Yesterday I picked up a great new gadget. It stores all of my contacts, does my calender, has thousands of apps available, is easy to use, and has a battery that lasts for months.
Guess what it is yet?
It’s a Palm IIIe. I was browsing at a local thrift store ans saw this little baby sitting on a shelf (with the cradle) with no price on it. In a moment that made me feel really old, the teenage cashier did not know what it was. It’s a PDA and it does not turn on. 50 cents. Sold. I knew it was just a dead set of AAA batteries, but she didn’t. Even on eBay, it can be had for 99 cents.
For less than the price of an iTunes song (and much less than an iPad app) I have a fully functional PDA from 1998. The specs are just stunning. 16Mhz processor, 2mb of storage and a 160×160 black and white screen. Not expandable in any way and the OS is hard wired into the ROM. But, to be honest, it really does what I want it to do. Be a decent replacement for my paper calender and notepad I usually carry and have a battery life that would put any modern device to shame. We are talking months on one set of AAA batteries. It also plays very well with Linux and just plain works.
The other nice thing is, if it dies, I loose it, or I get tired of it, the batteries inside of it cost more than it did. It’s a little sad, really. 12 years ago, this little guy cost $250. Now it is junk. As a strange irony, the 8-track players at the thrift store were priced higher.
So far, I really love it. It boots/turns on instantly. The screen is easy to read. The PDA apps do their job as you would expect them to and relearning Graffiti does not take long. Speaking of Graffiti, I forgot how quickly you could enter information using it. I have added a few essentials like a spreadsheet program and some games. The simplicity is great. No internet to distract, no MP3 playing, just a simple organizer. Plus, I can party like it’s 1999.
Are you even trying anymore?
Wow, Chicago Tribune, you really don’t proof read anymore, do you? Run ons, fragments, and even a sentence that starts with but. My high school English teacher would of given this an immediate F. The article barely makes sense. This is why the newspaper business is going down.
Family mourns railroad conductor killed in yard accident
By William Lee, Tribune reporter
Melinda Carter lit up her mother’s eyes recently when she talked about plans to buy a home in the southwest suburbs. But the bigger surprise was that Carter wanted her parents to sell their home in a rough Far South Side neighborhood and come live with her.
“She said, ‘You’re going to come move with me, you and daddy.’ And that’s what she always wanted … to take care of her family,” said her mother, Delois Carter.
But on Saturday, family and friends gathered to mourn Melinda Carter’s death. The 36-year-old train yard conductor for CSX Corp. was killed Friday night when she was tossed from a locomotive and struck by it. Carter was conducting routine switching operations while cars were being moved to prepare them for delivery, officials said. The accident occurred on the company’s grounds near 134th Street and Ashland Avenue in Riverdale and an investigation is ongoing, a CSX spokesman said.
Carter, a veteran conductor, was a member of the company’s safety committee, according to her brother, David. “It’s not like she was a novice, not by a long shot,” he said.
Family gathered at their Roseland home Saturday. In an upstairs room sat three pieces of new furniture Melinda Carter recently bought for the home she planned to buy. On the dining room table, family pictures were scattered.
“I haven’t found one yet (where) she isn’t smiling,” Delois Carter said of her daughter.
“She had a smile that was worth a million dollars and that smile was genuine,” her aunt Gladys Taylor chimed in.
The youngest of three children, the Harlan Community Academy graduate was the heart of her family. She made sure her family was provided for, whether it was her parents were taking their medication or that her nephew had a nice pair of shoes.
“She had that spirit of knowing what you needed and when you needed it and how to love you,” Delois Carter said.
Posted by admin on April 24, 2010 in General Comments
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