Our massive photo-scanning project is finally finished with thousands of pictures now in digital format and carefully filed in directories. The only remaining desire we have is to persuade Chelsea’s dad to send the slides he’s got from the early 1980s so she can scan them and finally complete the family history in photos. That will be so satisfying!

Since the photos were so current in our minds, I decided to do a slideshow retrospective of Paul’s life, and since his birthday was in late August it was perfect timing. We didn’t have as many photos available as we did for Alex, but we co-opted Denise into the project, getting her to secretly email us photos from Paul’s recent ten years.

Having already done the process with Alex’s slideshow, we were much better prepared this time. Finding the songs for Paul was much easier, and we already knew how to put the system together. Chelsea was delighted though, as she got to learn the software to piece the songs together into one seamless song file. Naturally she did an awesome job.

Our lives have been so busy though, as has Paul’s life, that he still hasn’t seen the slideshow, nor does he even know we’ve done it. Since his birthday is now three months past, maybe a surprise Christmas present is better…

Our Sonic Stage project is nearly done as well. All the music is off my laptop and all that remains is for Chelsea to finish renaming the songs and get the metadata input properly. She’ll finish that up in January when she has some time. Meanwhile I’m thrilled that I now have access to some of my favorite old music.

We have a funny story here – since we both now have smartphones with excellent music players, we opted to sell our MP3 players since we need to keep gear at a minimum on the bike trip. Within a few weeks Chelsea’s second-generation iPod Nano sold for thirty dollars on Craigslist…we shipped it off to West Palm Beach.

My expensive (originally well over two hundred dollars) and beautiful 20GB candy-apple-red Sony Walkman MP3 player didn’t fare as well. No interest on Craigslist. Zero interest at our garage sale. As a last resort we put it on eBay, setting the minimum bid at fifteen dollars, wondering if it would go even at that low price.

We’d put several other items up for auction at the same time, all of them originally quite pricey, and hoped for the best. At this point, as you can well imagine, we just want things to move out of the house, and if we can get something for them, all the better.

Two items didn’t sell, and two of the five things we posted went for the minimum bid, which was fine, but to our total utter astonishment and delight, the Sony Walkman had a fierce bidding war and ending up selling for eighty-two dollars! Yes! Universe, bring me more of this!

Chelsea has steadily been finishing the DVD copying process. We need to get a software addition in order to finish two of our favorite movies, but family and friends who have heard about our project have been gifting us movies. Our latest count is over two hundred movies and favorite TV series we’ve digitized. That ought to keep us occupied for a few hours on the road at night.

Audiocassettes are another of our digitizing projects. Chelsea dug out the box of cassettes one day to see where we stand on it, to see if we need to toss them, pack them, or give them away. Much to our delight we discovered that we have a cord to connect from the cassette player to the computer, and my old computer tower has a line-in plug.

It took mere minutes to get totally into the fun of the project. I chose all the really old cassettes from the 70s and 80s and had Chelsea start with those. Jim Croce, Hap Palmer, Raffi, Christmas carols in Czech that are irreplaceable, family recordings from the late 80s, kids books on tape, Music Box Dancer Christmas…we have an absolute treasure trove we can now listen to whenever we want, snatched from the jaws of obsolescence.

The downside is that my computer died, so we have no line-in anymore, and the project has been put on hold. Perhaps before we leave we can find someone who has a tower with a line-in. If not, we’ll store the remaining tapes and wait for the future.

Last but not least, Chelsea is now down to the last round of scanning. We have only a few items from the memories boxes and all the paperwork remaining to be scanned. Of course, the paperwork alone will take weeks to finish, but Chelsea’s already cleaning out four thick binders and has her systems set for the rest.

She’s delighted, as her room is the repository for the boxes, and with every box that she scans and tosses, her room looks better and better and better.

Technology

Technology issues have slowed us down a bit lately, as we’ve had to stop our other projects and take the time to update and rearrange systems.

First was our website. Our banners across the top mysteriously disappeared one day, and though Chelsea put in hours trying to figure it out, nothing worked. She’s wanted to do a major upgrade to the website for a while now, so she took the time one weekend to settle in quietly and do the job start to finish.

She had to do backups first, then she had to upgrade our Word Press to the latest version. Since we have an extensive and somewhat complicated site, she then had to ensure that all our plug-ins and upgrades worked with each other again. Finally she had to make sure our Typekit typefaces all came through properly.

The banner problem was solved, the upgrades and interfaces all worked out, but she still has to figure out one final problem with the headers not showing properly. All things considered it’s pretty minor, especially considering the size of the project, but she’s really looking forward to having the time to solve that one last issue.

I recently switched from Firefox to Chrome, at which time Chelsea and I figured out how to get my many-years-collection of bookmarks from one browser to the other, and how to get them perfectly organized. I had also gotten all my song play lists set up on the computer, just the way I like them, along with the new browser and bookmarks. I was on cloud nine.

Then came the day my computer died, quietly refusing to turn on anymore.

That meant switching over to my laptop, setting up the new browser again, getting my bookmarks transferred again (it was not easy and straightforward), and setting up my play lists all over again. Deep, deep sigh…

Then I discovered the printer would no longer work with the laptop, so there went more time trying to get it solved.

Adding insult to injury, I had photos and music on the two hard drives in the old computer, which I now could not access.

Since I’ve discovered that stressing doesn’t help, I decided to leave it be for a while till I could think things though. Sure enough, a brilliant solution came to me after a few weeks.

Lying awake late one night, I remembered that we had two external hard drives we’d purchased in 2005. We’d wiped them clean when we got our portable drives and we’d given them to Alex. Alex wasn’t using them, so we reclaimed them.

The solution was simple and free. We opened my computer, took out the hard drives, opened the cases on our external hard drives, and replaced the former hard drives with the hard drives from my tower. Voila! I had instant access to all my data, including my music and photos.

It took a number of hours to accomplish all these tasks, but I’m happy to report that all is now well. I’m up and running and everything is perfect.

The only ongoing downsides are that we no longer have a line-in for the cassette project, and our movie-watching system is now more complicated. Instead of just moving my monitor and speakers out to the front room when we want to relax and watch a favorite movie, I now have to plug and unplug speakers, monitor and laptop. It’s awkward, but hey, it works.

Our options were severely limited in finding new homes for them. Alex’s girlfriend Amanda is very allergic to cats so they couldn’t take Cassie and Sasha. Paul’s family already has a dog and a cat. We talked to neighbors, but ours is a very cat-heavy neighborhood, and no one had room.

Shelters are full to capacity these days with all the animals being left behind from foreclosures. Most shelters never even returned my calls. So we got our information together, chose some wonderful photos of each cat, and posted on Craigslist, amidst dozens of other postings.

Amazingly enough we got a response on each cat the very next morning. We wrote back, got the information, and looked up the addresses on Google street view. We cried. We just couldn’t see our cats going to a physical situation like that, especially since they have such a perfect situation here.

The good news is that we were spared the decision, because after saying yes initially, each of the two respondents backed out within a few days.

Then a week later we got another email. The new person called us to talk things over, and within two hours she was at the house. Patti admitted that when she saw Cassie’s photo she knew immediately that Cassie was the cat she wanted. We fell in love with Patti, and even Cassie got calm when Patti arrived (Cassie was utterly insulted and annoyed at being stuck in a cat carrier).

Life was so different without Cassie! She was more my cat; we had bonded very deeply from the beginning. She’d spend hours on the couch next to me, snoring away while I’d read at night, and keeping the couch occupied when I was otherwise busy. Life seemed much, much emptier.

It was such a relief to have one cat find a wonderful home, but we still had another cat. We started putting the word out everywhere, with no results. Meanwhile we were getting email responses through Craigslist from animal rights activists, telling us what we were doing was so wrong, detailing all the abuses poor innocent animals are subjected to when they are given away like this. Very helpful and very uplifting.

Two weeks went by.

I finally remembered that we had met a lovely woman in the spring through Freecycle. She’s a cat lover, and had come to pick up our Lillian Jackson Braun “Cat Who” series in paperback. We’d spent a few hours talking, and she met our cats. On a hunch, I emailed her again and told her about Sasha. She responded immediately and posted the ad on her Facebook page.

So help me, we had an email the next day, and Sasha had a new home four days later (the new family also told us that they knew when they saw Sasha’s photos that they wanted her specifically).

We’ve heard from each family several times and each family has reported that they love their respective cat and that each cat is very happy. We are thrilled, needless to say, especially after how much we agonized over having to leave them.

Meanwhile I still hear phantom cat doors opening and closing. I round a corner and expect to see Cassie. I’m sure Sasha is chasing a lizard on the porch. I toss a shirt on the bed, then catch it mid-air knowing that’s where the cat hair is, right there on that corner.

It’s hard to express how much love and laughter and joy those two little kitties brought into our lives.

Though the immediacy of missing them has faded some over the last two months, I still get teary easily when I think of them. I had to change my Picasa screensaver to not use photos of the cats because it’s still too painful to see them in living color meandering across my screen.

But life moves on, and we are moving on. We know both cats are in wonderful situations where they are loved. We can’t do better than that.

Now that the cats are gone, it’s more real than ever that we are tossing over all we know and love in exchange for years on the road on bicycles. Wow. The cats are gone. Now it’s real.

As time goes by though, the decisions get tougher and tougher, and certainly more emotional. We’ve left all our favorite things to the last, so now each decision is more acute, and often more painful.

What about that favorite coffee table we brought back from the castle when we lived in the Czech Republic? It faithfully held our television and DVD player for years, and it’s connected to one of the most wonderful times in our lives.

What about some of our favorite lamps? What about those gorgeous Mountain Hard Wear sweaters? The antique nightstands from the castle? The expensive juicer that made such a difference in our health? The huge desk I’ve had for seven years, the one that’s so efficient and useful? The kitchen table that’s so low profile and easy to clean, with its cheery pine top?

The memories are wonderful.

Once we sell our belongings, it’s permanent, there’s no going back, they’re gone forever. Do we really want to do this?

Every decision is both a walk down memory lane, and a concerted effort to project into the future. What will our lives look like in five years, ten years, after bicycling the world? What will we be like? Will we ever be able to replace some of these things? Will we want to? Is the discomfort of losing these just temporary, or will we always regret it? What incredible new things may be out there for us to discover?

We don’t have the answers to these questions, so we hang on through the emotional roller coaster ride and make decisions, agreeing that we won’t sink into regrets.

The whole process has made us look at ourselves, and our lives, in excruciating detail. As we strip our physical lives down to the essentials, we are stripping our emotional lives down to the essentials. We’ve been forced daily to look at who we are and who we want to be, in a way that would never have happened had we stayed here.

It’s both exhausting and exhilarating.

This is a huge, life-changing project. We’ve had to keep all the details in order and do them properly, but we also have to keep the big picture in sight and make sure we’re moving in the right direction and that everything keeps flowing smoothly – no big fits and starts and chaotic stress. We’re at the worst stage of the process now, where we’re tired and definitely on the edge of burnout, but not yet close enough to the end where we can kick back and relax.

Way back last April I wrote to Chelsea in California, “I want to be out doing things, like on our trip, instead of being in the house doing all this. I think I’m burning out on all these projects, so we better get them done fast, or think of a way to make them be fun again…it’s been too long doing the same sorts of things and feeling kinda under pressure about it all.”

That was seven months ago, and we still have an intense three months to go. We’ve decided that an unhappy journey won’t have a happy ending, so we are always looking at ways to keep our attitudes up. We want to approach the challenges with joy and laughter, not grim determination.

We look for small ways to have fun, and we make a habit of listing all the positive aspects of things, whether it’s about how far we’ve come, or how much fun it’s been to meet so many folks through the sales, or how much we’re learning. There are days, though, where we just need to quit early, make popcorn and a protein shake, and kick back and watch movies.

On the upside, cleaning house is significantly easier with so little in the house. The rooms look bigger and we swear it’s easier to think without so much “stuff” and with more open space. We’ve gotten enough cash through the steady sales of items to pay bills and buy food, and we have a clear sense of getting so much closer to our goals.

As we get through the emotional impact of closing everything out and minimizing our lives in every way, we’re realizing an increasing sense of freedom with the thought of soon having nothing to worry about and nothing to take care of except our immediate trip needs.

Thirty years of very full and busy professional and personal lives will soon be reduced to a vanload of personal belongings.

Think of the freedom we have to create our lives in whatever way we like…

We’d gone from five years of living in eight-hundred-square-foot apartments to suddenly living in a three-thousand-square-foot section of a thousand-year-old castle. We had plenty of room to spare. We happily visited the Brno antique/vintage shops, and over a few visits, picked out some favorite pieces.

Each piece filled a special need, and each piece was much appreciated and much used in our daily lives, from the mirror stand in the bathroom that held our towels and spare toilet paper, the oversized wood hutch that held all our collections, the dressing table and nightstands in Chelsea’s room, the hutch in the living room that held our newly acquired collection of very old Bohemia crystal, the beautiful European oak writing table in my room, to the capacious sideboard in our kitchen that held all our dishes, silverware, glassware, and pots and pans.

We loved them so much that we made arrangements to bring them back to the US when we relocated to Florida. Exporting furniture was not allowed – the only reason we were able to bring them over here to the US was because we had lived in the Czech Republic so long that the pieces of furniture were considered household goods.

Fast forward to present day… We still have the furniture, and we still love it, but we are going to be storing whatever we keep for at least ten years. Is it worth the cost for the increase in storage costs to keep these pieces? Will we still want the dark European style furniture in ten years? Would we benefit more from selling it now, raising some much needed cash and reducing our storage costs?

After literally months of seesawing back and forth, we finally came to the decision to sell. As if making the decision wasn’t bad enough, now we had to figure out how to price each piece and see if we could get an appraisal. We had to empty all the pieces (we use them heavily) and create new systems to deal with the contents.

Emptying the contents, cleaning them up, taking the photos, measuring them carefully and noting their current condition in detail, then writing the ad including the history, took absolutely forever. It was hours of time. That didn’t include researching prices.

Since no furniture was allowed to be exported, there are no comparable items. I spent hours online looking for anything, anything at all. I finally simply picked a price based on what the piece of furniture would sell for without its age and history, and added a premium for the antique value. I’m definitely not an antiques specialist, so I didn’t really know if I was right, and I couldn’t even give the provenance for any but two of the pieces.

We finally posted the pieces on Craigslist, with a link to an online photo album, and I got busy writing a letter on the pieces to as many local antique/consignment shops as I could find. The answers came back no in every case. Either they weren’t high-end enough, or they were too high-end.

Remember our final garage sale? In preparation for it, we moved all the clean and empty furniture into our living room, turning it into a temporary antique showroom. We then posted a big sign on our ‘for sale’ sign in front, “Ask about our antique furniture”. Early in the day we discovered that one of the garage sale regulars is an antiques appraiser.

He came by a few days later and graciously gave us his best estimate of the age and selling price. Chelsea and I were fascinated watching him. What a professional! He could eyeball a piece and estimate its age. He knew what dings and cracks made a difference and what did not. He even had a nifty little gadget with which he could look into the locks on the pieces and give a closer estimate of age.

We came away from the session with a much better understanding of the provenance and current value of our furniture. In most cases I had been amazingly accurate, though a bit high. He also gave us a reliable lead for a local auction house.

Sigh… it would appear that the economy is so bad that there is no market for our furniture. Very, very high-end items are selling, but the medium range is not selling, especially in the heavier and darker European style, and especially here in South Florida.

We did sell a set of nightstands, the infamous crystal cabinet, and Chelsea’s dressing table set. The buyers in each sale were thrilled. Meanwhile we still have our antiques showroom in the living room, with no idea what to do. Do we store them for a year or two and hope the market improves and come back somehow to try to sell them? Do we try to move them at absolutely dismal prices?

We have no idea. While we await inspiration, we are concentrating on finishing off the scanning and on writing the books that need writing. Who knows, maybe someone will find them on Craigslist and fall in love. We’ve also thought about posting them on eBay, but that brings its own whole set of challenges, and we aren’t ready for that yet.

We’re open for ideas!

We’ve learned that Priority Mail is the best bet, so Chelsea bicycled up one day and brought a collection of boxes home, to save aggravation and time.

Once we’ve packed the box we need to weigh it, then go online to the post office website and estimate the postage. Normally we’ve done all this before we ever post the ad so we can tell the buyer right away what postage costs will be. When the buyer has paid we still have to print out a shipping label and get to the post office.

CrazyGuy isn’t so bad – it’s a really nice group of people. The buyer goes on our website, pays on PayPal, we get the notification, we print the label and head for the post office. We only lose the three or four percent that PayPal charges us.

eBay is another story. We posted several items a few weeks ago, figuring that the nine percent they take would be worth it if we actually sell the posted items. Chelsea worked her way through the whole process of posting the ads, dealing with all the changes one by one.

Three of four items sold, so we were happy. We got everything ready to go, checked my phone to make sure the money was in our PayPal account, and headed off to the post office on our bikes.

I stayed in the lobby keeping an eye on the bikes while Chelsea braved the line. Suddenly she was waving at me frantically. “It refused our card!” she hissed at me. I got on my phone immediately and saw that the money was there, but as I scrolled around the little mini screen, I saw that they had a hold on the funds!

We had only brought our PayPal card to the post office, so we were completely stuck. We clearly weren’t going to solve it right there, so we put the packages back on the bikes and headed home.

How many of you read all the policy updates your bank sends you? How about reading your cell phone company policy updates? Right. I don’t either. Therefore I didn’t read the updates on the eBay policies that came through last April. I wasn’t going to need eBay, so why bother? Oops. Bad idea.

It turns out that eBay has dramatically changed its policies, not just its fees and posting procedures. Even though I have been a member since January 2003, and I have a 100% satisfaction rating in both buying and selling, I do not have twenty-five sales yet. That means until I have a successful twenty-five sales, eBay/PayPal will now hold my money for up to three weeks.

I am never one to take things sitting down, so I went on eBay and PayPal and researched my heart out. I discovered that I could print the shipping labels through eBay and the shipping fees would be released as soon as the package had a tracking number. Then they’d release the remaining funds in three to five days if the package was delivered and the buyer left positive feedback; longer if no feedback was left.

Are you tired and confused yet?

I understand the reasons for the changes, as they want to protect the buyers, but that meant our money was held up until the buyer got around to leaving feedback, or else we waited even longer for the release of funds.

I’d like to say it was quick and easy once we understood the system with eBay and PayPal, but that wouldn’t be true. They released the funds on one of the shipments but not the other, even though the second one had actually arrived before the first one, and the buyer had left immediate glowing reviews. That meant time on the phone with eBay, whose customer service rep apologized and released the funds, but who told me I then had to call PayPal.

The PayPal representative apparently had no simple way to check with eBay, even though eBay owns PayPal, so he had to type in the tracking number. He input the number incorrectly so of course there was no record of the shipment. After ten minutes of discussion, I told him patiently that it looked as though their system was broken, and I was caught in a Catch-22.

He finally called eBay directly, and voila, my funds were released in seconds.

We are nothing if not clever, so on our next round of eBay listings we were prepared. But I was confident too soon. Three of our five items sold; we had the labels and timing down. We understood the system, and we worked it properly. Imagine my horror though, when I discovered that the buyer of our most expensive item lives in Hong Kong!

Let’s just skip to the almost-end of this story and say the saga isn’t over yet. Communication is painfully slow with the buyer. There was an error in calculating the shipping so I’m going to lose twenty dollars on it. I can either lose the twenty dollars, or wait until December 20th and ship to a location in San Francisco, if I can talk the buyer into giving me a US address. After the shipping I still have to wait a week or more for the funds to be released.

Bottom line? I will net less than fifty percent of the original sales and shipping price and will have waited nearly a month (or even two) to get my money.

(Update: I finally got so frustrated that I spent twenty minutes on the phone with eBay and found out I could cancel the sale. I worked my way through the system, refunded the buyer’s money and let him know I wanted to cancel. It took another week, but we reposted the item, with clear instructions in our ad that we expected payment within forty-eight hours and we don’t do international shipping under any circumstances. It sold, the buyer paid within an hour and we got it out in the mail the next day.)

We have certainly learned a great deal about domestic shipping, international shipping, the vagaries of human nature, and the policies of eBay and PayPal.

I can’t wait for it all to be over.

The house is so empty it looks like some of the hostels we’ve stayed in over the years – there’s enough to cover the basics, but there’s a feeling of emptiness and the rooms echo. There’s no life or personality left.

We do have furniture, but what’s left is the junk stuff that’s going to the curb on closing day, or it’s the ‘higher end’ antique furniture we have for sale. The only things remaining in the closets and cabinets are items that will be packed at the last minute and put into storage.

In late August I reached my limit with seeing the FreeCycle items stacked up near the front door (yes, I admit, I got downright cranky) so I spent a long morning writing the ads to post the items. Much to our amazement and delight, every item was picked up in six hours.

That seemed to renew the energy around getting things out the door. We finished corralling and cleaning all our yard and shed items and posted ads for them; we combed through all our remaining furniture and cabinets, cataloguing items and postings ads; we looked at smaller pieces of furniture we thought we’d be willing to sell and posted ads; we took another look at clothing and posted a few more items.

On a gorgeous, windy and cool sunny Saturday in September we held our final, final, final garage sale, talked into it by two neighbors who were each having a yard sale. The weather was so beautiful that sitting outside quietly was a welcome break, and we had so few items to sell that we weren’t busy. We did well though, since the items were all “higher end”, so even though we sold only a few items, we made as much as we did in our prior yard sales.

We posted some last minute things on CrazyGuyOnABike a month or so ago, finally shipping off the last items yesterday.

Craigslist still has quite a collection of our ads, but they are all smaller items now (except for the antique furniture), and if we have to FreeCycle them we won’t be heartbroken.

We’ve had so many items posted on Craigslist over the last few months that it’s become a game when Chelsea’s phone lets her know there’s a message. We both perk up, looking interestedly at each other, guessing, “It’s someone who wants the…juicer! No…the… kitchen hutch! Hey, maybe someone wants the sideboard!”

We’re thrilled when it’s a response to an ad; not so excited when it’s only a notification of a Facebook posting or Barnes and Noble offering us a good deal on the latest best sellers.

Working the selling system

Perhaps the toughest part of selling, and what wears us out the most, is the work necessary to sell the items.

It didn’t take long to figure out that writing a great ad brings in sales much faster than a flat, dry ad, and the items have to be priced correctly. The ad has to be lively, friendly, and informative. That means we have to accurately describe everything, figure out a decent price, have good photos, and write the ad in an easy-to-read style.

Sounds straightforward, right? It is. But the time needed to accurately describe the things we are selling is absolutely amazing (what is it? what does it do? what condition is it in? what size is it?). Then we need to research online to find out what other similar items are selling for so we can decide how to price it to sell quickly. That’s another big time sink.

Before we can post it, we need to take decent photos. Somehow it’s always a total pain in the patooty. The size looks off; the colors just aren’t right; it’s fuzzy and who knows why since the others were clear. Grrr…. Then there’s a limit on the number of photos, so each photo has to be very descriptive. (We finally figured out a clever way around the photo limits – we did collages of two to four photos in one, so we could get up to eight photos in only two that are allowed; very proud of ourselves on that one.)

After all the prep work Chelsea posts everything, sometimes in several places. Then if things go as planned, we have to handle phone calls and emails from buyers.

Some of the buyers are total sweethearts, others are clueless. Some write and say, “I want it, I’ll be there in an hour”. Others write back and forth for three days, make an appointment to come and see it, saying they are going to buy, and never show up, ne’er to be heard from again. Still others write back and forth, and after missing several appointments without explanation, finally show up and buy.

After things sell, we have to go on each location and mark the ads as sold.

It’s enough to make a sane person crazy.

One thing we have enjoyed is meeting the characters from FreeCycle and Craigslist. The overwhelming preponderance of them have been incredibly nice.

I sold my older Oakley sunglasses, thinking it was really a long shot that I’d get anything.
The morning the ad came out we got a call from a guy who said he’d be here in a few hours. Sure enough, a thirty-something professional guy sailed in, talked almost non-stop about Oakleys, handed over the money, and sailed out.

I couldn’t believe how knowledgeable he is about Oakleys. I learned some good tips, like the fact that some sunscreens and bug sprays will pit the surface of the lenses badly, so special care needs to be taken to keep them away from the lenses. Now I know what happened to my old lenses…

Again, wondering who on earth would want a hundred-year-old pair of plain nightstands, we got an email from a guy who popped in only an hour or two after getting in touch with us, looked them over for three minutes, said, “I have been diligently looking for exactly this for over eight months”, paid, and walked them out to his car. He was a professional photographer, and gave us good tips about cameras, answering some questions we had.

A truly delightful lady from a local brain injury institute bought my LL Bean soft shell jacket. We spent at least a half hour talking about various subjects, especially telling her about Chelsea’s incredible recovery from her brain injury.

Luis and Luiz are from Peru and Brazil, respectively; they bought an old couch we had. They asked if we would sell it for ten dollars less than advertised, but I told them we need the money for food and bills till we finish writing and some income kicks in, so they gave us five dollars over the sales price, and we then talked about South America for almost two hours.

My oversized desk went to a young couple from Miami. I’d been wondering who would want such a big desk, despite how efficient it is, but it turns out the guy edits film professionally, so the extra space is invaluable to him for the extra monitors he needs. I was thrilled; he was thrilled. Plus, he gave me some incredible tips on what video cameras to get.

Our kitchen table went to a woman who runs a well-respected yoga center in Fort Lauderdale. She’s also opening a new shop for “Books and Fabulous Finds for Food Lovers” called The Thousand Pound Egg. You can check out their Facebook page. Karen needed the table for displays in her new shop.

One of the funniest deals we did was with a guy who wrote that he was interested in our coffee table from the Czech Republic. He simply wrote, “Interested in…” and gave his number. When I called and identified myself he said, with no introduction or prelude, “I’ll offer thirty dollars.” I told him, no, wasn’t worth it to me for that, but I’d take fifty. He said, “Okay, I’ll have a guy there today or tomorrow”.

Turns out he owns a home in the Bahamas which was recently ruined in one of the hurricanes. He had just discovered Craigslist and was like a kid in a candy store. His primary home is in Tampa/Clearwater, so he sat on the phone calling on ads, then lined up a buddy of his in this area to drive around and pick up what he’d bought, then drive the goods to the port of Miami, where they would be shipped across to the Bahamas.

The guys showed up here as promised. Two young guys carried the table out to the rented truck while the “boss” handwrote a receipt for me to sign. They were in and out in five minutes, leaving us laughing.

Then there was the twenty-something guy who bought our two-burner propane stove and was thrilled, wanting to use it the next day. Early the next morning he was on email to Chelsea telling her a piece was missing and would we look for it. We felt terrible of course, but finding the mysterious missing part would be like a needle in a haystack, especially since the last time we used the stove was at a campground in northern California in September 2006.

After a few go-arounds, with us feeling increasingly discouraged, he wrote back and said, “Oops, I should have just tried it. It works perfectly, thanks.”

Perhaps the funniest of all were the two guys who bought our crystal cabinet. After going back and forth by email, we finally agreed on a price. They set Monday to come pick it up; Chelsea made sure as usual to give the address and to ask if they needed directions or if they’d use a GPS.

Monday arrived and we waited all day to hear from them. Mind you, they were driving from Fort Meyers, which is on Florida’s west coast, at least a three-hour drive from here. Finally, about four in the afternoon, they sent Chelsea a text message asking for directions from I75. We looked at each other in astonishment. They had apparently just gotten on the road and had no directions and no smart phone and no GPS.

Have you ever tried sending complicated and lengthy travel directions by text message? Email maybe, but text message? It’s a good thing we have a generous text message allowance on our phone plan.

It was close to seven at night before they pulled up in our driveway, well after dark (remember, they still had a three-hour drive back). It was a short but memorable visit.

They didn’t know how to carry furniture; they tried to give us fifty dollars less than the agreed price (we were having none of that); the little mini-pickup truck was too small to properly fit the cabinet; the blankets they had brought to cover the cabinet had gotten soaked in a rainstorm on the way over; and they fought constantly and emotionally about what to do and how to do it.

To ease the move, we agreed to swap their soaking wet bedspread (I walked it straight out to the washer) for an old sheet and bed-pad we had. We kept track of the volume of things they were pulling out of the truck and leaving randomly on the side. We carried out the shelves and the glass doors and made sure they were in bubble wrap. When we weren’t busy with all that, we spent the time watching with wide eyes, trying to stifle our giggles.

Our favorite though, was when they pulled a tarp from the back of the truck bed in preparation for covering the cabinet for the three-hour ride back across the state. That sucker was huge! I’d bet it would have covered most of our roof.

Trying to get it unwound and shaken out and refolded (and yes, it too was damp) required all four of us and steady directions from me: “Back up, back up, farther…watch the planter bed! Grab that side…good…fold this way, fold toward the center…hang on tightly everyone! Hang on to your corners; now shake hard…let’s get this thing tight and folded again…one more fold…”

By the time they left all we could think was that we’d done what we could, we were proud to have insisted on our price, and we wished them all the luck in the world in getting back home. We are still giggling.

Now where else could we have so much fun, staying at home, meeting such an incredible variety of people, learning so much about local resources, and discovering new and useful bits of information?

Ahhh, the unsung perks of downsizing…

As you probably know by now, Chelsea and I infinitely prefer all natural foods with as few additives and preservatives and as little processing as possible. These entries qualify.

Mrs. May’s Trio Bars

We found these gems in Costco one day on our never-ending hunt for the perfect energy bar for our rides. Along with Cascadian Farms granola bars, these made the short list. We do confess to a preference for these, though. They are one of the least expensive bars we’ve run across, and we love the taste.

Made up of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit, they’ve got cane juice and sea salt added. We get the variety pack, which means we get cranberry, tropical, strawberry, and blueberry (tropical is our least favorite – we don’t like the mango/papaya in it – but it’s not bad at all).

While those folks who have nut allergies will have to be careful, these bars are vegan, kosher, wheat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, non GMO, and have no trans fats, no additives, no preservatives, and no cholesterol.

It’s like eating our favorite trail mix in a bar. They go down easily, digest easily, and don’t come back up unpleasantly after hard riding in high heat.

The Trio Bars are made in China, but in a strictly controlled, company owned facility. If you are concerned about these bars not being made in the US, here’s a web link with more information. http://www.healthattack.net.au/product_notes.php

50 Cent All Natural Homemade Energy Gel

I have no idea how I happened to run across this next recipe, but I’m sure glad I did. It’s an attempt by the author of the blog to create the nutritional approximation of an energy bar, but at a fraction of the cost. After looking at the ingredients in many bars, she came up with this, and figured out that the cost was approximately fifty cents per serving; therefore the name 50 Cent All Natural Homemade Energy Gel.

Lest you think I created this myself, I want to give the creator full credit. Here’s a link to a nice blog…you should check it out as she (Angela) has a number of other recipes as well.

http://ohsheglows.com/2009/08/30/50-cent-all-natural-homemade-energy-gel/

Ingredients:
About 2 tablespoons organic brown rice syrup
1 tablespoon carob powder
tiny pinch of sea salt

We double the recipe and mix the ingredients in a measuring cup and stir it with a spoon, then transfer to a small storage container. While Angela uses it in a small Ziploc and cuts the edge to suck it out as an energy gel, that looked awkward to us for our purposes, though we may end up trying it.

The taste is very chocolaty and quite strong. We didn’t really like it too well taking it straight, so we use a rice cake with a light layer of almond butter, topped with a layer of the 50 Cent Gel. It’s really tasty and one rice cake lasts us for at least nineteen miles of riding before we need to eat again.

We first used it only for our early morning pre-ride meals, but they go down so easily and are so tasty and quick to make and eat, that we now use it when our energy is flagging at other times of the day when we want an easily digestible quick pick-me-up.

Cayenne ginger energy drink

My apologies to the creator of this one – I found this heaven knows where, and can’t give references. If anyone knows who created this recipe please let me know and I’ll give credit immediately.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon of finely mined ginger (it’s best if it’s really finely minced)
1/8 teaspoon of cayenne
2 squeezes of lemon
A shot of stevia or agave nectar
Optional – a shot of juice (preferably pineapple)
Water – we prefer salt-free seltzer water; we like the liveliness of the fizz.

We mince the ginger ahead of time and make up a double batch of this recipe up to the point of adding the water. Simply stir all ingredients together and put it in a small glass jar with a lid. When you’re ready to drink it, pour a bit of the mixture out into a glass and add water.

If you’re not a fan of ginger, this drink is not for you. We love ginger, but even I will admit to puckering intensely when I get to the bottom of the drink and I’m left with chunks of ginger. I just “suck it up” and start chewing fast, holding the last of the fizzy water in my mouth while I chew, but you can take a rinse with more water and drink it down without chewing. The pineapple juice really adds a mellow flavor and softens the impact of the ginger and cayenne.

We find this to be an amazing energy boost with no spikes or let-downs. The first day we used it we were dragging close to the ground with fatigue, but we really, really wanted to finish a project we had underway. We took the time to make and drink this, and two hours later we realized we’d just gone two hours with no effort.

Two of the best parts of this recipe are the low-budget aspect and the easy access to the ingredients. No specialty stores needed here… This is one we can make on our trip since ginger, cayenne and lemon are widely available. We’ll just get a small bottle of stevia and carry it with us.

Ginger Lemonade – Electrolyte Ginger Ale

This is another favorite, but getting the coconut water is a bit harder and a bit more expensive. Yes, if you have the budget, the coconut water has amazing nutritional value. We really liked this lemonade; when we made it we’d put it in a small bottle and bring some with us on our training rides. That was awkward and the taste clashed with our food, so we stuck to having it before and after our rides, or as a pick-me-up during the day.

Here’s my source on this recipe: http://never-without.blogspot.com/2010/06/vegan-marathon-training-natural-energy.html. The author credits Brendan Brazier’s book Thrive for many of his recipes. I’ve included the recipe and directions verbatim.

Ingredients:
1 lemon
2 cups coconut water
1 tablespoon agave nectar
1/2 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
sea salt to taste

Directions: Squeeze the juice of the lemon in a blender. Add coconut water, agave nectar, ginger, and sea salt; blend. Keep refrigerated for up to 2 weeks. Makes about 2 cups. Brendan notes that “because of the combination of raw lemon and ginger, this drink helps raise the body’s pH and reduces inflammation.” One of my favorite additions to this drink, is a splash of pineapple juice.

Thrive Lemon-Lime Gel

We tried this recipe but we made only one batch and decided to pass on making any more of it. We found that we didn’t really like the taste; for some reason it made us feel queasy eating it, and we did not like the way we felt after using it (slightly nauseous). Everyone reacts differently, however, and this recipe certainly has good nutritional value.

This one is also from the same source as the Ginger Lemonade – Electrolyte Ginger Ale
http://never-without.blogspot.com/2010/06/vegan-marathon-training-natural-energy.html
And again, I am posting the recipe verbatim from the blog.

Ingredients:
4 dates
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon lime zest
2 teaspoons lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon dulse
sea salt to taste

Directions: In a blender, combine all ingredients; process until blend reaches a gel-like consistency. Makes about 3/4 cup. – Keeps for about 3 days in the fridge but IS BEST when it’s consumed fresh.

Grits

For a complete change of pace here, I thought I’d include one of our favorite breakfasts. After several years of almost daily doses of instant oatmeal, Chelsea and I cannot eat oatmeal any longer. We’ve tried, but we both start gagging, and we’ve finally acknowledged that oatmeal for us is a thing of the past.

So if we are that against oatmeal now, what can we possibly use for quick breakfasts? After all, oatmeal is reasonably nutritious, can be made quickly, and lasts quite awhile. Enter grits.

While probably not quite as nutritious as oatmeal, it’s not bad at all, especially if we add some extras. For those who like detail, here’s a link that gives detailed nutritional information on grits. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/breakfast-cereals/1633/2

We knew about grits, and we’d had them occasionally throughout our travels, but it wasn’t until Jo Ann, our much-loved hostess in Oak Grove LA, back in spring of 2009, served them to us in the Louisiana style that we discovered how truly great they could taste.

When we arrived back in Florida we started buying quick-cook grits. Over the last months we’ve become very fond of them. They are quick-cook, they digest really well, they stick with us, and they are wonderful with our flavor and nutritional add-ons.

Grits can be dressed up and can go the direction of either savory or sweet. We use chopped pecans, grated high quality chocolate, and dried cranberries if we are in the mood for sweet. If we are in the mood for savory we use grated cheese and bacon bits (all natural real bacon).

We’ll be carrying grits with us when we leave, and who knows, we may ask our family to bring us more when they come to visit us. Meanwhile we’re thoroughly enjoying them.

If you’re going to have an e-reader, you’ll need a case for sure, unless you rarely read and then only at home. I had quite an education doing the research on cases. The same holds true with having a light to read at night.

M-edge Latitude cases

What a find these were! I searched high and low for the right cover for us, since I know we need something really durable that will protect the Kindle from dirt, grit, dust, and shocks from living on the road.

The M-Edge Latitude fills the need.

It’s a got a two-way zipper with very nice pull-tabs, which makes it easy to charge the Kindle without having to remove it from the case. The Kindle fits inside easily, held in place by four corner straps; none of the functioning is compromised. The inside cover is a nice, smooth, soft, flannel-felt-fleece type of fabric – very easy on the Kindle.

The outside cover is made of easy-clean ballistic nylon, is very stiff and very sturdy, and comes in a variety of bright colors. For us the bright colors are a big advantage, as we want to find the Kindles quickly in our packs, and we want to easily differentiate Chelsea’s from mine.

We have the cases on our Kindles all the time – we never take them off. It’s very easy to read with them on, and we never have worries about fingerprints, dirt and so on getting on the device. We just fold the cover back on itself and read. It’s quite comfortable and we can get several positions to hold our hands.

The front has a zipper compartment for the charger. I’ve always had my charger plugged into a power strip, but in the interests of giving you decent information I just went and tucked the charger into the compartment. It does hold the charger easily, but it also bulges out both against the Kindle inside and on the top, outside. I’d be concerned about damage to the Kindle if the case itself wasn’t so stiff.

I plan on using it this way for awhile now to see how I like it. I’ll keep you updated on what I think. For us it might be an advantage, as I don’t want to have to go looking through our packs to find my charger when I need it, but on the other hand, the battery only needs charging every week or two (every month for the new Nook). It’s a tradeoff with having the easy immediate access to the charger and USB cord versus having to deal with an awkward bulge in the case all the time.

(Update: I used the Kindle with the charger in the outer pocket for several weeks, but found it annoying. For now I leave it plugged in to a power strip as I prefer the M-edge without it. I will, however, keep the charger in it for our travels.)

The back of the case has a compartment-type space that is very tight, especially with the charger tucked in the front. I can’t see much use for it – the only thing that would fit would be something like a business card.

The back has another space that is designed for the M-Edge e-Luminator Booklight if you want a light that goes with it.

We chose not to use that light, as some of the issues with it are the same issues we’ve had with other book lights over the years. We chose Huglights instead (see below), as they are multi-functional (to repeat a common theme for us). I also wonder if the e-Luminator light would still fit in that tight space if the charger is tucked in the front.

One case I found the other day is the M-Edge Latitude w/ integrated Theater-Stand, meaning you can set it to stand upright to read while eating or the like. I’d want to look at it more, but it looks pretty compelling. I’d still want all the features of our current Latitude.

And finally, since we may very well switch to the Nook Simple Touch, I looked to see if M-Edge has an updated case specifically for the new Nook. I found it, but I had to go right to the M-Edge website – no one else carries it yet, though I read rumors that Best Buy will start carrying more Simple Touch accessories soon. So far it’s only in three colors – it’s got my color, but Chelsea is disappointed that her gorgeous hot-pink color isn’t out yet.

Whatever you do, make sure to get a case that is specifically designed to fit your e-reader. Some of the advertising says that the cases fit specific models, but when you read the reviews, you realize that’s not true.

Huglights

We’ve tried a number of book lights over the years, and have been unhappy with most of them for a number of reasons. The light is too bright or too dim (mostly too dim); the light doesn’t adequately cover the page, requiring constant adjustments; they keep falling off the book; the batteries run out astonishingly fast; they are extremely awkward to use; they have difficulties with the on/off switch; they are flimsy.

Having a fair amount of experience with book lights, therefore, I was cautious about spending money on something we’d be frustrated with soon. I found the Huglights on Amazon, made the jump and bought them, and we love them.

I noticed that the Huglights are from a variety of sources; the following link is where we got them (it’s worth reading the reviews on this one, too). http://www.amazon.com/Twist-Hands-Flexible-Light-Green/dp/B003QSIIAC/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

These lights are very clever. They are a longish strand of rubbery-foam covering a twisty strand of something (probably a thick wire). At the mid-point of the twisty wire is a piece of plastic housing that acts like a grip for holding the wire and doubles as the battery housing. It takes two AAA batteries.

At each end is an LED light (two bulbs) with three settings, low, high, and spotlight; the on-off switch is at each end. They’ve also got a small plastic clip that hooks each side together to get a wider range of focused light.

We find these lights to be great. They slip over your neck, with the gripper part going against the back of your neck. Each end can be twisted any direction you like, so if glare is a problem, slightly angle it away, and presto, no more glare. I find that when I’m reading at night in the pitch black I only need the first setting on one of the ends – that’s plenty of light for reading.

Reading with them while lying down requires adjusting the pillows a bit so the battery case doesn’t crick your neck.

If I have them around my neck and I’m working on something, I need to have the ends clipped together or the light moves around too much, creating annoying shadows. The clip stabilizes the movement and focuses the light more effectively.

You can put the strand against the back of your neck and wrap the lights over your ears for hands-free work on something. We can also wrap the Huglights through our helmets with the LED ends sticking out front to act as riding lights. (It looks hilarious – I told Chelsea we look like space aliens– I’ll be the Green Hornet and she can be Snake Eyes.) We’ve also thought of wrapping them around our handlebars for more front light, but haven’t done that yet.

In short, these lights are great for reading, but they are also extremely useful around the house (or campsite) for hands-free work. I use them to shine in dark spaces to find things, at night when I’m hunting down palmetto bugs in my room, and to light my way into the other rooms when I’m up at night. They will be equally useful on our trip for a wide variety of things, acting like our headlamps do, without the annoyances of the headlamps. They are lightweight, by the way, and can slip into odd spaces in our packs.

We’re very pleased with them and consider them a great addition to our trip gear.

Once you’ve got your e-reader, how do you find books for it? At first we simply logged onto Amazon and looked for books. I could see in a heartbeat that we definitely did not have the budget for buying books, not at the rate we read, so I checked out the free books on Amazon. It became obvious immediately that it wasn’t going to be easy to get a good list.

I went searching and somehow found the blog Kindle Nation, which was quite a find for us. They have a site called Kindle Nation Daily, where they post free books on an almost daily basis. It takes a bit to stay on top of the new offerings – you’d be wise to check the list every day.

Kindle Nation is Kindle only (surprise…), but if you have another reader (Kindles are included), www.Smashwords.com is a great site. You’ve also got www.getfreebooks.com, www.manybooks.net, and www.free-ebooks.net. I suggest you Google “free e-books” and see what you come up with.

Another location is Calibre, a website that has a management system for your entire library, can convert books, and more. They’ve recently started a DRM free site which is acquiring new books all the time. These are not necessarily free, but many are low cost and all are DRM free. http://drmfree.calibre-ebook.com/about. You can then use Calibre to convert any book you choose into the appropriate format for your particular reader.

I wanted to use Calibre to manage all our books, but the process of getting them from Amazon into Calibre was so painful (because of Amazon’s system) that I have temporarily given up. I spent many hours on two different days trying to get things to work, but finally realized I will have to take extraordinary steps to get it to work. It’s not worth my time right now.

I will use Calibre to look for other book formats and then (keeping a DRM free copy, of course) will convert the books to an Amazon-recognized format.

Next is how to evaluate the books once you find something. All I can say is, “Good luck!” On Kindle Nation Daily we pick a book and click on it, which brings us to the Amazon store. We then click on reviews, and first go to the reviews rating it the lowest. There’s an amazing amount of information you can collect quickly this way.

The other sites tend to not have as many reviews, so it’s a tougher choice.

Here’s what we’ve discovered in our ongoing “finding books” saga:

• A number of respected authors will offer the first book in a series free to get readers hooked on a series; hopefully the reader will be willing to pay for subsequent books. We’ve been lucky with this approach, and have indeed gone back and bought follow-up books.
• Kindle Nation Daily has an author sponsor the site every day. The author then has his/her book offered for free or for a wonderfully low price, with the idea of attracting new readers. We’ve been lucky on this, too.
• You may find books free from a certain author, then the next book or two may be $.99 to $3.99. That’s a great deal if you like the author.
• There are delightful books out there just waiting to be discovered, and there are a lot of absolutely horrible books. Reading reviews won’t always get you a definitive answer.
• Reading reviews can be incredibly entertaining. I wish some of the authors wrote as well as the reviewers.
• Christian books are very popular, with the reviews divided into two very clear camps – you really like ‘em or you really don’t. Reading a review will generally tell you whether it’s Christian or not.
• We find ourselves amazed at some of the ratings. We’ve found highly rated books to be just garbage, and we’ve found books with low ratings to be some of our favorites.
• There are many authors who are clearly self-publishing, with no one looking at editing. Absolutely appalling things end up in the books, things that are so bad that we sometimes can’t read for laughing so hard.
• The use of incorrect words is rampant – slim-wasted instead of slim-waisted; not knowing the difference among piqued, peeked, and peaked (as in “her ample bosom peaked out from under the scarf” – now that must have been a sight!); clamored aboard instead of clambered aboard; its and it’s; there, their, they’re; your, you’re; compliment and complement; worse, worst; then, than; phased, fazed; site and sight; lay and lie; naval and navel – you get the idea.

  Perhaps our all time favorite, merely one of a long laundry list of really bad writing mistakes in one particular book, was “toe head” instead of towhead. Two days later we were still in tears (of laughter) about that one. And that book had two reviews, both of them five-star.

  Can you stand a few more hilarious errors? “My conscious wouldn’t let me.” “I wanted to give him a peace of my mind!” “I truly tricked him with my slight of hand”. And finally, here’s another one of our all time favorites, “a rouge FBI agent”.

• Punctuation, capitalization, and sentence structure are hit and miss and often totally random.
• Spelling is often so bad it’s funny – Navy Chaplin, instead of Navy chaplain (the incorrect capitalization is copied from the book).
• Words will be randomly missing and words and phrases will be randomly italicized or underlined.
• You’ll find extensive incorrect use of apostrophes, prepositions, and numerals.
• You’ll find books with characters that never come to life; plots that wander aimlessly; books that read like an eager eighth-grader wrote them – all enthusiasm and no skill; books that have great plots but are written so badly it’s impossible to finish them.
• Reading some of the books that are written so badly or so sloppily is like watching a train wreck – you’re fascinated and horrified at the same time. The worst part is that many of them are award winners of one kind or another.
• We’ve had so much abundance in free books that we’ve gotten ruthless about deleting books we don’t like.
• We’ve scored some great non-fiction books and books in other genres, such as how to create the perfect cocktail, how to publish a best-selling e-book, how to draw, and Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
• We’ve found a few authors we just love, and we’ve added them to our list for the time when we have a real book-buying budget.

All in all we’ve had a wonderful time figuring out this whole e-reader/e-book phenomenon. We’ve laughed a lot; we’ve learned how many people really can’t write at all; we’ve learned that every author needs a team of proofreaders and editors (or least one who’s really, really good); and we’ve found some absolute treasures – books that have made us laugh, moved us to tears, inspired us.

Continue reading with Part 4

We’ve been using the Kindles extensively for the last five months, and we’ve come to realize that we would prefer the newest version of the Barnes and Noble e-ink reader. We wish we had waited.

Our biggest irritation is how truly awful the navigation is on the Kindle. Granted it’s a bit tough in the touch-screen world to get used to an older style of technology, but that aside, their system is truly unfriendly. I did figure out how to use it, but it’s not intuitive – I still have to remind myself which steps to take every time I want to add a book to a collection, or look up a dictionary definition, or move from my current location. I finally remember how to highlight and how to turn off wi-fi easily.

Finding where you are in the book is a challenge. There’s no page system in most books, there’s a location system instead, and you’d better know how to use it if you want to “flip through the book”. I didn’t understand the system the first time I wanted to flip through, and ended up clicking through at least eighty or ninety clicks to find where I was. Massively frustrating.

Now I know I have to find and note my current location number before going anywhere else in the book, but you better either have a good memory or write it down before you can get back to it! And having to type in the location using the keyboard is slow and painful.

Turning off the Kindle requires holding the key down for a full eight seconds. They say seven, but it’s really eight, or else you’d better make sure you wait through the full seven seconds. It seems like a small thing, but it is incredibly irritating having to hold the dang key down and wait, and wait, and wait. No other technology I own is like that.

Not having time and date and book title and page number showing in a bar across the top or bottom is also really annoying.

There’s no way to know what book you’re reading or where you are in it in most books, except to know that you’re a certain percent of the way through it – there’s no way to gauge how many pages are left or how long it will take you to finish (sixty-seven percent of seven hundred fifty pages is very different than sixty-seven percent of a hundred eighty pages).

On the Kindle there’s no way to know what book you’re reading if you want to go back to the home page and check something for a minute. Once you find the book you’re on, it will take you to the last place you read, but you can’t find the book if you don’t remember the name…and you have to scroll through the list of books to find it and hope you remember. Granted this may not be hard for some people, but we often have several books going at once, with new ones added every day so the names tend to run together in my mind. The most recently opened book does go to the top of the list, but if I open several books in a row, then I’m trouble.

The way the Kindle is designed, it’s very hard to pick it up without accidentally clicking keys on the keyboard or clicking the keys on the side and inadvertently changing pages.

Using the keyboard is annoying. The weight of the Kindle makes it somewhat top-heavy when using the keyboard – you’ve got to have your hands down low on the Kindle to access the keyboard, but then the weight of the rest of it tilts against your balance, so you’ve got to spread your hands widely, balance, and type with your thumbs.

The buttons are easy to click, but I have to very slowly search the keyboard to find the keys other than letters and figure out which one I should be using.

It does have white lettering on the buttons, but the buttons are gray and blend in to the rest of the background. The white lettering is really small, and for those with challenged eyesight, or who are using it in low light, it’s very tough to see what key you need. I can see the lettering being worn off after use, and what then?

Having the PDFs on the Kindle is ridiculous. It’s impossible to read them, so why claim that as an advantage? I was so excited thinking we’d have our pass codes, favorite quotes and so on, on the Kindle, but if I can’t read the document, what’s the point?

Maybe I’m missing something very obvious, given that I did read online what an advantage it is having the PDFs on the Kindle, and how well the Kindle handles them. I just haven’t found the secret yet, and I don’t want simple things to be hard. In contrast, putting the documents on my smartphone was a piece of cake, and they are clear and easy to read.

The battery is not able to be changed out by the user – it has to be sent back to Amazon to be replaced. Can you see us having to find a way to send it back to the US from the jungles of Bolivia, and then figure out a place we could have it sent back to us, given that we’d likely not be in the same place?

Being stuck on Amazon’s DRM system for the format of the books is extremely annoying. (And yes, I know that Barnes and Noble is the same, but Amazon is the most obstructive of all the major players.) It’s like Apple, once you’re in, you’re in. There’s no crossing over, and if you do, you’ll lose your investment unless you’re willing to illegally hack the DRM. (I probably wouldn’t care so much if I were happy with the Kindle.)

If you want to access any other types of formats you have to use a system like Calibre (which is very highly rated) to convert the formats to Kindle’s format. (It reminds me painfully of our Sony SonicStage experience.)

Amazon does not easily allow lending or borrowing, and what they do allow is incredibly restricted. You cannot borrow from the library, which the Nook does allow.

I spent time this morning and over the weekend on various online forums reading up about using the Kindle, and I can see that I will have to invest a fair amount of time learning the different formats, library management systems like Calibre, and tricks to fully utilizing the Kindle. All in all I do love having an e-reader. I just wish the Kindle were easier to use.

Alex got Amanda a Nook e-reader for her birthday in early August, and we think it’s got significant advantages over the Kindle. While we haven’t had a chance to play much with it, we’d be willing to change just on what we’ve seen so far.

It’s got a touch screen, and no physical keyboard, which saves space and weight, and saves us the annoyances of the Kindle keyboard. The page turning keys are located much more effectively. You can just swipe across the bottom of the touch screen to scroll quickly through a book. They allow borrowing from libraries. The navigation system appears to be much easier. It has a user replaceable battery. The pages refresh only about every six to seven pages, making the stuttering less noticeable, creating a nicer page-turning/reading experience.

We can’t wait to have more time to explore it. The fact that CNET, a highly respected review website, recently gave the newest Nook its Editors Choice rating doesn’t hurt either.

(Update: On my birthday I did have a chance to play with Amanda’s Nook and we will switch to it as soon as we can find the money in the budget. I found that using it was a breath of fresh air compared to using the Kindle. The book I’m currently reading is noted for me; the ease of using the touch screen is far superior to the clunky Kindle screen; I loved scrolling though dozens of pages fast, using the scroll bar; I had no trouble at all figuring out where to find things and how to get where I wanted to go.

I did not check out the ease of highlighting or the method of organizing the library, but the ease of the rest of it was so compelling that I would switch in a heartbeat.)

Our final thoughts? Rarely is something just perfect, and the current re-readers are certainly in the imperfect category. I’m sure if we had the Nook Simple Touch we’d find all sorts of things we wish were different.

But we really love the e-readers, even in their current early incarnations. Though we want the advantages of the latest Nook, even if all we are able to take with us is the Kindle, we’d still go with it given the advantages of the number of books we can have with us, and the ease of reading with the e-ink.

And who knows, by the time we leave in a few months perhaps Amazon will have come out with an updated e-reader that leapfrogs the new Nook. If not, we’re going with the Nook.

Continue reading with Part 3