So here I am at work after the weekend of Esther’s birthday and boy do I ever wish it was still the weekend. I had a great time and she did too which is about all we could have asked for. We went to Hastings, Red Wing, Lake City, and also drove up the Wisconsin side and saw all the towns from Nelson up to Bay City. We drank beer in the Wabasha VFW, wine in the Nelson cheese factory, and bought books in the town where Laura Ingalls Wilder was born. All in all, a great trip. I even picked up a Palm Tungsten C PDA which I am using right now to write this blog post.
The coolest thing about weekends like this is how they seem to change time. You step out of your normal world for a few days and your are in a separate stream of time where the days seem longer when you look back on them. It’s almost as if it seems impossible to fit into one day all the things that you manage to fit in. Did we really do all the things we did in the brief time between leaving work on Friday and waking in Red Wing this morning? Seems unlikely, but it’s true. I love this kind of trip. So simple, but so powerful.
Now I’m sittinng and listening to The Lavone’s 2000 performance of “Live the Love” at The Depot and thinking about the stop we made in Nelson at the Kingdom Hall this weekend. I have a picture somewhere of me, Rhett, Reed, Robbie, Raina, the Fowlers, Syd, Tabithah, and maybe Anna (I can’t remember for sure if she was there) standing in that very parking lot after listening to Rhett give a public talk. My how things have changed…
…
OK so here I am trying to use this handwriting thing & it seems to work well. Although it is definitely slower than typing.
Screw that. I’m typing the old fashioned way. OK this is better. I can type best when I put this thing down and pretend it is basically just normal computer keyboard… except the keys are tiny and the letter A sticks.
Now what did I want to write about?
Esther described herself this morning as “pushing 40″, since yesterday was her 36th birthday. I’m not entirely sure that her assessment is inaccurate. I suppose we both will be before too long. It’s so strange how that happens. One minute you are a kid then you’re 40 and you barely notice that it happens. I can think of worse things I guess, but life just seems so damn short I can almost understand the religious nuts. I mean, seriously, who wants to believe that this is it? Times like these I wish I could believe in the whole supernatural thing.
So much of the last few years has been about recapturing, rebuilding, refactoring, and reinterpreting the first 30 years of my life… sometimes it feels as if I’ve been living in the past for three yea rs.. but the best parts of the last three years have consisted of new experiences, forward movement, productivity, accomplishment, and growth which have contributed enormously to my recovery from the loss of my family, community, and brother. When I think of the experiences I’ve had individually they seem like the richest, deepest, most fascinating years of my life. When I consider the fact that I’ll have ten times that quantity of depth and experience by the time I’m in my 60′s it seems like life still has a long rich road to offer me. I sure don’t feel old then…
…
If Oprah were to die there would be the end of a media empire… would America even be the same country?
Don’t know, don’t care, I’m just attempting to kill a little time by writing something and I saw a copy of her magazine. Think about it though: she is the only person who ever appears on the cover of her magazine. If she died would they stop publishing it? Probably not. Would they keep putting pics of her on the cover? That woulld be pretty morbid. They would have to change the magazine somehow… I’m not sure what would change beyond the cover since I’ve never read it…
Anyhow… I have now had one whole day with the Palm Tungsten C PDA and I have some first impressions of the device. Now, mind you, I am well aware that this PDA does not represent the state of the art, it’s a ctually a few years old. That makes no real difference to my thoughts here however. I mean, other than the iPhone I don’t believe the basic form-factor and user experience is remarkably different on the newer ones. There is a tiny little thumb keyboard, a stylus, wireless networking, a touch-screen with handwriting recognition, a memory card slot, a speaker, headphone jack, and a bunch of basic applications. Is this a device worth having is the first question I ask myself… and the answer so far is maybe..
See, I am a media junkie. I have a dozen e-books loaded on my cell phone, a couple of hundred audio and video podcasts in my iTunes library, magazines, newsfeeds, and those are just on the consumer side. I also create. I write music, blog, hope to eventually finish some of my longer writing projects (novels, non-fiction books), and basically have used my laptop so much in the last two years that I’ve worn letters off the keyboard. I am also a multitasker. I don’t just eat lunch. I eat lunch while listening to podcasts and writing or reading. Hell, I’ve even been stupid enough to read and drive before. The point is that having something that allows me to multitask (listen to stuff on my phone while writing, for example) is fun… so I guess this kind of thing is useful to me. Of course, my laptop already allows me to do whatever I want but this is smaller… I dunno, time will tell if this is something I keep or sell on eBay.
More From Ryan Sutter
- my last post as vioman
- an actual personal entry…
- what’s goin’ on…
- in my room
- 14.5 Billion Years to learn, almost caught up to last week…
