A few things for your “maybe” reading enjoyment.

The Unplugged Experiment

First off, I’m heading to Hawaii shortly with a one day layover in San Francisco on the way there. I won’t be blogging though (sorry – as if you cared), because I’m trying to completely unplug. Yes for the first time in 10 years, there will be no laptop computer, no internet cafes, no internet access whatsoever. My iPhone will be that, just a phone .. well, and to play angry birds and/or sudoku (and perhaps one other feature, see below). And as I just realized no untappd! So yes, I will be forfeiting any and all badges I could earn by drinking beer in Hawaii (I can however use it in San Francisco as that is out of the one week unplugged scope).

I will though, update the blog when I return with accounts of my travels and I hope some cool photos.

My OMG Moment – EPub Books and iBooks!

Some of you may remember back when I did The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. During that time I had to walk an awful lot to train and it got awfully boring. So at some point I downloaded, Tears of the Giraffe, the second book in the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series to listen to on my iPod. I got about half-way through it before the walk and never went back to finish it.
However, the next Christmas my father in-law got me books three and four in the series, which have sat on my shelf since because I never had the time to listen to the four more hours of that “book on tape” (why do we still call them that since they’re no longer on tape?). Anyway, I’ve been trying to figure out how to finish that book so I can read the others, without investing four more hours (though I did have visions of listening to it on our flight to Hawaii) and without buying the actual book.

So fooling around with google search I came across epubbud.com! Is this legal? I mean they have books for free!! And if you’re a nook or iPad reader you can totally take advantage of them! (We Kindle folk stuck with our proprietary software are screwed). Anyway, if it’s not legal, I justified my actions by the fact that I did purchase the book, but in a different format. So last night, I loaded iBooks to my iPhone and then downloaded the book to said phone and this morning, when I woke at 5am (that’s why I’m so tired now, duh!), I finished the book!!

Granted, the print was on the small size, and the back-light bothers my eyes after some time, but to finally have that book done (and yes, I enjoyed it), and able to move on to the others, I’m very happy. So now I can bring them with me (they’re light) for reading during those bothersome take-off and landing times when I’m not supposed to use my Kindle.

That’s what’s been going on here (at least today), in a nut shell.

Mahalo and Aloha.