My Gadget Life

I’m back to the blog after more than a year of not posting! Today I felt inspired to write about some of the books I’ve been reading lately. It’s my habit to read several books at the same time. Here’s what I’m reading now:
- Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: how intelligence increases when you think less
- Slow is Beautiful: new visions of community, leisure and joie de vivre
- Why We Do What We Do: understanding self-motivation
- Better Off: flipping the switch on technology
- Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnick

These appeal to me because I’ve been thinking about the following: creativity and different kinds of creative thinking, the speed of modern culture and how we’re all dealing with information overload, why it’s easy to motivate oneself in certain areas but not others, how to make thoughtful conscious choices about technology, and the differences between everyday life and culture in the U.S. and other places (something I’ve always been interested in). Also Adam Gopnik is coming to Harvard Books soon to talk about his new book and I wanted to read this older one first. I’m about halfway through all of the above and I think the one I’m enjoying most is Hare Brain because of the interesting summaries of research about intuition, sudden insight, and the kind of creativity that comes with patience and stillness.

Given the home prices in the Cambridge/Somerville area, I thought I would never be able to buy a place in such a good location as I live now (where I’ve been renting for the past 10 years). But it happened! After 2 years of looking I found a “for sale by owner” on Craigslist that was a good deal, and already totally renovated, too! It’s the 2nd floor of a 3-decker, has a front and back porch, it’s on a quiet dead-end street near Union Square, Somerville, 2 bedrooms, new roof, new kitchen, central AC, nice hardwood floors. Here are some pics. I’m moving in the last week of July. (I’m so excited!)

A couple of weeks ago I went to a magnet party. My co-worker, Christine, invited people over to her house to learn ways to make really great magnets with glass, glue, and magnets.

Here’s an example of the type of magnets we made.

I used the “index” print from some recent photos that I sent to an online photo service to be printed. You know, the tiny little samples of each photo? They were just the right size to make some cute, little magnets that were actually photos of my friends. I also used some abstract art cards and little Japanese stickers.

This was so fun… I want to make lots more magnets!

I heard about the new Google maps today on one of the podcasts I listen to. Just tried it and I like it! Here’s where I live. It’s such a cute map! Nice graphics. Good detail. I like the drop shadow behind the balloon showing the address. So easy to read.

Today we’ve had a blizzard. Yea! That means I don’t have to go anywhere! Luckily I bought groceries yesterday, so I’m all set to stay home and play with technology, gadgets and my blog.

Here are a few camera-phone photos taken out the window this morning around 9 am. (not the best quality, but you get the idea):