Supplemental: The Tablet

Before I get started I just want to share with you that I don't know how to spell "supplemental", my spellchecker does. All I can think when I look at that word is, if I ever start an acid jazz punk band, it will be called Supple Pup and the Mental Kittens. God, did Patrick Stewart struggle with this? Ugh. ANYWAY,
I love my tablet sooo much. At the moment, it's a little limiting for posts. Take a look at my older posts from last year and you'll see the difference in formatting, but I want to talk about travel utility. Every morning at breakfast I load my itinerary into the Google Maps app. The bicycle directions feature highlights the most scenic and pleasant route, which is rarely the most direct. Major streets are always faster and so obvious on the map as to be self evident. I can optimize the route on the fly and refer back to the map throughout the day. The initial route is saved by archiving screen shots of each section. If I get too far off, there is usually wifi near most major intersections. Some of you have been riding with GPS for some time, so this may seen a little stale. I think this system is more pure. Once I'm out the door, the images I'm using are static. I still get to squint at the tiny writing and spin the thing around trying to get oriented. It feels like fumbling with a very thick, glowing map.
I also use it to read during downtime. I just finished the Hunger Games and am already hooked on Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson, the author of my absolute favorite book Snowcrash. Reading with this thing is great if only because you don't need to hold it open while you eat. It also lets me network with people I meet or stay with along the way. There might not be much more to say about it, but this thing is my companion, my onboard navigation computer, my little chunk of the future keeping me company out on the road. The inside flap of the case is accumulating the handwritten notes I've been making about routes and phone numbers, so the whole package is begining to resemble a travel log.
For anyone curious about the tablet itself, it is a basic Nook Color booting off a micro SD card with Cyanogen Mod 7 to make it behave as an Android tablet. This doesn't void any warrenties as it's fully reversible and requires no hardware manipulation.