Cheaper than the library

High fuel prices make for some weird economic decisions. I was talking to my  niece and we figured out it was cheaper for her to buy a book online than to borrow it from the library. That’s not an electronic book but an actual paper and ink book. A good part of that is living out in the country where everything is a fair drive down the road. 

I never thought I see the day. The only thing that makes sense is that fuel prices have not been fully integrated into home delivery yet. Someone is eating the cost. That can’t go on forever. Of course, the delivery van is not delivering one book to the countryside but hundreds or thousands of items all over. It’s a lot more efficient than your lone trip to the city library.

My wife is a bit concerned with all the packages showing up at our house. However, I’m getting some stuff delivered while that’s still an economical option. It’s not like the bank is going to pay me any worthwhile interest.

Speaking of high fuel prices, my neighbor was talking about how she really made out with her heating oil prebuy last heating season. She was still paying $2.75 when prices had skyrocketed to over $5.00. She’s not sure if her oil company will even offer a prebuy option this coming winter. 

Just to make things interesting, I remember some years back during another price spike one company had amazing prebuy options. A lot of people signed up and sent in their checks. Oil prices continued to go up and the company just plain disappeared. The remaining oil companies struggled to meet demand as people were left high and dry. No doubt there will be scams this time around too. People have short memories.

With transportation and heating costs going up we’ve got to take a good hard look at how we do things. You may discover weird stuff like buying a book is cheaper than borrowing it for free.

-Sixbears

Planning, Preparation and Resupply

We’ve been using our time at the campground to catch up a lot of business. A nearby library has made us feel very welcome. One of the librarians lived in New Hampshire for 30 years and loves to talk to us about our state.

One librarian remembered me from two years ago. We met her at Clearwater Lake Campground. Her and her husband had purchased a neat little camper trailer. Their problem was that they didn’t understand how the solar electric was set up. She saw I was using solar and begged me to figure out their system. I was happy to help and sorted it out.

The library has decent wifi and we even used their fax machine.

We’ve picked up a lot of information about other places we want to check out. We are in the process of planning our next moves. I’ve done some work on the boat and changed the oil in the motor.

Of course, there’s all the mundane stuff like laundry and grocery shopping that needed doing too. This has been a time to sort out some business and to get ready for the next stage of our adventure.

-Sixbears

My education journey

I’m essentially self educated. Sure, I went though high school like most people. After that I tried community college for one semester but dropped out after that. For the next nineteen years I was self taught.

When still eighteen years old I was lucky enough to get into the fire department. Since I loved to read, a good chunk of my disposable income went towards buying books. Across the street from the fire station is the public library. Over my years in the fire service I read a good sampling of the books in our little library.

My self education was of two general types. I was a sponge for information and since I never knew what would catch my attention I read a wide variety of books. The second type of reading was for specific subjects and information. A subject or a project would catch my interest an I’d read all the information on the subject that I could find. It could anything from boat building to falconry. I learned enough to build a few boats over the years and I learned enough about falconry to realize it was a larger time and money commitment that I was interested in.

Somewhere along the way I got interested in dome homes. That sent me down the rabbit hole of learning a lot of geometry that I never learned in high school. I still live in the dome built during those years.

Two years after leaving the fire service, at the age of thirty-seven, I went back to college for a four year degree. By then I was a fully formed grown adult, not some impressionable teenager. College did not completely change my world view or anything like that. If anything I got to bring my experiences and self education to the halls of academia. That wasn’t always appreciated, but more often than not it was useful.

The thing that college did was give me a few more tools to continue my self education. My searches and research became more focused and organized. Also, I was better able to express myself. In general, the formal college experience gave me a few more tools to keep doing what I always did.

It was interesting to go back to college as a non-traditional student. I had a whole college at my disposal. There were plenty of courses that I took, not because I needed them for my major, but because I found them interesting. Really, that’s the best and most fun way to go to college. It won’t land you a job, but will provide you with a wider education.

If I had to pick what part of my education was most important I’d have to say it was the self directed part. That’s where I learned to think outside the box.

-Sixbears

Not everything is digital

Not every book is in digital format and some of them most likely never will be. My own library has many old and rare books that have never been scanned. My lovely wife and I have always collected books. We went through a spell where we didn't read anything less than 100 years old. Read enough older books and you get a feel for times past. It used to amaze my English professors when my papers bibliography contained numerous rare books from my private library. Perhaps they were a bit jealous.

Back in '99 a good friend of mine passed away. I ended up with about a third of his extensive research library. Not only are few of those books available digitally, many are difficult to impossible to find anywhere. A number of them were printed in expensive limited runs for a small group of researchers. While the books are rare, the margin notes my friend left behind are priceless to me. The guy didn't publish as many papers as he should have. Pure research was more fun for him.

Then there's a friend of mine who's father used to have connections to the publishing industry. Browsing through he bookshelf one day, I found unpublished manuscripts. Two were from the Science Fiction writer Avram Davidson. There was also some unpublished poetry by Ezra Pound. Those one of a kind rare manuscripts are just one house fire away from being lost to the world forever.

While I worry about rare books disappearing, they may outlast many digital books. Think of all the electronic storage devices that are now obsolete and rare. Even NASA has digital records from the early days of space flight that they cannot read. A good CME from the sun and maybe all digital books are gone. Perhaps our paper books may be all that remains.

-Sixbears