personal

Sometimes a Tuesday is just a Tuesday

Today was a less exciting, but also less rainy, version of yesterday. No meetings with authors, no hours hunched over the photocopier, just a lot of reading on art therapy and occasionally marking up pages with my red pen. Reading manuscripts is definitely the most time-consuming part of my job, but it’s also the thing that makes it feel most like editing to me, the thing I enjoy most about it. There’s a genuine pleasure in taking a good book and helping the author to make it better. I don’t think this particular book is going to take a lot of working, mostly just logistical wrangling for the images and accompanying DVD, but I still need to finish reading the last few chapters.

Beyond that, it was just your typical Tuesday.

Muggy Monday

I left the iPad at home today, not wanting to risk scratching it in my bag, and also not wanting the easy distraction from work and the book I’m reading, Joe Hill’s Horns. I’m enjoying the book, for the most part, but I’m still about a hundred pages to the end and would like to finish. I didn’t need easy access to Twitter or Scrabble or whatever to distract me. But I did kind of miss having it with me.

It was pouring rain when I woke up this morning, and because of that (and because of a lousy, half-broken umbrella), I got a little soaked running for the train. And I do mean running, since I only just barely made it before the doors closed shut and the train left the station. I bought a new umbrella when I reached Penn Station, but of course up on the street the rain had all but stopped, and I never even open the umbrella once today. There was plenty humidity, but the rain was pretty much done for the day.

I’d forgotten, perhaps in my three-day-weekend, brand-new-iPad daze, that I had an author visiting me this morning. There really was no reason for the visit, other than that she and her husband were in the city for a few days — staying a block from this Saturday’s bomb scare, no less — and we’re interested in pursuing a new edition of her book. But I think our discussion went well…even if I do sometimes feel like I’m faking it, having no real background in psychology myself. Still, they seemed like very pleasant people, and it really does seem like a worthwhile project, so I’m glad we had a chance to chat.

And then I spent the next hour or so printing out instructor materials we’d put online expressly so we wouldn’t have to print them out. But it was for just one customer, and I guess not every professor is rushing to join the digital age. It was a lot of paper, but it wasn’t too difficult a request to accommodate.

After that, it was mostly art therapy until the end of the work day.

Now, though, I think it’s just about time for bed.

And then it was Sunday

More of the same today, the main difference being that it was hot enough to convince me to turn my air conditioner on for the first time this season. It’s supposed to cool off a little as the week progresses, but I think we’re well into late spring/early summer here.

Meanwhile, still thoroughly enjoying the iPad, though I did buy a new case after doing a little research online. The case that Apple sold me is fairly functional, but only just, and it’s not all that great for what it cost. And, while I had the option of filling out today’s New York Times crossword via an app, I decided to go the traditional pen and paper route. (I very nearly finished, too.)

Beyond that, I finished another chapter in the art therapy textbook, leaving me with still several more to finish hopefully this week. And I finally got caught up on Stargate: Universe. I still think it’s trying a little too hard to be Stargate: Galactica, but I am starting to like it a lot more as the characters come into sharper focus. And I have to give them credit for bridging the gap between darker, realistic science fiction and the fun, but more action adventure-oriented Stargate shows that have come before it.

Now I think it’s time to recharge the iPad and go to sleep.

Not Sunday…yet

It feels a lot like Sunday, but I’m happy knowing that it isn’t. iPad or no iPad, I definitely made the right decision taking yesterday off from work.

Today was more of the same, really, spent playing with the iPad and figuring out what I can and can’t do with it. Google Reader, for one, seems a little problematic, at least in either of the main options Google itself seems to be offering. I’ve gotten it to work, but neither option is without its display problems. I’m also not so thrilled with the case Apple sold me, which fits the device, if only barely, but is thin enough so as not to provide much in the way of protection, and moreover which has to come off if I actually want to recharge the device. It’s an okay temporary solution, should I want to tote the device somewhere further than my own backyard, but I don’t think it was worth the forty bucks Apple charged me for it.

Still thoroughly in the honeymoon phase with the iPad itself, though. Sitting out in the backyard, reading Kaleidotrope submissions and listening to music (while Twittering about it), was a really nice way to end my afternoon.

After that, I watched tonight’s episode of Doctor Who, the second half of last week’s Weeping Angels/River Song mashup, and it was actually pretty phenomenal, easily my favorite episode since the premiere. I really do like how Matt Smith’s Doctor is madder and more antic than his immediate predecessors, but also a little more pompous, a little more…well, unlikable. Anyone still not sure why Smith was cast over all the other choices obviously hasn’t been paying attention.

Anyway, that was my Saturday, more or less.

iPad, therefore iAm

So can you guess how I spent my day off?

If you guessed mailing copies of Kaleidotrope to award judges (and a couple of contributors), finishing a chapter of that art therapy book (which I think is shaping up pretty well, actually), filling the bird feeder in the backyard, walking and playing with the dog, and just pottering around the house…well, you wouldn’t be wrong. But obviously the big news of the day was that my iPad, ordered exactly one month ago in a mad “what the hell” moment, finally arrived.

And I have to say, so far, it’s really quite cool. I didn’t experience the same sort of orgiastic thrill as, say, Stephen Fry at unpacking the box, but it is tough not to be at least a little impressed by it. Apple certainly knows how to make pretty looking things.

I almost missed the FedEx delivery, arriving back home from the post office (and grabbing some lunch) at the exact moment that the deliveryman was walking to our door. I then spent the next hour or so installing the latest version of iTunes — you do need to hook the device up to a computer with iTunes installed, so it’s not exactly “turn it on right out of the box” — and syncing the two systems.

And then I started playing with it. And you know, I really am quite impressed. This is what it looks like after I started downloading (mostly free) apps:

So far I really love the NY Times Crosswords, and the Dragon Dictation is surprisingly good at transcribing voice to text. Netflix’s player was a little unresponsive when I tried it this afternoon, but the video quality was excellent. The same goes for the ABC Player, with which I could easily imagine watching Lost (and, heaven help me, Happy Town). Both Marvel’s reader and iBooks are impressive, in the free samples I’ve tried out, and who doesn’t like a good game of Scrabble? The other apps there I’m still testing out — I downloading Skype, for instance, even though I’ve never actually used the service before, and I still haven’t decided which Twitter client to use, Echofon or TweetDeck. I’m sure, as I continue to use the iPad, I’ll find plenty of compelling evidence to suggest that both sides (pro and con) are right about the device.

Ultimately, is it worth the hefty price tag? I don’t know. The real test will probably be the next time I have a lengthy commute, or how well it handles reading Kaleidotrope slush, or maybe in an app I haven’t yet discovered. I do know I’m not remotely sorry I bought it, and I am finding it incredibly difficult to put it down.