iPad loss offers break from tech

With various apps I've done quite a bit of Bible study with my iPad but apparently baptizing the device is a bad idea.

I got a call from my distraught wife last week who said something terrible had happened. She seemed so concerned I thought someone had died.

She began to describe setting a basket full of laundry on the bed where our 14-year-old dog was napping. She said the action startled him and he went to jump off the bed, my wife caught her breath, nearly sobbing and I thought the balance-impaired elderly dog had probably landed on his head and died.

Nope, his tail had knocked my water glass over on the nightstand where the iPad had been laid down.

She sobbed that she was so sorry and I was immediately irritated at her, not for dowsing the electronic notebook, but for scaring me with the way she broke the news.

It's a thing that can be replaced, I said.

I had heard that cell phones that have been dropped into the toilet or swimming pool have been resurrected by placing them in a baggy of rice to draw the water out of the electronics and into the rice.

This tactic proved unsuccessful on our poor iPad, however.

Over the years I've been pretty lucky with damage to delicate devices. I can't begin to tell you how many keyboards I've fixed by vacuuming the cookie crumbs out of them. I recall one reporter in particular who claimed she never ate at her desk. I could turn her keyboard over on a piece of paper then carry the crumbs outside to feed the birds in the area for a week.

One time I had a camera come off a backpack and land in the river as I crossed. Luckily the fellow hiker behind me grabbed it as it floated away. We dried it out and it worked fine.

I've dropped cameras and lenses from waist high and better and come away with nothing more than a few scratches and dents. I've seen other people destroy cameras and lenses with a drop of a foot or less.

I've never washed my cell phone in the washing machine but I have a USB thumb drive that has been through multiple cycles and still works. I've also sent wristwatches through the wash with just a slight fogging of the face for a few days.

While it is true that the iPad with its glowing screen and dozens of games, apps, books and music is just a thing that can be replaced, it seems we've been going through withdrawals this week in its absence. It's probably a good thing to get a break from the high-tech worship.

We probably don't need to replace the thing but chances are we'll have already done it by the time this column comes out.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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