Me and My Kindle, Part III – The Kindle 2

I don’t mind admitting I was getting more and more annoyed with Amazon. The long awaited announcement that my Kindle 2 had shipped arrived in my inbox on February 22. The Kindle 2 was due to be released on the 24. Surely, I thought, I’d have my new toy that day.

Silly me.

My new Kindle 2 did not arrive until February 28. In fact, if I’d not been rather religiously checking the daily tracking of my “package,” I’d not know it was at the post office. The moment I opened the rather interesting packaging of my new Kindle 2, I swear I heard the strains of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet.

The adorable little critter was nestled in a fascinating white cradle. I carefully removed and caressed it, ticked because I would not be able to get home for several hours. I wanted to play with it. The poor thing was lonely.

I took it to the beauty shop with me. (For those who simply must know, Leroy gave me a great new haircut). While Leroy was doing my hair I let it charge. While I was putting gas in the Durango, I played with it for a minute or two, but that was the end of it until this evening.

It arrived pre-registered to me with the nearly 500 books I’ve purchased already archived, waiting to be downloaded. Unfortunate (and this is my biggest complaint thus far) is the downloading process for the archive, book by book, seems to take forever. After a couple tries, my first being the new Michael Medved book, I gave up and went back to the “old fashioned” way of downloading Kindle books.

I spent the entire evening downloading my purchased books. Unfortunately, during a five-hour period, I’ve only downloaded 55 books. I suspect the problem is more on my end of things, living in the remote wasteland of Lincoln County, New Mexico, rather than Amazon’s “Whispernet” service.

Amazon says you can download a book in about a minute, but I’ve found that to be true only in certain areas. While the faster speed “Orange” areas are available in New Mexico, I must go about 120 miles or so to find them. I’m not quite sure what that means for the “reloading” process. On Monday, when I am in Las Cruces, I think I can take the “archive” section and continue downloading books at a higher speed. Until then, I’ll just soldier on, like a brave little Kindle 2 owner.

Article Author: SJ Reidhead

SJ Reidhead is the author of two western novels, and several non-fiction books about Tombstone and Wyatt Earp. She blogs at The Pink Flamingo. While she is highly critical of the influence of far right conservatives on her beloved Republican Party, …

Visit SJ Reidhead's author page — SJ Reidhead's Blog