Fun With Gizmos

After all my ranting about what the heck do I need with an iPad . . .  I didn't get an iPad but I did get a tablet, a horribly expensive tablet, ridiculously self-indulgent but it's for work to solve an actual problem I was having with trying to read client notes and some typed up protocols in the dark.  I'll spare you all the details of the more inexpensive fixes I've tried but I had settled on trying to read while hunched over the dim light of the laptop.  My back and eyes were not happy.  Then I found out I can get a tablet that you can hand write notes on with an electronic stylus pencil thingy that also allows you to read 2 screens at once.  So I can have client notes up on the screen at the same time as the protocols and I can make the writing bigger or smaller and read it in the dark.  And now I don't have to haul a big bag full of paperwork to and from the office, I can load all the documents onto the tablet.  Technology amazes me sometimes.  I'll be able to commute on my bike once the weather warms up a bit since I won't have so much crap to haul.  I've already used it with a couple of clients and now I can't imagine how I got by without it.  I'm aiming to get the office mostly paperless and cloud based so if there's flood or fire or whatever I won't lose my notes, recordings, protocols, etc.  I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

I bought the thing thinking I'd try it out and decide it wouldn't be useful before the nausea over what I'd spent had worn off and I'd end up returning it.  But now you just try prying it from my cold dead hands.  Aside from the worderlfulness at work it also does all kinds of fun stuff like this:

And this:

And who knows what else.  I looked up some drawing apps and artists had posted the most amazing drawings they'd made with a $5 app.  Maybe I'll finally even learn to draw a little better.  I've always wanted to take an oil painting class up at the university but wow, so expensive, and then the cost of materials, yikes.  Every once in a while I pull out my copy of 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' and work on some of the exercises.  Will be interesting to try it out with the tablet.

In other unrelated news I managed to get a patellar plate injury.  Woke up at 2 am with a horrible shooting pain in my foot.  Lola lying on top of my foot and crushing it wasn't helping matters.  Could barely walk when I got up in the morning but it got better over the day.  Went to the chiropractor in the afternoon and he said it was likely a patellar plate injury which is usually caused by high mileage running in racing flats/minimal shoes or running/jumping while barefoot.  Which is exactly what I had been doing for about 15-20 minutes on Monday morning at boot camp.  We were inside and jumping on and off the Bosu ball which is difficult for me in shoes so I took them off.  Further in the class when we started doing more explosive jumping I put my shoes back on.  Nothing hurt all day, took the dogs for a walk, normal activity.  So weird that it waited until 2 am.  Thankfully it's better now and I can walk but for a while my foot was so swollen and red.  I'm supposed to rest it for 4-5 days but chyeah, right.  Somebody needs to shove me in a crate, I swear I'm worse than Strummer at sitting still.  We've got some snow today so hopefully that will slow me down a little for the next couple of rest days.

Though it won't slow these guys down.