I finally got an iPad. It took several years and many trips wandering by the iPad table in Best Buy. It also took several trips to the Apple store for me to finally get my hands on a rectangular portal into electronic heaven.
I’ve always wanted one, but even though every member of my family had one, it took my oldest son deciding he didn’t want his anymore for me to get one. William went back to college after Christmas and left it behind. Apparently, he has more electronics than he can carry.
For the first couple months of the year, I left it in his room and didn’t even bother to play with it. Finally, around Valentine’s Day, I brought the iPad downstairs and realized it needed to be charged. It took me two more weeks to get around to charging it.
Since charging the iPad for the first time, I haven’t done much with it. I’ve carried it around a little bit and watched some videos while I sitting on a stationary bike. It can make exercise pretty bearable.
I know there’s so much more I can do with my used iPad. I want to utilize it in the most productive way. I hope adding this piece of electronic jewelry to my wardrobe will make me shine like a debutante going to a ball. I hope I’ll one day look back at my life “BI” and laugh at how out of touch I was. “BI,” of course, stands for “Before iPad.”
The really exciting part is I’ve typed this week’s column on my little friend. I like the way it feels to peck away on the screen. It’s a little harder than a regular keyboard, but it works pretty well.
The sad part is the iPad has a keypad that’s supposed to hook up to the device through Bluetooth. I can’t get it to work. I can’t imagine how much more productive I’ll be once I figure that out. If nothing else, I’ll save the ten minutes I spent trying to get it hooked up tonight.
In addition to saving me time from having to type this column on my iPhone, it’s done one other thing: given me something to write about. Just think, if I’d started using the iPad at the first of this year, I’d have nothing.
Something is always better than nothing. That’s true for everyone, especially those of us way up in the CHEAP SEATS!
Bill James is a co-founder of the James Law Firm with offices in Little Rock, Conway and Fayetteville, Arkansas. His primary area of practice is criminal defense. He can be contacted at Bill@JamesFirm.com