When I was in Portland, Eleanor spent considerable time in assisting me in purchasing an Ipad. And then Bob, a family friend, helped me to get it up and running. I had serious doubts about buying one because I wasn’t sure if it was something that I needed. Eleanor seemed to think so, because she put a lot of time into running around with me, and showing me what was available. Then Bob put equally as much time into helping me get the thing set up and running.

I’m not technologically savvy, and in fact, I get impatient when it takes too long to figure stuff out. But I’m now intrigued because I sense that there is a

IPad Drawing

lot that I might be able to do with this machine. If we (for example) do Part II of our trip, I’ll be able to do a better job of keeping up with the dispatches. And it’s lighter than my laptop, so the pack horse will have less weight to carry.

I decided that I will spend a little bit of time each day figuring out what I can and can’t do with my Ipad. Pete and I did figure out how to download Penultimate, which is a notebook program with a drawing option. Playing with this, by sending friends email drawings, has been revelatory. I have been wanting to bring more of a more visual element into my work – and this minimally enables me to do this. I am looking forward to what’s ahead – I’m going to take a photography course this spring, and then further explore the relationship between words and images.

Computers and attendant technology can really eat away at one’s time, and this does cause me to pause. Guess I’ll just have to put a limit on the amount of time spend attempting to figure out the technology. And too, tell myself that this is time well spent.

21. 12/27/11: Between Christmas and New Year’s