My Laptop

A few weeks ago I was looking for some information online about how to fix something on my laptop when I ran across an article on how to change the color of the Apple logo on the back. I'm seriously considering it. I think green would be a good change of pace. I've had this iBook for over four years now and it's beginning to really show it's age. I can remember when I got it at orientation for UNCW - my parents brought it down to me and it felt like Christmas in July. Back then, Apple computers were even more rare and trendy than they are now. It's only been since the rising popularity of the iPod that sorority girls and the like have picked up on them. O my GOSH - they're SOOOO CUTE! It was still a time when only graphic designers and film nerds wanted Apples. I say this because I remember the looks I got at orientation staying in Graham Hall. Dell had this deal they'd struck up with the school, and all the other kids were hauling around there stone-grey slabs while my bright white Apple shone through the crowd. Strangers would actually stop and ask me about it because it was a serious novelty.

I love this horrible piece of trash. It has had it's fair share of problems, thats for sure. When I got it, the internal wireless card was shot so I had to send it in to get a new one. Thankfully I'd gotten the three year warranty, something that more than paid for itself. The little rubber feet fell out every summer at Caswell because I rest my laptop on the 2x4 shelf on my bunk and when I pick it up I always forget that they hang over and pop off. By the end of the summer I hunt around on the floor to find them. This summer I just bought new ones off of ebay. A rubber stopper on the top of the monitor ripped off one day when I was playing with it. The hard-drive started having issues after about a year, but I just kind of ignored it. Finally, last May when the warranty was almost up, I decided to make use of it one more time and they replaced the drive. The speakers are under-powered and they now sound more like metal vibrating on a dashboard than whatever I try to play though them. The internal microphone clicks in a strange pattern ever 20 seconds or so - making it impossible to record anything that doesn't annoy the heck out of you upon playback. I've replaced the power adapter twice and the battery once, (one of those cheap batteries that was made in China and is obviously violating several patents). The plastic outer casing scratches if you look at it sideways, I swear - and to top it off, I dropped the thing on its side off of my desk chair last April and the monitor doesn't line up with the base when I shut it anymore. This means that the latch doesn't catch and it the top just kind of bounces around.

In spite of all of this, it has still outlasted and will continue to outlast the hunks-o-garbage that all of my friends bought their freshmen year. I can do just about everything I need to do on a day-to-day basis with relatively little slowdown. When I think of all the good that has come of this laptop - all the writing, the research through school, the friendships that I've made or kept up with over long distances, the tickets to shows and concerts that I've bought - it really dulls the sting of all the things I just listed. When I decided to start this internship with CCF one of the things that struck me a few days later was that I was going to be stuck with this dying laptop for at least another year. I want to be able to edit movies and photography and do complex web authoring, etc. etc. That is the kind of professional work that my tired old iBook now shuffles through at best. I crunched numbers and re-crunched them only to find there was just no way out. My compensation won't be able to touch the price tag on a new one of these bad boys. I was seriously bummed about it.

I'm reading a Don Miller book called, "Through Painted Deserts." One of the central messages of that book seems to be an anti-commercialism/anti-materialism one - a message I more than need to embrace. In one section, Don recounts when he and his traveling companion, Paul, are at the bottom of the Grand Canyon preparing for the day-long hike back up. He is utterly exhausted in every sense from the hike down and through the canyon, very little food, and a near sleepless night in below-freezing conditions. After dreaming of decadent breakfasts the days prior, Don finally comes to the point where he agrees with Paul that a bowl of raisin bran would be the best thing in the world to him.

"You know," Paul begins, "it's funny. Two weeks ago when we talked about things we wanted or our aspirations, we would have talked about houses or boats or cars. Now that we've been on the road for a while, everything is reduced to a bowl of cereal." Paul develops a smile as he stands straight again. "Isn't that just beautiful? Cereal. There are people in this world who are killing themselves because they want more and more of nothing. And the only thing you and I want in this world is a bowl of cereal. That just show you how the things we think are important really aren't important."

My laptop really isn't that bad after all.
What have you blessed with?