I Got a Kindle!

Yep, I finally caved. I've heard the debates many times. One camp says they have to have their hands on the pages and it's the whole experience - the smell of the book, the feel of the pages, the blanket, the cocoa, etc. The other camp says books are so yesterday. One friend says this is the future of school - all on an ipad. I'm in between. I do love the feel of a good book, but let's face it, the Kindle is so easy to use, and it fits perfectly on my treadmill. It's right there in my purse when I'm stuck in line, in traffic, essentially anywhere. I'm finding I read more, books are more accessible, they're cheap, or free. It's easier to read in bed, with one hand under the covers and no aching thumb from holding the page open.

So, I'm thinking this post sounds a lot like an advertisement for Amazon.com but I don't care. I'm really excited about this. It has even reshaped my philosophy about reading. It's really all about the words. Jesus read from a scroll. Socrates said the world would go downhill with the invention of print, because the words would be compromised. Printed text as we know it has undergone tremendous changes over thousands of years. It will continue to change, but the word still remains the most important, and our interpretations of the word, whether spoken or in text.

Happy New Year!

Blogs are hard to maintain at times. There are so many other things needing attention that blogging takes a back seat. But as I skim over my past blogs I am reminded of some remarkable, or at least mildly amusing points of 2009. Before blogs, we had diaries. These, too, were a little challenging to keep up. Not only was I constantly hiding it in different places around my room, I sometimes couldn't find the key, and though I meant to record every meaningful experience, it tended to be weeks or months between entries. Even when I read them now, the entries don't seem that easy to follow. Why did I say that? Who was that? You get the idea. But for all the difficulty in keeping a blog or diary, it really is a valuable piece of history. I might not have remembered the Jupiter dimestore I haunted on my bike the summer I was ten, and I might not have remembered that at one moment I thought about that new box of crayons smell. So I encourage all to keep those diaries or maintain those blogs, because as messy as it is sometimes, it is our own personal history, and will only increase in value as the years go by!