Umbrella? What Umbrella?

If you live Oklahoma, you get plenty of opportunities to experience the wind that comes sweeping down the plains. If, like me, you grew up in Oklahoma, you learn to deal with the wind and, during those rare extended periods of no wind (to me, that's a wind speed less than 10 mph) you actually start to miss it.

One of the ways I've dealt with wind is to not carry an umbrella. I'm not sure how many umbrellas were blown inside-out before I learned this coping skill, but at one time I reached a point where I stopped buying new umbrellas.

The down side is that I have to think ahead for dealing with rainy days. Usually, I try to park close enough that I can dart from building to tree (yeah, I know, bad idea if lightning is involved) to building to get to work.

Today, though, I couldn't use that strategy because my car went into the shop for repairs. Sure enough, a thunderstorm rumbled into town just as I was leaving for work.

No umbrella, of course.

I stuffed a couple of garbage bags into my backpack, knowing that I could use them as ponchos (for some reason, I forgot to buy emergency ponchos when I had the chance). But I knew that my head would still get wet. And besides, wearing the garbage bag poncho over my backpack would make me look like the Hunchback of the Garbage Heap.

In a flash of inspiration and a rumble of satisfaction (or maybe it was the lightning and thunder that did the flash and rumble thing?), I grabbed an unused storage tote lid and headed out to the bus stop.

Awesome! It kept my head dry and was big enough to keep my backpack dry as well. Not only that, but I knew that a gust of wind wouldn't turn the thing inside-out.

After I got off the bus (people looked but didn't say anything about my tote lid), I still had a few blocks to walk to get to my workplace.

The rain had more or less stopped, so I carried the lid next to me.

I discovered its next use when a car drove though a puddle in the street next to where I was on the sidewalk. With my "totebrella" at my side, the water didn't splash me. 

Yess!!

I made it to my office and from there to my class (it had started raining again by the time I'd ascended the stairs from the basement to emerge outside), using my rain shield.
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I wonder if I could make any money marketing the Totebrella?

But Wait, There's More!

I have a Kindle Fire HD. I love it. I used to have a plain Kindle and read a lot on it. That was its main purpose - be an e-reader.

But it went wonky. The screen massed up. I'd had it long enough that my only option was to buy another one, because they couldn't fix it.

I ended up with my Kindle Fire HD. I'd been saving up for it, but got one as a gift. Score!
I started putting my books on it.

But then I tried out an app. And then another. And another.

Now I have dozens of apps (I weed them out occasionally, but I still have a lot on the tablet, and many more in the Cloud). Most of the apps are free and/or beta versions.
Ones I really like, I'll end up buying. Some, like Astrid (my all-time favorite productivity app), get bought by a bigger fish (Yahoo! bought Astrid) and then kill it off. This makes me leery about buying apps, although it hasn't stopped my completely.

However, the vast majority of my apps are free and supported by ads. Usually, I have no problem with that. Most ads are inconspicuous, or they pop up after I finish a game or a level. No big deal.

Early this morning things changed.

I was reading my Twitter feed on Tweetcaster, and as usual, the little inconspicuous ads were running down at the bottom. I occasionally glanced, but mostly ignored them.
Then one showed up with sound. Definitely conspicuous, because, like late-night TV commercials, the sound was louder than a normal app (I keep the volume down when everyone is asleep). 

Holy cats!

I clicked on the little 'X' that ads have so you can make them go away. The video part of it went away, but the guy kept talking at me as if he would annoy me enough to buy what he was promoting.

I hope this doesn't become the norm. If so, I may have to go back to reading books on my Kindle.

I don't think that's a bad thing when I think about it.