The Mechanic & the Muse: Ta-Ta, Tab-let

Reporting

"Made in the Shade"
A package on Southern writers: profiles, interviews and an 11-state directory of writers you may never have heard of but are worth your time. Appeared in Creative Loafing chain.
"Mass Appeal"
A day-in-the-life profile of a telegenic parish priest in Miami. Published in Catholic Digest, reprinted in the St. Petersburg Times
"The Liberation of Tam Minh Pham"
How the first West Point graduate from South Vietnam disappears after the fall of Saigon, only to be rescued by his classmates two decades later. A cover story in The Washington Post Magazine

Oh, what hopes I had for the two of us. The fun we would have. The successes we would enjoy. But, as so often happens, what I thought was the real thing turned out to be just another infatuation.

Early last summer, I got my hands on the object of my desire: a Tablet PC. For months, I had eyed with envy the sleek electronic notebooks that a few colleagues brought to meetings. Larry Larsen, one of Poynter's early adopters, wrote an ode that extolled its many virtues.

The things is I'm no Larry Larsen. The Tablet PC and I...it just didn't work out. I tried, honest. But I wasn't ready for the committment that handwriting and voice recognition demanded. Being a southpaw didn't help. And for the life of me, I could never figure out the folder system in Microsoft One Note. I was forever losing track of pages. Lying in bed with it in my lap generated so much heat I swore I could feel it neutering me.

I admit it. I loved the way people admired the companion on my arm. On planes and in airports they oohed and ahhed at the way I could swivel the screen on my convertible model (half laptop, half slate).

But in the end, it just wasn't working out. My Tablet deserved a better owner. Last week, I swapped it for a traditional laptop. I'm just not Tablet material. It's not you, I wanted to say. It's me.