I retired from my, a real job 10 years ago. I, then, decided
that I would write novels and something I found interesting, at the time, taking
surveys and entering contests, sweepstakes, so on and so forth. I can’t say that,
in all that time, it has been lucrative, but I have won and received quite a
lot of prizes.
During those years, I have received at least, if not close
to $1000 in music, movie, and gasoline gift cards. Usually $10 at a time. Recently
I saved enough $10 Amazon gift cards to purchase a backpack and a camping cook
set. However, the two biggest things and most wanted things I have received
were a 23in, all-in-one computer and a 55in TV, both in 2009. Nothing but
Amazon and iTunes gift cards since. Of course, nothing in the lottery, or for
that matter, all of those sweepstakes that offer million dollar homes and cars
and stuff. Not a biggie though.
For the last year or so I have been watching a daytime TV
show called Right This Minute, RTM. I got into it because they showed a ton of
internet videos and I enjoyed most of them. Sometime last year they started
offering iPad Mini’s and once a week a bonus prize, usually a LED TV, if you
watched and sent, on the internet, your information and the “Word of the day”
to their web site. That got me hooked.
I figured that if I play long enough I might win; then
again, I might not win a thing. This sweepstakes usually lasted about 30 days,
3 times a year. This year I finally won that iPad Mini2. I always thought that
if I won I would sell the iPad on EBay; I would rather have gotten the cash
then the iPad, considering I already have a tablet and it does what I want
rather well.
I received the iPad Mini2 this past Friday and, for all
intent and purposes, it was a nice looking tablet. I, for whatever reason,
decided to keep it. Then, I said to myself, WHY am I going to keep this tablet?
I took all of the plastic off of the tablet fired it up and then started to add
apps that I think I needed.
At that very moment I realized that having a second tablet
was just a little bit much, overkill. I already have a laptop, a desktop, two
smartphones and now two tablets. Both tablets doing much of the same thing. Moreover,
an Apple device is a hard cookie to crack. There are a lot of little things my
Nexus 7 does that the iPad doesn’t do and to me that it a distraction.
So now what do I do with it? Keep it in my bedroom and use
it as an alarm clock? I can’t do that because my old and I mean old second
smartphone does that. I don’t use it for anything else but wake me in the
morning. It looks like I may end up selling it anyway, that is if I don’t find
something for it to do.
Other than that, I guess I will just keep playing those
online contests and sweepstakes. Now, if I can just win the lottery!
