eBay, The Last Airbender, and the 3G Modem

This morning, while waiting for Fed Ex to deliver my 3G Modem, I added about 20 more books to eBay. The Fed Ex guy got here early for him so I decided to go see The Last Airbender. After arriving about an hour early, i went to pay for the movie, expecting to pay a lot of money because it was after noon (AMC has movies for $5 if you arrive before noon). To my great delight, Carmela, the ticket person, told me it was only $5 because it was Senior Day. Sometimes it really pays to be so old.

When you know that The Last Airbender was directed by M. Night Shyamalan, you know the movie was a little strange. The intriguing story was enhanced by the incredible special effects. The only person I recognized was Dev Patel (though I couldn’t remember his name) He was made famous in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. It’s well worth the time and money.

This morning, I started reading Robert B. Parker’s last novel, Blue-Eyed Devil. Virgil Cole and his sidekick Everett are featured in this book as they were in a number of other novels Parker wrote about the old west. I expect I’ll finish it before I go to sleep. I can’t believe there won’t be any more Spenser, Jessie Stone, Sunny Randall, or Virgil Cole novels.

Tonight, I finally tried my 3G modem. It works great. In fact, it even seems a little faster than mu DSL connection. I was missing an adaptor cable for the external antenna, so I expect once I get that it will be even faster.

By the way, I was reading the Journals of Lewis and Clark last night and discovered that Thomas Jefferson gave them very detailed instructions about what they were expected to accomplish. What I found most interesting was that Jefferson wanted them to take copious notes and to use birch bark when they could instead of paper since it was not so susceptible to water damage.

Then, I got to thinking about how difficult making those notes must have been. They didn’t have fancy Bic pens, but probably had to use a quill and inkwell. I’m of an age before ballpoint pens, when you had to use fountain pens. Using quills and an inkwell must have been a real challenge.

Until next time…