I am so happy...

Hello:

I got an email from Amazon Kindle this morning telling me of new arrivals at the Kindle store. Much to my surprise there was The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown for sale for $9.99 and to delivered to my Kindle on Sept. 15. I was wondering if this book, the sequel to the Da Vinci Code, would be available on the Kindle. Amazon advertises that new releases and New York Times bestsellers will be $9.99 if possible.

The Lost Symbol sells in hardcover for $29.95; you can get the hardcover edition at Amazon.com for $16.17 plus free shipping if your order is over $25.00.

I have this book on reserve also at our local library. I may have been the first one to do this as I did it months ago. I also reserved at the library the audio book version of The Lost Symbol. I will burn my own copy of that from those CDs.

Finally, I was wondering whether this book was going to show up on the Kindle. Many books at Amazon Kindle store cost more than $9.99. The price is set by publisher not Amazon. In addition there are over 6,000 free books in the Kindle store.

I spent last evening reading the articles I downloaded to my Kindle over the past week. I visit The New Yorker website as well as The Atlantic Monthly and the Economist. I copy the articles to Word, save it then email it to Kindle. In about 30 seconds an email comes back from Amazon the document in the proper format for my Kindle. I use the USB cord that came with my Kindle to download the article to my Kindle. I find it much easier to read the article on my Kindle rather than on my computer. The Kindle is not back-lit, so it is much easier on the eyes than trying to read on a computer screen.

Sorry about talking all about my Kindle. It has been sitting doing nothing for the past few months as I get my books from our local and regional library.

The picture here is an elk heard we saw on our way to visit Victoria B.C. The herd is Washington.

It is going to hot this week, 91 (32 C) today and 99 (37 C) tomorrow. I am so used to the metric system from my two years in China. I simply do not understand why we in the U.S. are not on the same standard as the rest of the world.

There was a report on Morning Edition today about the high cost of cell phones in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world. I know that to be true. In China I had a cell phone but there is no Version or other cell phone carriers there. Instead we buy Sim cards with money on them. In Shanghai I got a Shanghai Sim card with a Shanghai number on it. Once I moved to Xi'an (again, pronounced "SEE-an."), I got a new Sim card with a Xi'an number attached to it. My fake iPhone has a place for two Sim cards so I could put one from Shanghai and one from Xi'an. When I called Shanghai I used the Shanghai Sim card; when I called a Xi'an number I switched to the Xi'an Sim card.

I know, confusing, but much, much cheaper than paying a cell phone carrier. There are more than 400,000,000 cell phones in China, more than the population of the United States.

How many of you, when asked what time it is, check your cell phone for the time. Me, I must wear a watch, I feel "naked" without it. I take it off to go to bed but put it on as soon as I get up each morning.

Have a good week.

Steven