My Jornada and Me

This is an experiment for me. I am writing this journal article on my HP Jornada 720, a handheld PC I purchased last week. The keyboard is quite tiny, which slows me down a little -- I'm trying to do a lot of things with more deliberation these days, so I guess slower writing is not so bad. But the Jornada is actually quite responsive, so I anticipate becoming adept at using it effectively.

I should also write about the buying of it. I did buy it at an auction on eBay. I was a perfect little sniper on this one -- a sniper is someone who watches the bidding, doing nothing until the last moment of the auction, then swooping in with a bid just before the deadline so that no one can react. I was very happy with the price, and the seller was very good about shipping promptly.

I do not buy much there, and I have a better understanding of why now. The auction at its conclusion was absolutely thrilling! When I put my winning bid in at the end, my heart was pounding. It's pretty pathetic. But I can see how this might be addictive in the same way that gambling is. I wonder if there are people who do become addicted to auctions, and get into trouble as a result.

It's fun to use, so far. The keyboard is very small, and my fingers are getting used to it still. By the time anyone reads this, I will have proofread the file to fix the misspellings, mistypings and bad grammar. You should see what it looks like fbhroefor I do that. My Australia journals were always full of mistakes of one form or another. Since I pay for the time I'm on a computer while traveling, I do not have the time I'd like for a good proofread. My writing has suffered as a result, and while I know it provides hours of fun for my friends, colleagues, and students to point out my errors, I do believe that one should expect better of someone with the conceit to call himself a professor.

It has many features, some of which I will probably not use. I have no plans to use it to connect directly to the Internet, for example. On the pother hand, it does have Microsoft Pocket Office, including a version of Word I am using now, Excel, and PowerPoint. It also has a calculator, and a digital recorder that I plan to use for capturing the sounds of Australia. I'll have to investigate uploading those as well.

My hope is that I'll be able to connect this to machines I find in Australia, and to quickly transfer files. I don't think I can do this directly, but I should be able to use the CompactFlash memory as a transfer device. Anyway, I'll be experimenting for the next few months, and will post some of the results here.

We had our first course meeting a week ago last Sunday, where my colleague introduced the course, laying out the itinerary and course expectations. We will be doing the usual route, though we will be shortening the time we are in Brisbane and including a few days in Townsville and Magnetic Island. I am looking forward to visiting there again, as I found a lot of hiking trails that I enjoyed. This is also the island that has the WWII observation outpost that reminds me of my late Uncle Burt, who served as a gunnery sergeant and played a role in the Battle of the Coral Sea. I suppose it's not out of the question that he spent some time at that particular spot, though I'm pretty sure that he was stationed in Papua New Guinea.

I've been thinking about WWII a lot these days. That conflict brought out the worst in humanity, of course, but it's important to remember that it brought out some pretty good things in people as well. There's one story that is largely unknown that I'm thinking of studying this year while I'm Down Under. During WWII, there were of course a lot of American troops stationed in Australia. Many Aborigines were amazed and inspired to see African American soldiers -- people as dark-skinned as them but holding responsible positions equal to those of whites. There are some historical accounts about this; it's those that I'm interested in pursuing. I'm hoping that I'll find some neat stories.

We meet with the students again this Sunday. This time, I'll be lecturing about plate tectonics and its connections with Australia's flora and fauna. We'll probably go over some practical things as well, including journal writing and preparing for the poster session. Were getting closer to our trip, and I'm starting to get excited about it.