Holiday Reading—Oh, the Trials!

I left for our holiday travels with two ereading devices, just to make sure the bases were covered, and that I wouldn't run out of books to read (hah). On Christmas Eve, Allysen was reading a newly acquired SF book by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller on my Sony Reader, Plato—when suddenly it froze like a brick. Aughh! Aughh!

Probably just needs a simple reset, right? Wrong. Plato was bricked right through Christmas and for our trip from Miami to Ponce. I tried everything I could think of. Nada. Then, two nights ago, I left Plato plugged into the laptop to recharge fully while I slept, and also plugged in my Dell PDA (an Axim named Maxim) to top off. (I was reading the latest Vorkosigan book by Lois Bujold, Cryoburn, on it.) The next morning it was bricked, too! Auggghhhh!

What to do? What to do? Running in circles didn't help. Neither did any of the usual techie approaches. Finally, this morning, I plugged Plato into my laptop again, for one last try. Windows Explorer told me it found a file error. It removed the offending file. Voila! Plato lives again!

Maxim is still lifeless. But at least it has a removable battery, so I hope when I get home I can swap in another battery and bring it back, too. Just have to keep the faith on that one.

I realize that my tale isn't exactly the most ringing endorsement of ebook reading, but if you're one of those with a shiny new reader, I've got a hot tip for you. From now until Dec. 31, there's a 25% off sale from many authors of various genres at Backlist Ebooks. Head over and take a look for some great deals!

Meanwhile, here in Puerto Rico we've been having cloudy skies, mugginess, and rain—while back in Boston, I imagine everyone is still shoveling out from a foot and a half of snow. Either one is better than the folks on the west coast pumping mud, though. What a crazy winter for weather. But did I mention the fantastic flight we had over the mountains from San Juan? It was a night flight in a 12-seat Cessna 402, and it reawakened every nerve in my body to a longing to start flying again! Someday, someday!