eric

The Books are Talking

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We are in Buenos Aires, far from my home.

I am alerted to a loud noise inside my house, thousands of miles away. I ask Mom and Eric to investigate, worried that I've just started the tense moments of a horror show.

Eric walks over to the bookcase I have recently moved into the living room - gym - office - dining room space. The bookcase holds a large number of hardback books, most of which I'm interested in reading, but have not read yet.

Eric looks at the books. He pauses at each section, possibly reading the titles of each. He lingers. I watch.

And wonder what those books are saying about me. Are they telling Eric I'm messed up? Are they telling him I"m technical? Are they telling him I'm suddenly, weirdly fascinated by history?

Or are they telling him I'm human?

And love to read.

Trolling the step-dad

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A month or so ago, I loaned my mom my smaller ipad. She has a kindle, and enjoys reading on it. She had asked me about the ipad reading experience, so I offered to loan her mine, knowing I'd be back out to visit her in a couple weeks when I could pick it back up. In the meantime, I could "suffer" with the larger, heavier, so out-of-date (sarcasm, btw), larger ipad I have. The bigger one is destined for B's hands, but still in mine for a bit.

I figured this was a great plan. She could check it out without having to buy one, I wasn't going to be really out anything. Win-win.

What I didn't account for, however, was Eric discovering the ipad. More importantly, discovering my collection of books on the ipad.

I'm a big fan of paper books. I love the weight. I love the heft. I love the smell. I love the feel. Everything about a printed book just makes me happy (except, well, maybe the plot of a poorly written one). What I don't love, however, is travelling with a stack of books. So, I'm inclined to buy a book in ebook format for many books, with the kindle format being the easiest to use (curse you, Amazon).

Unsurprisingly, I have a lot of ebooks. Well, I have a lot of books. I happen to have a lot of ebooks, too.

Eric happened to want to read a large number of the books I have (unsurprisingly, including the Scalzi books). When I asked for the ipad back the last time I was out, Mom sheepishly asked to keep it for a little longer. Okay, I could do that.

So, with my current run of Jack Reacher books coming to a close, I've been looking at more books to read. I bought a couple, and, well, sent them immediately to the ipad.

See, when you open the kindle app on the ipad with a new book delivered to said ipad, the app will drop out of the current book being read and load the new book at the beginning. So, when Eric goes to read his current book on my ipad, it'll pop up with the books I have queued up, and he'll have to reselect the book he was reading. Just a small, trolling reminder that I'd like my ipad back.

Unless Eric decides he wants to know about content strategy development and something about the art of thinking clearly.

If so, I'm never getting that ipad back.

Eat your vegetables

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"We're getting rid of the refrigerator."

"You are? Why?"

"Eric thinks it's too loud."

*blink*

*blink* *blink*

"Oh, the irony."

Yeah, I could not stop laughing before my stomach ached from laughing so hard after that one. If you know Eric, this is very, very funny. Even he laughed, though he could have been laughing at my laughing. And I would have deserved it.

This evening, Eric decided that eating his vegetables would be a good thing.

So, he ate his carrots.

If only all vegetables were so tasty.

I need a subscription

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"Kitt will enjoy this."

He hands me a bag.

I open it, and pull out the magazine inside.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo!" I say, and start reading.

"You know that magazine?" she asks.

"You don't?" I respond.

*blink*

*blink* *blink*

"Well, that answers that question."

Visiting Mom

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I flew out to Arizona today to hang out with Mom on my way to Austin for TXJS this weekend I usually fly two round trips through Phoenix when my flights require a layover in Phoenix, and just extend the layover to a day or so stop over and visit. It's a nice way to see Mom, it means I see her more frequently than I normally would, and, well, that's aways a good thing.

I had other motivations, not the least was having someone to talk with about the many things going on with my life. I wanted someone so outside of my world that judgment would be difficult, as would being anything but objective. When a friend comes in and starts ranting, you side with her, because she's a friend and you want to help her. When a stranger comes in and starts ranting, well, you tell her to shut the fuck up and fix the problem. I needed that latter more than anything else at this point.

The fam

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