Back before the invention of the printing press my great, great, great grandfather came to the United States from Bavaria. His name was August Kindl.
At Ellis Island the immigration officials added the ‘e’…hence my family’s name.
We pronounce it Kindl. Not Kind-el.
Kindl translates to "child" in Bavarian. Those who know me well will find this fitting.
Amazon recently launched their Kindle reading device. Pronounced the same way as my last name. I find that very annoying because I’m constantly thinking people are referring to me but they’re not.
I bought a Kindle and have been trying it out for a week. My thoughts:
- Great concept, crappy execution.
- The reading experience is visually great. It really does read well.
- The book buying experience is fantastic. It just works.
- The page flip buttons are the 2nd worst ergonomic design in the history of electronic devices. You cannot pick the device up without accidentally flipping a page, and heaven forbid you accidentally lean on one of the buttons…you’ll find yourself several chapters away from where you were with no way of getting back.
- It requires an AC adapter to charge. They should have just done the work to make it capable of charging from USB. Yes, I know it can trickle charge from USB, but only if it has some charge left. I know this because I have lost my Kindle charger. I was able to craft a new one out of an old wall wart I had lying around and a trip to Radio Shack.
I’m taking the Kindl to Hawaii for almost 2 weeks. Normally I take a stack of 5 or 6 books to Hawaii, but this time I’m forcing myself just to bring the Kindl. We’ll see how it does on the beach with sand and all…
Kindle means "burn". I hope this kindl doesn’t forget sunscreen and kindle his skin while on the beach reading his Kindle.
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