Cold summer

W.C. Fields famously once said: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." But out in the East Bay, that's not the case. We have really hot summers, often with many days over 100 degrees.

Not so much this year. I was out back reading last night about 8 pm and had to come inside because it was so cold. It's almost August! Some nights we have to close our windows. I don't think we have even hit the mid-90s yet.

I have no idea what is going on, but it's not global warming.

Brrrrrr.

Electronic reader wars

Amazon has just announced a major upgrade to its Kindle reader, while keeping the price at $189.  And it is now offering a wi-fi only version for $139.  Both are efforts to fend off competition from Barnes & Noble and Sony.

They are doing a great job on this.  The Kindle concept - carrying many books with you, with quick access to any others - is a great one, especially for travelers.

Plus, I think the wi-fi only option is a really smart idea.  There isn't much of a need to download books every second of the day via 3G; wi-fi hotspots are everywhere, and with the tiniest bit of planning, you can load a Kindle at home anyway.

But I still wonder about the value of a stand-alone Kindle.  I've had a free Kindle app on my iPod Touch for a year or two, and now I have it on my iPad.  These devices do so much more than a stand-alone Kindle, and Amazon gives me the app for free.  It even works on my computer.

When the Kindle was first reduced to $299, the Onion ran a great headline:  "iPhone Kindle app now $299 less than Kindle!"  That makes sense to me - the money for Amazon is in the selling of the books.  It shouldn't be in the device itself.  It's like razors and razor blades.

I guess the Kindle meets a certain need, but I like having it as part of a more useful device that includes my Kindle option.  And the price point of free really works.

Creative comparisons

I received the following email ad from Citibank the other day:

Citibank Savings Plus Account .80 For balances of $25,000 or more

Dear JOSEPH FABER, If you want to get a return that is currently higher than offered on many Money Market Funds, move your money to a Citibank Savings Plus Account today. Compare for yourself: Average Money Market Fund 7 Day Yield: 0.04% * Current Citibank Savings Plus APY (on balances of $25,000+) : .80% ** That's 20 times higher!

Really?  20 times higher?  Is that supposed to sound impressive?

Hmmmmm.

Nice memories of Ashland

Our trip to Ashland was a great success.  I got to spend a lot of quality time with the girls, we ate well, and we saw terrific Shakespeare.  I especially liked the "preface" we attended for The Merchant of Venice, which helped explain the show to me in advance.

One favorite place there was Mix, Alice's recommendation.  We went there two days in a row for breakfast - wonderful Stumptown coffee from Portland and house-baked pastries, and again Sat. afternoon for ice cream (raspberry rhubarb and salted caramel).  Delicious.

Lithia Park, right in downtown Ashland, is a really pleasant local park:

We saw baby ducks:

And we went wading in Ashland Creek:

That was really nice, since it was in the upper 90's our whole trip.  Only cooled down somewhat around 11:00 pm.

Here was a surprising site on Sunday morning:

Closed?  I guess it's a low-crime sort of time.

All in all, really nice.  I am looking forward to going back.

Mt. Shasta in July

The tallest mountain in California, Mt. Shasta apparently has snow year round.  Here's the view we had over the weekend:

It was 95 degrees where I snapped this photo.

Would you like to be a spy?

Little tiny photo cards can carry a lot of data.  I have a 16 Gb micro SD card in my Android phone.  But what if you need to deliver a micro card surreptitiously?  They're tiny - you can lose in your pocket.

Spy gear to the rescue.  I came across this great site, selling hollow coins for secretly transporting data.  Take a look at this:

Only $30!  I wonder if I will ever need one of these.  Even if I don't, it's kind of cool.

OMG - an iPad!

Ok, I resisted for a long time.  Well, almost three months.  I couldn't bring myself to spend $500 or $600 for a large iPod Touch.  It was just too much.  And I couldn't really figure out what I would do with it.

Then they had a contest in our legal department, for the most creative internal legal memo.  So I wrote one about a deal I had worked on.  I did it in the style of the movie The Sting, with different subject headings consistent with the 1973 Academy Award winner.  First prize - an iPad.

And I won!!!!  Really.  A brand new iPad.

I am so excited - except I can't get it away from Abby and Sarah.