I’m usually late to the game when it comes to buying into new technology. I didn’t get a cell phone until 2000, reluctantly. I came early to computers—I had a TI 99/4A back in the early 1980s and the BASIC programming I learned at the point was the foundation for one aspect of my career later in life.
Until lately, though, I was an iPod holdout. I got my wife one for Christmas, and my daughter’s had one for a while, but I didn’t see any need for one myself. I don’t know what spurred me to get one last week, but I finally broke down and bought a used 30 GB one from eBay. I spent the entire two-hour episode of 24 last night starting to load songs onto it. My goal is to clear the stack of CDs off my writing desk. Get onto this nifty little gadget all the stuff I normally listen to while I’m writing and make available a few more square feet of desk space. Reduce clutter. It’s not a trivial task, but at least it’s mindless enough that I can do it while watching TV.
I wrote nearly 2000 words this morning, all of it on my Storytellers Unplugged essay. Non-fiction comes faster than fiction, I find. Normally I only manage 1000-1200 words of fiction in an hour. I finished the first draft of the essay with time to spare this morning, so I balanced the bank statement in my remaining minutes.
This weekend I’m judging senior high science fair, something I’ve done most of the past fifteen years. When I started, the local high school had grades 9-12 in one building close to where I live, and the science fair was small enough to set up in the hallways, not using any of the classrooms. Now, 15 years later, the community has two huge high schools that have grades 11-12 in them only, the former high school is now one of two grade eight/nine schools, and the science fair outgrew the local community college and is now held over two weekends, with high school students this Saturday and junior high the following Friday night.
I usually judge chemistry projects. The junior high projects are usually more interesting than the senior high ones. Senior high students are usually fulfilling a class requirement, and it shows. Junior high students explore things about their lives that interest them or are issues in their lives. My new pants faded after three times through the wash—what kind of detergent should I be using to stop that. Practical stuff. Their enthusiasm is contagious. I always have fun judging the fairs.
