I purchased “Documents to Go Premium” office suite that allows creation and editing of documents in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Settings allow files to be synced with either a desk computer or an off-site cloud storage location.

The customer ratings and reviews were mostly favorable with 3 out of 5 stars from 396 ratings. The cost of this app was $14.99 and that’s a heck of a lot cheaper that Microsoft’s equivalent programs for the desktop.

We’ll see how it works.

I love the iPad. I am using it regularly in a productive (for me) way. I have had an iPod for about a year and, while it has some nice features, I have not been using it to its fullest. It’s really too small in size for practical use for me. The iPad is different. It has great applications, it is sized for easier use, and just works really well.

I upgraded from the basic model to the 32GB size plus the 3G. It comes with Wi-Fi built in including Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology. To use the 3G you must pay AT&T $14.99 to $25 a month with no contract required. I am not doing this yet, but I can see myself using this in the not too distant future.

The battery life is great. Right now the battery percentage shows as 56% (shown in the upper right of the screen) and I could do 2-4 more hours of work before a recharge is needed. Different from the iPod (or similar models) recharging does not occur when it is attached to your base computer for syncing. It charges like a laptop, directly to an AC source.

I have been searching for appropriate Apps for me. Some of the Apps I have acquired are: The CalenGoo calendar that syncs with my Google calendar on my base computer as well as my iPod; Pages word processor; Atomic Web browser (nearly as good as Foxfire and several steps up from Safari that comes with the unit); Amazon.com Kindle App that works just like the stand alone Kindle; and Wolfram (look it up on-line if you are not familiar with this).

Several of the Apps I have on my iPod transferred (synced) to the iPad and work just fine. Some don’t work so well. The most expensive App I have is iBird PRO and it moved to the iPad nicely, but it would be great if the vendor could come out with one specifically for the iPad.

All my music synced nicely, and the speakers in the iPad are not bad. Of course you can use earphones for listening.

It has been a bit of a challenge to learn to use the iPad efficiently; and will continue to be a learning experience. Soon I will be getting the wireless keyboard so make word processing and editing duties much more efficient.

If you want a hands on experience before going ahead with a purchase, find your nearest Apple Store. They are sure to have some you can test drive.

I have only a limited understanding of economics, although I did take a year of it while in college ever so long ago. One thing that caught my eye was the comparison of the value of the U.S. dollar side by side with the Oregon and Washington employment forecasts. As the employment numbers rose in the period 2006 into 2008, the value of the U.S. dollar dropped. When employment dropped in 2008 through 2009, the value rose; but then dropped again in the second half of 2009.

The forecast is that both Oregon and Washington employments have bottomed out as of the beginning of 2010 and will rise throughout this year (2010).

The second item that caught my eye was that the 10th largest Pacific Northwest Trading Partner is United Arab Emirates (UAE). It only took me a minute to grasp that this must be because they must have purchased a bunch of Boeing aircraft. A quick look through Google and I came upon this statement on a Boeing website: Emirates, one of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) main airlines, is the largest operator of Boeing’s 777. UAE has also ordered Boeing 6 C-17 cargo aircraft.

Let’s keep that oil money flowing back into our United States industries.

Mr. Conerly has quite a bit of information available on his site which you can get to HERE.

There is an infrastructure in this country that supports the use of massive amounts of coal as the fuel source for much of our electrical generation. This is not going to change anytime soon. Yet for every bit of coal that is burned, we put toxics and other chemicals into our air, ground, and water. Yes, the coal industry is doing much to mitigate this problem; but the fact remains that these toxics and chemicals, even if properly sequestered, are still admitted into our environment.

The long-term solution is to leave the coal in the ground and find other non-hazardous methods of energy production. Solar and wind are the best long-term solutions we have right now. Nuclear fission is not the long-term solution. However, if nuclear fusion comes into play, it may become a viable option.

Once a solar generating site has been set up, train-loads of coal need not be shipped to it. Here is a link to a Google map image of 2 such locations a few miles east of Barstow, California.

Certainly there are maintenance costs associated with all generating costs; but solar and wind plants emit no toxic chemicals or CO2.

Think “Photovoltaic.” That’s direct conversion of solar energy to electrical energy. Pioneering relativity theorist Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in 1921 – but not for his famous theories of relativity and the iconic equation E=mc2. The prize was for his 1905 discovery of exactly how light caused what was then called the photoelectric effect (photovoltaics). This is the wave of the future, and the sooner we jump on that bandwagon, the sooner we get away from relying on coal.

I’m sorry Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and all the other states that dig coal. Start building plants to manufacture solar panels and wind generators. That’s the future.

I will have to make up my mind on these; and hopefully it will be an informed decision.

If we are to have any level of government we need taxes to support it. Where are the moneys to come from and how much do we need? This is an eternal question. I hope that all voters will take a dispassionate approach to this important matter. Sewers, roads, schools, police, social services, building inspections, prisons, and so on, and so on; all supported by taxes. Once again: how much and from where does it come.

Become informed and vote.

Let me quote three items from Mr. Hermann’s response to my letter to him:

“Unfortunately the information reported by Ms. Axtman and the Willamette Week is inaccurate in some critical areas.” “Additionally the charges the grand jury issued were not reported fully or at all.” And: Ms. Aguilar-Gutierrez was arrested for reckless driving and causing injury to a child, subsequently charged by the grand jury for those same reasons. That part of the ‘facts’ were not reported.”

I should have held my tongue until I had my response from Mr. Hermann. I should have realized that the grand jury would not have agreed on the charges without a strong case from the DA’s office.

Because this incident involves a minor and because the case is open pending trial, Mr. Hermann could not comment fully on all the circumstances. But after reading his letter, I can see that the DA’s office is proceeding properly and within the law.

In my working years (I am now retired) I worked in the insurance industry for 15 years with about 5 of those years actively handling or reviewing accident claims. In all those years I can recall no criminal charges arising out of an automobile accident claim processed by me or that I handled unless there were extenuating circumstances such as drunk driving. The public’s attitude on these matters seems to be changing. Beyond simple negligence, if you are overly reckless in your driving habits and cause injury to another person, particularly a minor, you may be charged with a criminal offence.

I have learned a lesson here. Make sure I have all the facts before I lash out.

The total traffic fatalities in the United States during 2008 were 37,261 which was a reduction of 3,998 over the previous year. This represents the lowest traffic deaths in the past 15 years. Each year over that same 15 year period the fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled has dropped from 1.73 to 1.27.

The only category that showed a significant rise in fatalities was motorcyclists.

The top link at the Blogroll on right in this blog gets you to these statistics.

I speculate that there are 2 major reasons for the overall reductions. The first is that cars are safer. More people are driving newer and safer cars and more occupants are using their seatbelts. The second reason is that the drunk-driving laws are being more heavily enforced.

Be safe out there. If you have not taken a defensive driving course in some time (5-10 years) find one and take it. Senior Citizen centers offer them, often for free or a very low price. You can always learn something at one of these courses. About 2 years ago I took the one offered at my local Senior Citizen center. It was a great refresher for me. I did make a couple changes in my habits because of what I learned in the course.

Did I say: Be safe out there? If you think the other driver will do something stupid to put you in jeopardy, he or she probably will. Not every time, but often enough to be a potential crash.

If you read both the articles (no, I’m not going to quote them both here) I think that you will agree that the Washington County Assistant DA Jason Weiner has gone wacko. I can see thousands of criminal cases now being brought because a minor has witnessed an automobile accident.

This case will ultimately be thrown out by any appeals court that sees it. In the meantime, Gutierrez has to live with a possible felony conviction looming in the air. Shame on the Washington County DA’s office for even considering bringing this case against any person. It is a waste of tax money, it is a crime against Gutierrez, and it is just plain bad practice by the DA’s office.

The “In Memory” is referenced extensively in the biography of Dolly, “Truly Wild,” by Joan Schenkar. One critic, Edmund White, characterized the biography as follows: “Schenkar has lifted the veil to reveal a sophisticated, overheated lesbian world in Paris in the first decades of the twentieth century. This is a great story, beautifully told.”

After Dolly died at a relatively young age in 1941 (age about 46) and after the end of World War II, her lover and friend Natalie Barney solicited writings from Dolly’s friends and had the memorial book privately printed. There are about 14 contributions, both in English and French, many by some of the more famous literary and artistic persons of Dolly’s day.

Except for her letters, Dolly wrote very little. Had she taken pen in hand as her famous uncle did, she would have been a well known person today. Here is a brief sample of her writing taken from a letter to her friend “Emily.”

“Dear Emily, Your letter arrived with my breakfast tray and a beam of sunlight cut the pages like a golden paper knife. I lit a voluptuous cigarette and in the fresh morning solitude—before the incidents of the day have broken me into segments—I read your lovely words.”

I am looking forward to leisurely reading through the book over the next few days before I have to return it to the library. I acquired the book via an inter-library loan.

I was struck by two things in the book. The first is that the creation and issuance of grades by teachers in the K-12 range is a very complex procedure. This is especially true because of a lack of any kind of regional let alone national consistency in grading practices. The second concept that struck me was that Mr. O’Connor has a very clear, though complex, formula for a system of creating grades at all levels of school.

I am not a professional educator, nor do I have any Education college classes under my belt, but I see here a fine system that should be considered by all school districts and state boards of education in our country.

A prudent shopper can find a new copy of the book (I looked on amazon.com) starting at around $30.00. I was even more prudent and acquired the loan of the book through an Inter-Library Loan at my local library.

Any person interested in education and grades, or has children in school, or is a professional teacher, you can benefit from the ideas in this book. If nothing else it will get you thinking about the grading procedures. You may even become an advocate for Mr. O’Connor’s theories.