Most married dudes know they can get their wife mad at them by
playing too much with gadgets. Heck, this is the reason I don't have a
smart phone, iPad or Kindle Fire. I know my life would get sucked into
their little screen. Every idle moment I had would be filled playing
games that require
me to put candy in a frog-like monster's mouth with Rube Goldberg-style
setups or
to
help a sewer crocodile take a shower that isn't toxic. While these
games are fun, and there are a lot of positive uses for Web-browsing,
game-playing gadgets like iPhones, I find the negatives outweigh the
positives for me.When I got married, I initially forsook most digital forms of entertainment and began reading voraciously. I kept a list of the books I had read for a while. In about two years that I kept the list, I had read over 200 books. But I recently slowed down on reading and started substituting gadget time again, much to my wife's chagrin.
But for Christmas, I got a Kindle Touch
. This combines two of my favorite things: gadgets and
reading. And it does it in a way that helps me like both better. This
is a perfect daddy gift. While it reinforces the love of gadgets, it has
one task: to make it easy to read. I read way more now that I have it.
And with free classics readily available, I find my willingness to read
things on the bucket list has expanded significantly. Heck, I downloaded
War & Peace and am actually excited to read it. At least I won't be
toting around a thick, thousand-page book for a month or more while I
struggle through it.The best part of this gift is my wife can't get nearly as mad at me for using it compared to other electronics I own. It's just picking up a book that happens to have a power switch. Now, my wife and I often read side-by-side on Kindles after our kids have gone to bed. No movies, no video games, no Internet surfing. Just quiet with the occasional click of a button or tap of a finger on the touch screen. Forget the iPad, just get a singularly focused e-reader and do something more worthwhile with Daddy's time.
It's not without its shortcomings, but I love having it. Especially now that the library carries Kindle books.
Get Daddy a Kindle
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