Did a test run of moving text from AlphaSmart to blog ... very easy! Press the Send button and text goes wherever the cursor is, in this case in the window for a new blog post. Hey, this is very ancient technology by now -- but how can it get any better than this?
Indeed, so much "advance" in tech is not advance at all from the point of view of getting done what you want to get done. The AllphaSmart is still the best, easiest, most convenient and, with its 100+ hours battery life on 3 AAA batteries, most practical "tech" writing tool I've seen. Better than a PC, a laptop, a net book, a tablet -- devices I also own or have owned. It is limited. It just writes! No games. No Internet. No easy ways to avoid writing. But hey, if you are a writer, if you WANT to write, man, this is such a cool tool.
And designed for grade school kids. I am sure glad that journalist covering the Bosnia war discovered it, wrote it up, and I saw the article, several decades ago now.
When I turned mine on recently after it sat idle in my office for a year or two, the battery charge was at 96%! Beat that, high tech.
So the tech end of this new retirement adventure will be a breeze. A relief ... I don't have to figure anything out.
I think I will begin chronologically, in the two areas of Portland where I began, first Mississippi Ave where Polly and I lived after dropping out of grad school in 1967(and I use her real name now that she's passed and therefore can't send me nasty letters) ... and then NW Portland, where I came in the late 70s after my marriage ended. I established myself as a writer in the first spot, as a playwright in the second. Yes, makes sense to me to begin there.
First, perhaps, I should make a post on the new blog about context ... basically a summary of my relationship to Portland over the years. A lot of my adventure, I expect, will be visiting old haunts and making sense of past and present, or trying to. In the 1980s, I thought Portland was the greatest city in America. I haven't thought much of it since the mid-90s. What changed? A little of me, a little of the city. I want to explore that.
So I guess my exploration strategy is a bit of biography and a bit of playing it by ear. I won't start until I am officially retired, however, although I can add some contextual posts to the new blog before I head out.
The only rule of the new blog is ... everything has to be written on the AlphaSmart. This means I'll be out of the house.
