What affects 23.5 million Americans and now can be shown as linked to environmental issues like particulate matter in the air we breath? Diabetes!!! This hits close to home as my father's side of the family has suffered with it for generations. My hero and solid adult male role model as a child died from complications of the disease. Now, researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston, have shown a link to an increase in Diabetes worldwide and air pollution...man-made air pollution.
I've been away for a week, dealing with family matters. While traveling, I got the opportunity to discuss eBooks with the flight crew prior to my flight home. The pilot was very adamant about using his kindle when he travels...he can carry almost his entire library. The lead flight attendant wanted to buy an iPad for her husband for Christmas, so he could have all types of technological access. During our discussion (it really started out as their discussion), the co-pilot and myself pointed out that having an iPhone already gave him access to almost all Internet activities and that if a reading device was the main reason behind the gift, then a Kindle would be the appropriate choice.
I wandered around the departure gate after the discussion, doing a small self survey of what travelers were doing with their time. This is what I found without going to far...37 laptops, 14 Kindles and 3 nooks...56 smart phones (all of them could be used to read eBooks). Oh, and 9 people reading books in print or magazines. I thought this boded well for ePublishing, but my findings on the plane itself were a little disappointing. Once the "fasten seat-belt" sign was off, I wandered to the rear of the plane, prompted by that second cup of coffee in the airport. I discovered on this short hour and 15 minute flight, the majority of passengers did not have electronic devices out (2 out of 3)...instead, they were reading magazines, reviewing what appeared to be work documents or thumbing through paperback novels.
I was contemplating this strange twist of statistical data this morning...made more relevant by my wife's newest book hitting the Kindle Library on Amazon last night, when I read our friend's blog. JA has it right, I think it is about fear and the comfort of doing what we are in the habit of doing, but the reality is, the comfort comes from the words...not the delivery device.
Birds: Saturday was the I-race in Beaver, Utah...run by Jim and Holly Beard. The 300 mile race resulted in 2 day birds. I had two birds left in the race...they still have not made it back. Last night, there were only 21 birds in from the race. Again, my friend Sal Rodriguez had two money winning birds in 3rd and 17th position. I will send birds down again next year if they hold the race...it's a tough one, and I like them that way, so do my birds.
Honey: Still shopping for the best buy on local honey, at $10 for 5 pounds, making 5 gallons of Mead is getting expensive.
Notes: For those that don't know or realize (there are a few), the blue letters in the blog when clicked will take you to the document I got information from. Take the time to get the free Kindle for PC application and read Natalie R. Collins latest book "The Fourth World" and while you are at Amazon, check out JA's newest books just out this past week. "Falling Back to Earth" and "TDTM" (Talk Dirty to Me) both available on Kindle. TDTM will keep a smile on your face, and you will be stopping strangers on the street to share the humor of some of the scenes.
I don't mind reading a book in my lap or desktops, but I've yet to buy a Kindle or a Nook - my oldest daugher raves about her Kindle.
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, what is the longest distance you race birds? What is the longest time a bird has been gone - post race that it has returned to your coop?
Cele, I think you will enjoy the Kindle...especially if you do much traveling. It allows you to carry your entire library as I said in the eBook blog.
ReplyDeleteI never really did discuss the distances we fly birds. In the club I belong to, we are limited by the distance to an international border. The birds that are flown from August until October are all hatched this year or Young Birds. We only fly them to a distance of 300 miles.
The birds we fly from April to June are the Old Birds, or from any prior year. We fly them out to 570 miles...about as close to the Canadian border as we can get.
When I was flying young birds from my loft in the back yard, I would usually have birds return the following spring...most times, these birds had been well cared for, so I know that someone had kept them through the winter.
I have had a bird return 2 years after being lost on a race. I have also had a bird that I sold to a man over a thousand miles away, show back up at the loft a week after it escaped from him.
I have had a bird waiting for me at the door of the loft two weeks after it was lost on a 175 mile race. The bird had walked home due to a broken wing...I'm not saying it walked the full 175 miles, it may have broken a wing being chased by a hawk a block down the street, but it made it's way home avoid all predators and the neighbor's cat while unable to fly up to the landing board 4 feet off the ground. As a matter of fact, I still use her in my breeding program every year.