ROGERS — After trying for over a year to load a book onto an MP3 player, I made an amazing discovery. The Rogers Public Library has a small collection of Playaway books. I plan to listen to every single one of them.

For years I read a book when I exercised on the elliptical. I’m not a music person. Listening to an iPod while exercising just doesn’t do it for me. I don’t have a problem with television, but at the Rogers Activity Center watching T.V. can be a gamble.

At a place like the Activity Center, you just never know what’s going to be on and there’s always someone there first who has control of the television. It’s funny how it’s never Good Morning America they watch.

It’s always Fox News or Spanish music videos. On the few instances when I did gain control of the television, it didn’t last long. I’m just not determined enough to fight off the latecomers who assume I’m not actually watching it.

But reading on the elliptical presents its own difficulties. Many people insist that you can’t really be working hard if you’re reading. For years I’d end up sweaty andout of breath, in spite of my bad reading habit, so I didn’t pay much attention, but then I found myself on an elliptical that also exercises your arms. I propped my book up on the screen, grabbed the handles and pumped my feet and hands together. It was all right until I had to turn the page. Letting go of the moving hand grips to reach between them and turn the page was dangerous. I didn’t actually fall off the elliptical, but it wasn’t pretty.

Luckily, we live in a high tech age and I knew about books on MP3 players. It seemed like such a simple solution, but of course, it wasn’t.

First, I needed an MP3 player, so I told my husband to find me one on eBay.

What was I thinking? I know from many sad experiences that it’s not safe to let him loose on eBay. A week later he presented me with a brand new MP4 player. If an MP3 player is good, an MP4 player has got to be better, right?

I think I had about 20 hours invested before I determined that it was impossible to download a book through the library Web site onto an MP4 player. There’s something about the “iPod technology.”

So, I went back to the Internet and found my own inexpensive MP3 player.

Another 20 hours or so and I still didn’t have a book downloaded.

I couldn’t do it at the library because it took too long. I spent my lunch hourone afternoon getting it set up to download, but I ran out of time before it got through the first chapter. I knew I would never have enough time to download an entire book at the library.

I was never sure why I couldn’t do it at home. Maybe the media player on my home computer is too old?

Maybe I’m too old to figure it out? After another 20 hours of frustration, I gave up.

Next, I called in my emergency tech crew, my kids. I suspect that any one of them could have done it if they had really wanted to. Maybe I should have offered them a better bribe. Finally, I put the MP3 player into my desk and went back to reading on the elliptical.

That’s when I discovered the Playaway books.

Evidently I’m not the only person who can’t download a book onto a portable device. Someone has produced portable devices that already have an entire book downloaded. You can check them out of the library just like real books and the friendly librarians will even sell you ear phones for only one dollar.

I love to listen to my book at the Activity Center and sometimes, at the Adult Wellness Center. I may be too old to download a book, but thanks to Playaway books, I’m not too old for the elliptical with the moving hand grips.

Reporter Lynn Atkins can be contacted by e-mail at lynna@nwanews.com.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 11/04/2009

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