiver so I can track my location on those maps. I have used this now on vacations to Sequoia and to Sedona, Arizona and found it invaluable. Though I am sure there are those who qualify much more as "power-users" of their PDAs, I have gotten so much use from mine, have had so much information archived and readily at my fingertips that I easily regard it as the most useful purchase I have ever made.

Master and Commander

Saw Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World today. It was superbly done.
I had read Roger Ebert's review and I had listened to the review on NPR Morning Edition. Though both reviews were quite complimentary, I found myself more in agreement with Ebert. I had also heard an interview with the author of the book on NPR All Things Considered.

All of this sparked an interest in reading the book. I am trying to locate the ebook so I can read it in my Palm. I also went to the library and checked out "Patrick O'Brian's Navy" to broaden my understanding of what was going on in the book and film.
There are twenty books in the series and I have heard they are extremely accurate and are followed with an avidity surpassed only by the fans of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.

Via Palm Reader on my Palm Tungsten, I am currently reading Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm and listening to the audible.com audio book of Steve Martin's The Pleasure of My Company.

More about what some may consider my un-natural affection for my Palm Tungsten later.

Up and running

Though I had uploaded movable type and initialized the blog on Wednesday, today I got it up and running, with Kirk's help of course.

First Entry

This is the first entry and thus the birth of my Apopheniac blog.
May God bless this blog and all who sail her.