I love my family and friends for many reasons. One of the more important ones is that, periodically, they lead me kicking and screaming into the current century.

It's not that I don't like new technology. I'm not afraid of it [most of it, anyway]. I'm just used to doing things a certain way, and don't want to get forced out of my comfort zone without a very good reason. Like carrying fewer things to and from work. I love to read, and the bus trip in and out gives me a nice stretch of time to get lost in a book. But I also like to read more than one book at a time, and have an unfortunate tendency not to clear books out of my work-bag as I finish them. So when my sister suggested getting me a Kindle e-book reader for Christmas, I thought it might be time to try one.

I have to admit, I'm intimidated by it. It took me a while to get it set up [finally resorting to contacting supplier Amazon.comfor help. I have to add that their tech support (24/7!) made the process a bit easier]. But some of the information that comes with the Kindle makes me wonder. For instance, it can reputedly hold "more than 1400 books" {Folks, I have a lot of books. I don't have anywhere near 1400. One of my brothers used to have a good deal more books than I do. Combined, we don't have more than 1400 books! I still haven't filled up my iPod; it's not going to be like that, is it?}.

Still, once I got instructions, adding books was pretty easy. Many of them were free [I'm still cheap, er, thrifty]. New technology may be ok after all. Next week, I'm going to look into that stuff called "fire", see how that works out. I'll let you know...

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