Open Mobile Should Mean in Books Too

Am sitting at the coffee shop reading an ebook, Open Mobile, and it hit me again that I think that ebooks are done all wrong.

I’m currently reading a PDF file, which is fine and all, but this could have been done as a wiki and besides using CSS to make it look like a book or PDF, it would have made it a lot easier to reference links and manage my own comments to this.

Of course, for this to happen, I would have needed to download the wiki, and connect it to my device’s central repository of books and other documents. Which is good until I want to read the book on another device. Maybe then I would need a central sever to host my own downloaded wiki books, and then access them as I need from any device.

Makes me want that mobile web sever. This would be great, especially if there was something in the way of a security certificate that could be managed between my server, my devices, and he publishers so that I could continue to read freely.

What would reading look like if it were open? Maybe this is a good step forward.

Biking – The Reset Button

Since doing MMM full-time, Saturdays have become much more important. It’s always been a bit of a rest and refresh day, but the past few weeks, I can see that Saturdays have needed to be more of a reset button than normal.

Today (for instance), I would usually awake, get on the bike to one of the coffee shops that are near me, and spend time chatting with folks while doing some leisure reading. That didn’t happen today – I was too mentally tired to even ride.

And yet, it was refreshing. I’ve just been checking out a few biking websites, after a evening of food and movies (technically, cartoon movies), and I’m starting to feel better. Better in the sense that I’m ready to reengage the world around me, even on my bike.

My bike…

There’s something about getting on it that’s been a reset button. Whether it was me biking to go to someplace to work (read or network), or just bike to get the afternoon energy out of me, it cleared me up to go forward. I never used to notice this when in PA and biking everywhere. There, I enjoyed biking for the travel (my pace, low financial hit) and for the adventures that could be taken. Here, its not nearly as bike-friendly, and so I pick spots to ride, and do my best to enjoy.

The enjoyment of riding here comes after the ride. That point when I’m tired from taking one of the two hills that I need to take to get to my home. That point after the talking to my neighbor who wants to get out again on his bike (he was hit some months ago on his bike). After that point of seeing a few riders here and there, and every one of them with a smile of grit and enjoyment on their faces. Its after that point that it hits me: life just got reset.

When one of my friends told me that he is springing for a new Trek soon, I got excited. Excited not because he will get back some reliable transportation (the public transportation system in Charlotte isn’t so good), but because he’s getting a chance to see his life reset back to that free and traveled place that only bikes can go.

And man, it will be refreshing. Refreshing to help others get bikes of their own so they too can create a moment here that just doesn’t exist in other places. Refreshing to start the week on two wheels, with a mobile in the pocket and an iPad on the back (maybe) to engage another bout of no bike lanes, tattered road gutters, beeping drivers, newly made greenways, 100 degree temperatures, and the moment after…

…that moment after I get off my bike and I realize that God’s hit the reset button for another week. And I can move onward to the next adventures in digital and two wheeled frames.