A Tale of the Travels of My Kindle Fire

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm very excited about the imminent arrival of my new Kindle Fire, an Android tablet that many people are calling the first significant competitor to the Apple iPad (mostly because of price--the Apple iPad starts at $500, while the Kindle Fire is only $200). I'm mostly excited because of what the device could mean from an educational standpoint. If a Kindle Fire-like device can provide for web browsing, ebook reading, minor document creation, and some educational apps, it could actually become a viable 1:1 option for schools. After all, a new textbook can cost $200, and a graphing calculator is another $100. But the Kindle Fire can download a FREE app that makes it function as a graphing calculator, and hopefully textbook manufacturers will get some sense about them and start charging steep discounts for digital textbooks. In that case, the Fire practically pays for itself if it works, and I can't wait to get ahold of mine to start seeing how it fares.

But I'm not here today to write about that. I'm here today to talk about the whirlwind travels that my Kindle Fire is taking. The Fire was supposed to be released on Tuesday the 15th, but I got an email Monday the 14th from Amazon saying that my Fire had shipped a day early. I hadn't forked out the money for overnight shipping, so I didn't expect it to arrive right away...at least not at first. I logged onto the Amazon website in excitement and clicked the "Track Package" button. After a few seconds wait, a screen popped up that said that my Fire, at 4:06 AM on the 14th, had been in Hebron, Kentucky. Hebron, Kentucky! That was about 10 miles from my house! I got excited. Maybe Amazon was working on the "Underpromise and Overdeliver" philosophy and was going to get my Fire to me on the next day when it officially became available. If not, I'd at least get it on Wednesday the 16th!

But that was not to be. I tracked my package again early on Tuesday, hoping to see that it was "Out for Delivery" or something like that. Instead, at 8:04 AM on the 15th, the package had moved from Hebron (Again, only 10 miles from my house) to Grove City, Ohio, which is just outside of Columbus. My Fire had left me and gone more than 100 miles to the north. Maybe it was an Ohio State fan and was headed up there for an early basketball game or something. I don't know. In any event, it was pretty apparent that--if it were in Columbus at 8 AM--I wasn't getting it on Tuesday.

I checked again Tuesday night, and Tuesday evening at 7:03 PM it had moved a little closer, from Grove City, Ohio, to downtown Cincinnati. Again, it was only about 10 miles from my house, just now a little north of my house rather than a liitle southwest. Maybe I'd get it on Wednesday, I though to myself.

I got up yesterday morning and checked, and at 3:03 AM the device had left Cincinnati and at 4:55 AM had arrived in Lakeside Park, Kentucky, which is where the post office that services Fort Mitchell sits. I was excited! 4:55 seemed a little late to get the package on the truck for delivery, but there was an off chance that it had gotten there early enough for me to get it Wednesday. Maybe, just maybe.

But the mail came yesterday afternoon and there was no Kindle Fire. I looked online, and at 12:06 PM the package had moved from Lakeside Park, Kentucky to Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, which was ridiculous, since--as I said in the previous paragraph--the same post office (which I think is actually in Crescent Springs, but that's an issue for another day) services both cities. That means that in 7 hours the package had moved from one basket in the back of the post office to another basket. That's all.

There have been no updates today. However, when I got home today there was the Kindle Fire sitting on the front porch. All told, he traveled about 250 miles to get from Hebron, Kentucky to my doorstep. I hope it was a nice trip.

Now that I have a chance to actually hold the device in my hand, I'll be trying it out both as a personal device and as a potential instructional device. I'll write a review on both counts later.