My first computer was a KayPro II, a hand-me-down from my father. He had just gotten a new IBM PC that booted DOS off a 30mb hard drive and displayed its text-only interface on an orange monochrome monitor. My computer had no hard drive, two 5.25" floppy drives, ran the CP/M OS, featured a built-in 9" green monochrome monitor, and was the size of a large suitcase, ironic since the point of the KayPro was portability. It ran some word processor--whose name has long since gone the way of the names of the Nine Muses in my mind--, a BASIC programming environment, a few ASCII graphics based games, and the classic text adventure game, Adventure. I trace my continued love of the adventure game genre to that game.

The KayPro died some time after I inherited it. After that I played on my dad's computer when he wasn't using it (I still have copies of short stories written when I was a child printed from the loud, screeching dot matrix printer attached to it). When my dad left, I was computer-less for many years. I purchased a word processor that I think I might have ordered from Damark and used it a bit.

After I moved into my own place in the mid-90's, I got an Apple catalog in the mail and immediately began to lust after the computers therein. But, I could not afford one. I played with my friend's PC, surfing this new and interesting thing called "The Internet" or "The Web", I could never figure out which it was, and playing Quake. Soon after that I saw an ad for a cheap Compaq and bought it. Since that time, late '97 it was, I bought two PCs and built one.

In most ways I am not a good candidate for switching to Apple. For example, while I have had issues with Windows, I have not had anywhere near to the number of issues that Windows-haters constantly bring up. Even when I was a Windows '98 user, I had only occasional bouts of crash and restart cycles and once I went to XP most of those disappeared. Many of the problems I had were more of the "minor annoyance" variety than the catastrophic variety, things like Disk Checker suddenly deciding that one of my hard drives needed checking every time I restarted for an entire year. Then, for no reason, it decided that the hard drive was, in fact, just fine. Or currently, Windows Explorer refusing to show my USB drives even though I can copy data to them using SyncToy.

When the certainty of my sister's marriage became evident, and so the certainty of me moving out of the apartment we share, the idea of simplifying my computing life became very appealing to me. I waste a great deal of time (and money in upgrades to hardware) playing games and keeping up with the whole gaming culture. Also, with my tinkering tendencies, I waste a lot of time trying out programs to replace the programs that I am already using and happy with.

So, earlier in the year I decided that I wanted to leave behind my desktops and move to just using a laptop. The only one that I seriously considered getting was a MacBook (Pro or non-Pro). I hemmed and hawed, I did google searches about the dangers and problems of switching, I spent hours looking at apple.com reading and watching QT vids of Mac features, and I started a email conversation with the multi-talented, friendly and helpful Mac user, Glynnis.

At last I made the decision that I wanted to make in the first place, and had I done so I could have saved myself a lot of time and energy by just going with my first instincts. I got the money from my credit union and placed the order. Or rather I tried to place the order. At first, I was unable since my bank had a daily spending limit, which the MacBook Pro's price exceeded. I called my bank and ended up in a conference call between the hip, friendly, and kinda cute-sounding Apple Store operator (She gave me her name and her direct line. Score!) and the dour and uptight-sounding Customer Servce Supervisor (Worst. Threesome. Ever.). Finally, between the three of us, we were able to place the order.

It arrived the following Monday morning while I was in the shower, forcing me to run out of the house with wet hair and with clinging clothes to get the FedEx guy to come back. I opened the package, put the new baby in my man bag and went off to work to begin the process of The Switch.

To Be Continued...