Silly Little Journals

Ok, I'm weird. My wife likes to remind me from time to time, however, she married me so what does that say about her? :-)

Anyhoo, as early as my b-school days, I was considered a geek compared to most folks. However, compared to the dudes in the CS and Engineering schools, I was rather tame. As a software architect, my thing is technology. I have a nice laptop with the latest Java goodies on it for work. I pay bills online, have broadband Internet at home with Wi-Fi, and have two weblog web sites. I have depended on the IT boom of the late eighties, nineties, and now the 21st century to pay the bills and feed the kids. Complete with buying a new mobile phone every 6-8 months and owning a PDA (which is rotting on my desk now because of the laptop), its safe to say I'm a geek.

Perhaps because of my age or some other ironic reason, I have and continue to use a paper-based notebook for note taking in various business and personal meetings. I've tried the PDA thing and have tried taking meeting minutes via laptop from time to time. Nonetheless, I still have a paper notebook. Generally, I like bound notebooks like the serious engineering notebooks that you may see. {Nothing says propeller-head like a grid-ruled notebook}.

Since I'm at the end of a current chemistry notebook from SU, I was at the local Staples looking for a notebook the other day. I wasn't able to find anything that suited what I wanted. {I know, just by a $2 notebook and be done with it!} Then I drove over to a nearby Barnes & Noble store and checked out the stationary department. There were a plethora of journal-like books. Then I stumbled on a Moleskine journal in two different sizes. I read the description and history (!) of the journal, examined the sturdy construction, and bought the "large" sized with ruled paper. Come to find out there is a small (or perhaps not so small) following of those who use these books. I even went back and bought the original pocket sized one for my backpacking journal! Its not waterproof but nothing a ziploc bag can't fix.

We'll see how the note taking goes with this non-so technical alternative.