It is mid January of 2012. And I am on a flight to go attend a very important event in my eldest son’s life. You see he joined the army last year and started boot camp in mid October 2011. Although I didn’t quite understand why it was he joined, I am glad that he made a choice and is sticking to it. I am proud of him!

I am making a departure from my normal MO which is to take a laptop with me when I do travel. Mostly I have it to entertain myself and to be able to do work if I find the need to. This time I have left my laptop at home and I am trying to use my iPad2 for all my computing needs. I do have to say that typing on this thing isn’t as good as it could be. The built in keyboard I feel is the weakest point on the iPad. But much better than no keyboard at all.

As far as the flight from San Diego, CA to Charlotte, NC… It is full, kind of stuffy, and I wound up with a middle seat. Oh how I dislike the middle seat. I usually go for the window seat, because I try so very hard to check out and sleep. I am a poor traveler. I don’t like turbulence, and I guess I am bit of a chicken. This flight is the first of two legs, the second leg of the trip is from charlotte to Columbia, where Fort Jackson is, where Josh, my eldest son is at. Why did they have to send him all the way across the US? Why couldn’t the army have taken my needs into consideration? Oh well, these things happen.

Really the most amazing thing is that I have 11 full length and high definition movies, around 40 books, 500 plus songs, text adventure games and other things to entertain this middle aged nerd!
If I think about it, really what I have is a device that I can not only consume digital cogent, but as you are reading I am also creating content. I can’t publish it right now, but if I wanted to pay some small fee I can now get wifi on this areoplane as well.

The iPad is so well equipped that if I really wanted to, and I was a professional reporter, I could film, edit, and publish news stories right here from the slab of electronic amazement. I am quite sure that there are people in the business that use this device for just that purpose. Well, we have now been in the air for a little over an hour. Flight has definitely been smooth, with an occasional bump here and there. Kay chicken self had taken a couple of sleeping pills before I boarded, and no matte how I tried, I just can not get to sleep. It looks like my idea of saving money and taking the red eye is not going to work well for me. My flight gets to my destination at 8:30 am eastern time, and family day on base starts at 10am. I cannot check into my hotel until 3pm, and I am going to have to take a cab to the hotel. My mother an sister are going to my son’s graduation as well, but they left at 1pm on Tuesday, and are already in Columbia, SC… With a rental car. Hopefully they are sleeping well… Better than I am for sure.

Back to replacing my laptop with my iPad2 when traveling. It is different, but is working quite ,well. I am going to watch a movie now, so maybe I can sleep, I will come back to this later, and through the magic of writing, this break will seem no more than just a ‘blip’ to you dear reader.

I am now nearing the end of the first leg of this long ass flight, so I will be powering the iPad down as we approach Charlotte, NC…. Then there is a little two hour layover. I did kind of get some drifting sleep, but nothing solid.

And now I am navigating the airport at Charlotte, NC. With that thought, I have Internet access again, so I will be publishing this. More to come later once I get my Bluetooth keyboard!

Sitting at the gate. Time to get a drink!