IN-valuable
My birthday is this month! So in honor of that great and amazing day I decided to pick a very personal topic: Apple (more personal stories will come for my birthday on the 18th)
I remember old windows 98 computers, I remember horrendous interphases and monitors the size of a basketball, I still remember the horrific sound of connecting to the internet via fax. However... I also do still remember that one day, one beautiful day. I went to a classmates house for a homework assignment in school and she asked her father if we could use his computer. He kindly agreed and told us the password. Little did I know that what we were about to experience was an iMac! I can recall like it was yesterday that gorgeous blue transparency and the awe of not having a separate CPU! The CD and CD-ROM unit was ejected from the front as the Apple logo gave way to a seemingly secret door. And even more absurd was the fact that EVEN THE SPEAKERS were inside the monitor computer!
The only gripe I had was the fact that they later had a "puck-sized" mouse, that even when it shared the color of the computer, the form factor was not very appealing to me as a kid (yeah I was weirdly analytic of tech even back then). Me and my friend did our homework and I was still in awe, so by the time we were done I turned to her dad as we sat for coffee-time (I love coffee now, but I was too young then), he drank coffee, we drank hot chocolate.
"Why is your computer so cool?" - I asked
He chuckled and smiled at both of us - "it's not a computer, those are old things. THAT is an iMac. And it is that way because of that apple it has in front. It means it is made by a different company"
We spent at least half an hour on that ONE topic (which for me as a kid is the equivalent of hours!), until finally I asked him where could I learn to use one. He smiled and told me the worst thing he could have told an 8 year old kid: "they have them at McDonalds, you buy food and with the receipt you can use 30 minutes an iMac"
If it weren't for the fact that I used to be a part of a swimming team I am positive I would still be fat from how much I went to McDonalds for small fries and 30 minutes of iMac-time. And then one day... one sad day, McDonalds had the iMacs no more... As any kid I was sad for a couple days until I found a new toy (probably Lego) to play with, but a seed was implanted into my brain.
Not many christmas days after that (winter 2005 I believe), we went to a friends house who lived in Wisconsin and he took me to a Best Buy to get some stuff he needed. I wandered and finally bumped into something sort of familiar: The Logo (). It caught my attention;
1000 songs. Thinner than a pencil.
Black box, black iPod Nano... Merry christmas to me.
That day, was the day I became an Apple Worm, Freak, Fan, whatever you want to call it, but from then on, those 2 products that enamored me like no toy or product in my young life ever had... Made me want to learn more, do more, share more, of this company that had made technology NOT ugly, NOT boring, NOT confusing.
I dare you, to find something that fills you with passion and excitement, something that makes you excited about what is and will be. A sport, an author, a company, a technology, a movie. And when you do, you will JUST KNOW. That dreams are a goal without a date, and that date? No one cares about that date, because the journey to that dream is far more rewarding than the end of it.
