My Year In Books (2019 edition)

Rusty Bentley is, indeed, one of those pictured

This year in books was... interesting. I purposefully set a low goal, because I didn't want the pressure of reading for anything other than enjoyment. I also sought out a little diversity, in genre and author, in order to broaden the horizons. Let's see how that all turned out, shall we?

In total, I read approximately 14,834 pages across 46 books. For reference, last year I read almost 20,000 pages across 52 books, but I didn't enjoy every book as much. And I didn't necessarily enjoy every book I read this year, but I certainly appreciated them more.

Longest, Shortest, and Average

I not only read fewer books this year, the books were on average shorter. This year, the book length average was 322 pages, compared to last year's average of 390 pages per book. There are actually a couple of pretty simple reasons for this. First of all, Audible started producing Original series, which are pretty short form in general, and credits for two of them per month are included in the membership. Given that there's typically no page length included, but I tend to include them in my book list (as they're either dramatizations or short story collections), I've estimated their lengths pretty conservatively. Secondly, as stated earlier, I wasn't reading as voraciously as last year, and wound up with six fewer books, including at least one fewer LONG books.

Speaking of long books, the longest three books I read this year were:

1. Kushiel's Dart, by Jaqueline Carey: 1015 pages
2. Necronomicon, The Best Weird Tales, by H.P. Lovecraft: 878 pages
3. The Witchwood Crown, by Tad Williams: 733 pages

Those three books total 2626 pages. Last year's total was 3091 pages. Again, reading more (and at least one larger) books helped push last year's total to a ridiculous number.

And now, the shortest three:

1. Whose Boat Is This Boat?, by Donald Trump (via Stephen Colbert), 24 pages
2. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot, 27 pages
3. Blackened White, by Brian W. Foster, 80 pages

The three shortest books this year totaled a tiny 131 pages. That's down from 295 pages I read in short last year. Ironically (and sadly), the shortest book this year is, once again, politically themed. If you haven't read Whose Boat Is This Boat?, you should order a copy. Proceeds go to benefit the charities helping the victims of hurricanes.

One more stat here: the median book is Pro Git, and it was only 300 pages long. This year was definitely the year of the shorter book. Last year's median book length was 341 pages.

More Interesting Metrics!

Now, on to the fun stuff. I'll start with the breakdown by month, as usual.

Books By Month

Lots of reading, then not so much...

That distribution surprised me. Lots of books in the first half of the year, then relatively few in the second half. It finally dawned on me that I worked out more regularly during the first half of the year. I typically listen to audiobooks while I work out. When that falls off, my book completion rate drops.

Strangely enough, the drop in workouts didn't correspond with an increase in weight up until the holidays began. And yes, I gained 1.5 pounds this year, just like all normal human males my age. This blog entry isn't "My Year In Exercise;" stop judging. ;-)

Books By Medium

More reading than listening!

For the first time in a long time, I actually READ more books than I LISTENED TO. Again, this probably has to do with the fact that, in the past, I listened to books while commuting (I don't have a commute anymore) and while working out (my workouts dropped off the second half of the year).

Even more surprisingly, I read more PHYSICAL books (13) than EBOOKS (12) this year. And yes, there were two books that were actually leather bound, so neither hardcover nor paperback. If you're curious, they were both books of poetry, which I'll get to shortly.

For full disclosure, however, I should point out that the total pages of Audiobooks was 7677, while the page count for actual reading was only 7157. So, while it's true that I read more books than I listened to, I listened to more actual pages than I read.

Books By Genre

Maybe Technical and Comedy should be the same genre...?

I tried to break these out by where you would find them at a bookstore. I'm not positive I got them all right, but it should be close enough to be representative. 

It's no big surprise that Sci-Fi/Fantasy plus Fiction dominated my reading. I was pleased to get a few poetry books in there as well, including Devotions by Mary Oliver, which I HIGHLY recommend.

The most interesting thing to come out of this is just how much nonfiction I consumed this year. I typically don't read a lot of nonfiction, as my tendency is toward escapism when I read. But this year included three autobigraphicals (Becoming by Michelle Obama, Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama, and 10% Happier by Dan Harris) as well as a couple of biographicals (Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford and Eistein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson). I rated all of those as either 4 or 5 stars. Next year I'll probably continue to mix in a nonfiction every second or third book as well.

Other Tidbits

• Every book was by a different author this year. Typically, I have at least a few duplicates, but this year -- 46 different authors!
• I set out to read more books written by non-Caucasian males this year. I don't typically pay attention to the nationality or gender of the authors of the books I read, but given my interests and the industry, a lot of what I read is written by, well, old white guys. I did... alright, but it could be far better, and will be next year. This year, my reading list included:
• 15 females
• 7 non-Caucasians
• I won 3 goodreads.com physical book giveaways, 2 of which I read: Inland by Téa Obreht, and The Sun On My Head by Geovani Martins. My strategy is pretty simple: 
• look at giveaways for physical books that are ending soon (within the next day)
• enter any that look interesting for any reason (author, genre, etc.) and give you at least a one-in-ten chance of winning. 
• do this once a week or so, and you'll probably wind up with a free book or two!

And there you have it. My year in books was more fulfilling than I thought it was going to be, and I'm glad I gave a little more attention and deliberation to what I was reading.

If anyone reading this entry has similar metrics, I'd be really interested in seeing/reading them (wink-wink, nudge-nudge @Jake)!

Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak...

It only took six months to get this way!

I'm back.

Or at least, I'm back for this one post at least.

What in the world happened to me for the last half of last year? I wish I could point to monumental happenstances which prevented me from making entries here. Sadly, that is simply not the case. I've been at my computer almost daily, as is my wont, yet none of those days led me to this corner of the Internet. Part of me feels guilty about this, but a larger part of me refuses to beat myself up about it. Let's face it: most of what's put out here is just me screaming or whispering into the void in any case, so the person I first aim to please is, quite selfishly, me. And "me" has had other, mostly mundane, things going on.

So, let's spend a moment catching up with where I left off since my last entry in June of 2019, shall we?

Summer breaking

This summer saw Number Two Son moving in with us in order to begin his journey through college. It also saw us procuring a car for him, that car being involved in a wreck, and procuring ANOTHER, VIRTUALLY IDENTICAL car for him. If he hadn't actually been there when the wreck occurred, I'm not sure he would have believed the cars were different.

Number One Son was also involved in that wreck as well as an accident with HIS car that required repair. Thankfully, neither of the sons was hurt at all during any of the above. We're sincerely hoping that this has gotten both of them past the statistical portion of accidents while driving.

Fall beginnings/ends

Fall had Number Two Son enjoying his first semester of college. He says he enjoys it more than high school. I think it has to do with him being able to set his own schedule a little better as well as not having to get up early any day except Monday. He even went to a couple of social things, although I don't think he's actually hanging out with anyone regularly. I remember having similar experiences my first couple of years of college. Then again, I always had a girlfriend back home, so I didn't spend much time actually *living* while I was there.

Meanwhile, Number One Son finished his final semester, graduating with an Associates of Applied Science in Web Design and Development. Garrett was really worried that he wasn't going to be able to find a job, given the ratio of applications he was making to responses he was getting. Then, over the course of about a week, he set up an interview, had it conducted, and accepted a job with a company called Revature. He's now preparing to head off for their three-month-long coding boot camp in West Virginia, after which he'll be placed with a client to begin a two-year contract (with Revature, not the specific client). I'm all emotions wrapped together for him -- excited, proud, anxious, happy, sad, freaked are the most dominant currently. 

Mostly, I'm coming to grips with the fact that Garrett is, in fact, all grown up, and about to be off on his own. Gabriel is right behind, living mostly independently from Tanya and I even though he's right upstairs. It really does seem like the virtual blink of an eye since they were toddling around. I'm reminded of that daily by some picture or memory of them from the past, primarily via their Contact pictures on my phone (which are, of course, from when they were little bitty) juxtaposed with two men, both at least as tall as me, and sporting beards I could never grow.

I'll stop here, but encourage all of you to cherish EVERY moment of your life, especially those shared with people you love. Each moment is completely unique and will never occur again in all of existence. Ultimately, they are the sum total of who we are.

Autumn Vacacay

We took an Autumn trip to Minsk and Spain and have a zillion pictures. I REALLY considered blogging about those as they happened, but was very focused on other things at those times, like being *IN* those places instead of looking at them in third person. I'm glad I resisted the urge and remained (mostly) disconnected from reality for those days.

Suffice to say that I thoroughly enjoyed visiting Minsk in the fall, and was finally graced with some proper weather (gray, slightly rainy, and chilly). Leaving Minsk and arriving at Tenerife in the Canary Islands was a culture shock of another kind, and was breathtakingly gorgeous, marred only by the fact that driving (and parking) there is painful. A day in Barcelona wasn't enough, but we saw enough of the city to say that we've been there. It was a trip worth taking.

NaNoWriMo

I wrote another book. It was a return to the world of Aether, and I actually finished it, all the way through. Most of it is, as usual, crap, but there were at least a few scenes in there that make it worth editing. The next step will be to go back through it and start writing the first draft of a REAL book. I might not dump too much, as Tanya will be better than I am about identifying what things are interesting versus boring.

This makes for a total of four books I've written: one that went through a couple of rounds of revision, two that weren't worth finishing, and another that is to-be-edited. Add to that a handful of short stories and a ridiculous haiku collection, and I suppose I have to consider myself to have an actual hobby.

And before you ask -- no, I never picked up the other hobby (drawing/playing an instrument). I didn't have that much extra energy.

What's next?

• The year-end reading challenge review is in flight. I'm hoping to add a couple of interesting statistics to it this year, but we'll see how that pans out.
• I've already mentioned the first real draft/edit of the NaNoWriMo2019 book, so that'll happen.
• Supporting Number One and Number Two sons.
• Trying to maintain good habits in health, fitness, work, and play.

I make no promises, but as of now intend to create more content here as well. I'd tell you to stay tuned, but that seems self-serving as well as disingenuous. Tell you what -- check back every now and then, checking the monthly post totals. If any of them have gone up since your last visit, have at them!

And I sincerely wish all of you all the best for this year!

Spring Vacacay v2019, Days 4 and 5

[DISCLAIMER: I honestly thought I’d published this a while back. I obviously hadn’t, so my sincere apologies. Especially since it ruined my streak of at least one post a month this year. Then again, I managed to miss July as well, so... meh]

You, the discerning reader, will have noticed that today’s entry is actually Days 4 and 5. I warned you that Day 3 was exactly like Day 2. Well, that’s not quite true. We *did* sit in exactly the same spot, but our server was Costas, not Eliza, and we had all the frozen drinks on the menu instead of the mixed cocktails. The routine was exactly the same — we slept late, didn’t work out, had breakfast, sat beside the pool, read, drank, had dinner, and strolled around a little. After all, our first day of doing it went so well, it couldn’t hurt to do it again.

And again.

Day 3 was so relaxing that we realized we’d stumbled onto our ideal vacation — do as little as possible, maximize the relaxation. Who knew?!

Day 4 brought a couple of slight changes, including where we sat. It was still near the pool, but on the far side with a view of the gulf. You’ll notice that we aren’t DIRECTLY on the front line. No, those chairs were already taken by the time we got to the pool at 08:00. The people at this resort apparently go to the pool as soon as they wake up, claim chairs by putting crap on them, and then go back to sleep for a couple of hours. Case in point: the five chairs in front of us were claimed by a family of two parents and three children. After they’d secured their spot, they hung around for a few minutes to make sure it was cool, then all left to go get breakfast or watch a movie or some such. Seriously, they were gone for more than two hours, despite the rule that you’re not supposed to leave your chair unoccupied for more than an hour. I was mildly annoyed, but given that they frequently weren’t there, we got a great view of the gulf for quite a while.

So... we did that. All day. It was just fantastic. I really can’t adequately describe the feeling of just laying there, reading a book, drinking a drink, staring at the ocean, and not worrying about a thing in the world. Those that know me will understand that this isn’t really my normal mode of operation. It actually takes quite a bit for me to fully unwind, as I habitually check work email and Slack even while I’m out of the office. This time, I managed to let it all go, forget about all responsibility, and just... *be*... in that place. And what a great place to be in, especially with Tanya! She is, by far, the best travel buddy I could hope for. I mean, LOOK AT HOW CUTE SHE IS?!

The entirety of Day 4 was spent there in those chairs a row back from the railing. Eliza had returned, and even though we weren’t technically in her section, she paid particular attention to us all day long. She deserves a raise — I’m looking at *you*, Opal Sands! Tanya and I strolled around the strip/boardwalk a little, but not enough to actually be worth any more mention than I’ve already made. The area in general is fantastic, and you should visit it if you get the chance.

Day 5 dawned with us mostly ready to return to reality. We felt rested, rejuvenated, but still slightly reluctant. I think we left the long weekend with a good idea of what we’d like to be able to do in retirement: whatever we like given our mood on waking up. Not be beholden to a specific schedule. Able to work on whatever interested us that day.

The only thing we really haven’t quite figured out is: how do you do that on a fixed income into perpetuity? The obvious answer is to have recurring revenue as a source of income (ergo: not fixed), but that requires a bit of creativity on our part that we haven’t quite figured out yet. If any of you have ideas, we’re open to suggestions... ;)

Spring Vacacay, v2019, Day 2

Dawn broke clear and warm on our second day of Spring Vacacay, or at least I assume it did, since the blackout curtains completely prevented me from witnessing it in any form or fashion. In fact, given that the previous day had been full of travel, exploring, and eating and drinking, combined with the moving-the-clock-forward timezone adjustment, we wound up sleeping until just after 09:00. I was quite surprised when I looked at the time, feeling certain that I must be inverting a "6" digit in a sleepiness-induced fit of dyslexia. I rubbed my eyes for a bit, looked again, and confirmed that I had officially achieved the longest sleep-in time of the year. Honestly, as I type this, I can't remember the last time I slept until after 09:00, since most of our travel takes us west, where we gain hours instead of losing them.

I had packed workout clothes, since the resort had a workout facility and I was intent on maintaining my fitness regimen. However, given the relative lateness of the hour, we realized that a morning workout was not in the plans today. Instead, we decided to head out for breakfast.

The breakfast venue was Speggtacular  which was about a half mile’s walk from the hotel. The place was hopping when we got there, but there was a booth in the corner that we were ushered to without hesitation. Speggtacular’s menu was vast, and upon perusing it, I felt my carefully cultivated dietary discipline quickly evaporate. Heck, it's vacation after all, right? Vacation calories don't count, RIGHT?!

What you see pictured here is actually someone else’s photo of my ALMOST breakfast (pancakes with strawberries, bananas, cream, and chocolate/hazelnut drizzle), but I managed to reign it in a little. Instead, I ordered a more traditional breakfast with eggs, bacon, toast, and a single strawberry and banana pancake with a dusting of powdered sugar. Tanya got a similar ensemble, except that she got a fruity crepe instead of the pancake. It was more food than we should have eaten, but by gannies it was good!

And a special shout-out to our server that day, whose name completely escapes me at this point. They had four servers on a six-server day, and she was running around all over the restaurant, but kept a smile on her face the entire time. It was far more than I could have done, and I was thoroughly impressed by her attitude.

Speggtacular summary: well worth the walk. Would definitely eat there again!

After breakfast, it was finally time to be completely lazy. The beach was crowded and hot already, so we decided to have a look at the hotel pool. The pool might not look it, but given the potential occupancy, it’s actually quite small. Chairs, especially those that are well-shaded, are at a premium. We got immensely lucky to find two open chairs beneath an effective shade on the edge of the pool. 

Poolside relaxation should be taken seriously. As you can see, I set about it with an uncommon vigor, immediately digging into an ACTUAL, PHYSICAL BOOK. The book was Slade House by David Mitchell (perhaps best know for Cloud Atlas). It’s a short companion novel to The Bone Clocks, which you should definitely read.

But reading was not the only relaxation of which we partook. You see, the pool was patrolled by helpful serving personnel, including Eliza, the kind lady covering our section. After she handed us a poolside menu, she gave us a minute to look over it, offering recommendations based our our tastes. Given that our tastes were “it should be pleasant and/or refreshing,” there weren’t many limitations. We decided to begin with a couple of selections from the non-frozen cocktails. 

By the end of the afternoon, we’d made our way through all but the Bloody Mary variants (which we don’t care for) and the Cuban Punch. We enjoyed all of them, but my favorite was the Opal Rita, because it mixed both rum and tequila. And every drink was served with some fruit decoration. Combine those morsels with the overly large breakfast, and we were set until dinner.

We had to walk a few of those extra calories off, at least. In the later afternoon, we decided to have a stroll down to the beach to see if we’d missed anything significant. The beach’s sand was fine, white, and hot. It was also blessedly free of shells and other debris, so it could be trod upon barefooted without serious risk of injury (besides blistering from the heat).

We finished the day with another dinner at Sea-guini. The food was good enough the first night to draw us back again the second. That, and overindulgence during the day helped us realize that a walk to somewhere else on the main drag probably wasn’t going to be worth the effort. And they had a fresh fruit drink that wasn’t on the poolside menu! The quest was obviously not yet complete!

Strangely enough, doing not very much at all besides eating, drinking, and lazing about in the sun and shade can really take it out of you. We walked a little after dinner, but decided to call it a night and watch the sun set from the room. Phone cameras being what they are, there isn’t really a photo to do it justice. Here’s another bad photo of a great view.

Thus ended day 2 of Spring Vacacay v2019. I’ll warn you that day 3 looked suspiciously like day 2, but that’s a story for another blog entry...

Spring Vacacay, v2019, Day 1

Image courtesy Opal Sands Resort, Clearwater Beach, Florida

You might recall last year’s opportunistic Spring Vacacay to Wine Country, California. That marked the only vacation I had last year. We had tentatively planned a September trip to Belarus, but it didn’t happen for various reasons. So, I had two work days off in May, a couple over the summer, two more in November (Thanksgiving), and two more in December (Christmas). Astonishingly, I’ve not had more than two work days off in a row since September, 2017.

Luckily, Tanya decided to remedy this situation. Looking around for something that would meet our immediate requirements, we planned a get-away in Clearwater Beach, Florida. It was a five-day trip, including a grand total of... (insert drum roll here):

*TWO WORK DAYS OFF!*

Wait, really? I though for sure I’d be out longer. Oh well, Monday was Memorial Day, so it still made for a really nice five-day weekend. Certainly long enough to take in the sites and sounds of Clearwater Beach, Florida!

The flight was really short: 2.5 hours max. This was good, as it was the first test of Tanya’s back on an airplane ride. It went fine, as it turns out, and the ride to the Opal Sands Resort was also easy and uneventful. Check-in was a breeze, as we arrived after the normal check-in time, and we immediately set to relaxing (after some nominal unpacking).

Made it! And what a view!

The room was fantastic. It faced west, overlooking the pool and the gulf. The waters at Clearwater Beach are clear(ish) and blue(ish), and generally quite pleasing, especially considering that this is still a part of the Gulf of Mexico. Heck, anywhere in Texas, and you’d be pretty happy with “not-quite-brown-and-completely-silt-laden” water.

The best part of the room was, by far, the balcony. As already mentioned, it overlooked the gulf and the pool. The second best part of the room was the Shrine to Sardines. Honestly, they made me want to redecorate our house.

Bad picture of GREAT picture!

The early evening after arrival was spent eating and investigating. Eating was done at Sea-guini, the restaurant built into the hotel. They make an alluring mojito as well as a mean Moscow mule variant, both of which were worth having. A walk around the grounds introduced us to the pool, finally seen from ground level instead of nine stories up. To the north was the white sand beach, now clear of almost all beach goers and related debris. It looked like a pretty fantastic place to spend the pre-dinner hours of the day, but we would have to wait until later to determine that for certain.

The poolside bar was our final stop for the night. It was vacation — nightcaps were a necessity. Tanya tried the poolside mojito, having enjoyed the dinner one so much, and I opted for a locally produced tangerine beer. My beer was excellent. Tanya’s mojito was not. Tanya enjoyed my beer. I drank the mojito.

The first day of spring vacacay was off to a smashing start! Stay tuned for the adventures from the second, and far lazier, day of Spring Vacacay!

Adventures In iPadding

Closest I'll get to the beach this week...

I recently replaced my home computer with an iPad. I can assure you that I’m as shocked about it as you are. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have a home laptop, and was severely skeptical about this idea when I first started playing with it a couple of months ago.

What could have possessed me with such a lunatic notion?

This all started when I recognized two facts:

1. The screen on my home machine (a MacBook Pro 13) was slightly icky. There’s a fairly well documented issue with the anti-reflective coating on them, but it didn’t actually affect me until after the warranty period expired. Beyond that, as I mentioned, it’s only slightly icky. The machine is completely usable, and in most cases I don’t notice anything about the screen at all. However, every now and then when I’m watching a YouTube video or sitting at just the right angle with a light behind me, I’d see little splotches of imperfection in the upper left corner or lower right of the display.
2. The things for which I actually used my home computer could all (theoretically) be done on an iPad. I’ve mentioned YouTube already, and there’s an app for that. Social media? Apps for those too. Internet browsing? Yup, apps exist. Writing and note taking? Again, apps. In fact, Scrivener (my go-to writing software) has a very well put together mobile app.

Even so, I was hesitant. It’s not like I needed a new home machine. I’ve already admitted that the current MBP13 was fine-ish — certainly fully functional. More machine than I needed, actually, as I’d moved to doing personal project programming on my work* machine.

Work* machine: a new machine for which the company paid half and I paid half but I actually own. That deal actually worked out really well for me.

Then, two other things happened.

1. I watched PubDraw and subsequently decided to pick up drawing as a new hobby. The intent was to draw on paper (and still is, to a large degree). But... if I had an iPad, I could draw using the Apple Pencil and stuff! It was an option, at least, that wasn’t surfaced in any meaningful way on my home computer.
2. Gabriel’s computer went kaput. Not just a little kaput, either. The SSD can’t be mounted, which most likely means that either there’s a legitimate hard drive failure or a motherboard issue. Either one is going to be pretty pricey to fix, and Gabriel uses his computer quite a bit for school stuff. Having to wait for a repair wouldn’t be the end of the world, but having a replacement computer ready to go would be better, if possible.

The decision was made: I would get an iPad.

So what’s it like?

I wound up getting an iPad Pro 11 with 256GB of storage and WiFi only. When I got it, it was priced at just over $900. I also got the Apple Pencil, but I did NOT get the default iPad keyboard. For one thing, it’s expensive (almost $200). For another, it wasn’t available when I placed my order. Instead, I got an IVSO keyboard, which has been really good so far. It’s backlit (although that drains its battery pretty quickly), and the keyboard itself has well-made keys that provide satisfying but not overly annoying clicks. It has a place to store the pencil and allows for recharging it without having to take the case off. And it provides a little protection as a folio, although I wouldn’t suggest throwing it on the ground to test the durability.

The Goods

Apps for everything!

As previously mentioned, there’s an app for everything I’ve wanted and needed to do. I’m most pleasantly surprised by the Microsoft Office apps. Outlook wasn’t a big surprise, as I’ve used it on my iPhone for several years now. Excel, on the other hand, is just fantastic. It works exactly as you expect it to. Word is also pretty good, although not perfect.

Good experience doing my normal things

In the first week of hard usage, I put the iPad through the paces as well as I could. The biggest test for me was Transformers Night, where I participate in a tabletop role-playing game set in the Transformers universe (from the old cartoon show, not the recent crap). The main apps I use are Evernote, Excel, and Chrome. All of that worked really well, although the Evernote app, just like most iOS apps, takes some getting used to. 

I also used Scrivener pretty extensively in preparation for our D&D game (yes, I’m involved in more than one tabletop role-playing game. You want in on this action?). The app itself is full featured and fantastic, although I missed the ability to get between two docs in different parts of the tree with a single click.

Drawing!

I’ve already mentioned this a little, but drawing on the iPad is actually quite a lot of fun. Adobe has a free version of their Illustrator app (called Adobe Draw) that provides more than I can use right now. And before you ask: yes, I’m still terrible at it. That’s ok though. I’ll improve with research and practice.

The Apple Pencil is pretty fun as well. It works exactly as advertised, pairing seamlessly, responding to double-tapping, etc. The only critique I have of it is that it loses its charge pretty quickly. Luckily, it regains it even more quickly, so it hasn’t been an issue thus far.

Games

There are at least two games that I love that aren’t really playable on the iPhone but are nearly divine on the iPad: Terraria and Final Fantasy VII. Both are complete time-sinks and totally worth it. There are also a collection of OTHER games that I used to play on my old iPad that I’d forgotten about. Dang it, now I need to find more time for games...

Miscellany

Watching videos on the iPad is good in and of itself, but I was surprised at how often Tanya and I watch clips from Stephen Colbert or Seth Meyers in bed. Doing so on this as opposed to the iPhone is very satisfying, despite the higher required dexterity. Depending on usage, I only charge the iPad once or twice a week, which is a marked difference from the computer (which I left plugged in almost all the time for some reason).

The Bads

Accessing files on cloud storage

By default, the iPad doesn’t allow you to easily access any cloud storage device except iCloud. This is unfortunate, since most of our shared files are either on a Google drive or Dropbox. Installing both of those apps helps, but still doesn’t make it easy to maintain files stored in those media. Some apps are better than others with integration, which is a life-saver. Scrivener, for example, has a Dropbox-backed location built into the app.

I understand why Apple made this decision, but it’s pretty frustrating nonetheless.

Fonts and printing

You can’t just download and install fonts from the Internet on the iPad. This was a surprise to me, the fact that there’s no default (or at least, accessible) font manager. I found a free app that seems to do the job, but it’s not very straightforward. Even after downloading and installing the font, not every app (I’m looking at you, Google Docs) will let you access them.

Printing is also slightly challenging. The convention on the iPad takes some getting used to. You have to “share” whatever it is you want to print, and then navigate the Sharing dialog until you get to the printer selection. The good news is that lots of printers support AirPrint (including ours), so the main challenge really is finding the printer selection. And, as with so many things on iPad, how you get to that area is completely up to the app.

Copy/Paste

Most apps don’t support the notion of “Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V” for copying and pasting, which is taking quite a bit of getting used to. Some apps (I’m looking at you, Microsoft Office) have special icons for copying/pasting, which is something you have to be aware of. Most of the time, using the screen’s touch-centric copy/paste features works, but becoming adept at it will continue to be challenging for me, I suspect.

App Store

Let’s face it — the App Store is simply not as nice as being able to install something from a website or from the command line. And there are quite a few things that work perfectly well in the browser on a computer that don’t work very well in the browser on the iPad (I’m looking at you, Blogger). A lot of these things have iOS apps, but they also tend to cost money. Again, annoying, as my general rule has been: if you can’t get it for free on iOS, it might not be worth getting. And yes, I know this is a ridiculous rule, and I don't even follow it, but for some reason still find myself hesitating to shell out $0.99 for an app that I will use daily for the rest of my life... I'm weird.

Verdict

Despite the Bads list above, as of this writing, I have to rate my experience with the iPad quite highly. I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything irreplaceable during the switchover. Gabriel inherited a machine that will hopefully last him a while and that he’ll leverage more heavily than I was. I spent a fair chunk of money, but not as much as I would have for an equivalent MacBook Air. I'm genuinely enjoying messing around on the iPad, and am very glad I got it!