The Road to Bliss (nearly)

My longing to switch to the Mac began many years ago, with much of that time spent begging for that sweet computing experience that was OS 8.6, and then OS 9, all the way to Tiger.

The story begins with two computers. My wife, being a Graphic Designer, of course became the owner of a new G4 tower (PCI Graphics, before the speed dump), while I moved from an original Sony VAIO to an AMD based HP. The Mac arrived along with a giant poster, which we still own. The PC arrived as a twin. Thinking I was the beneficiary of good fortune, I thought "Why not keep both machines?" Unfortunately, I was sent two machines by mistake, but HP kindly told me that while they made a mistake, they did not forget to charge me, twice. I promptly sent back one of the machines (most likely the wrong one), and found myself staring at Windows ME while my wife enjoyed the cleanliness and ease of use that is OS 8.6. Plus, she had made the tower itself a "comfy" foot rest.

Very early on I began experiencing odd crashes and system behavior with my PC. The Mac, rock solid. I made the PC look as much like the Mac as possible, task bar along the top, desktop icons on the right. I even played with WindowBlinds, which gave the PC some sort of personality disorder because it began to crash more. And, within 6 months the CD-ROM drive died. I will spare sharing the pain of my experience in getting a replacement from HP. Although, the new replacement drive didn't last much beyond the end of the warranty (of course). And then the real fun began.

After months of odd behavior (and being out of warranty) I finally diagnosed the motherboard; bad RAM slot, I replaced it. Still experiencing odd behavior I upgraded to Windows 2000. Now everything was as stable as the Mac.

Meanwhile, the Mac probably suffered just as much as I did, with now "being upgraded from a foot stool to a wet bar." Any Mac will tell you, that being my wife's wet bar is a hard thing to do. It served everything from iced tea, coffee to coke, with some hard liquor thrown in for taste. Not only did it serve it, but it drank it as well. The machine was drenched in Coke several times, and to this day is still sticky, but not so much.

Being sticky and sweet, our cat decided that the Mac finally met his approval as a day bed. He would sleep on top and next to the warm fan of the machine, leaving behind massive amounts of fur. Imagine this perfect machine, sticky and slightly furry, I believe that if it could have coughed up a fur ball, it would have. But, while physically, verbally and animalistic-ally abused, the machine kept going, never betraying any physical (or psychological) affects.

Time passed, we moved. And then, one day I was certain that this was the day for me to get MY Mac. A bolt of lightening hit the house, literally; all the electricity went out. The computers were on at the time; the Mac politely restarted. The PC emitted a small poof of smoke, and vainly attempted to restart. Multiple times; black screen everytime; finally to be turned off by my wife. (And, yes we did have nice surge protection.) The onboard fan controller blew; in other words, no CPU cooler fan. I begged really hard for a "new, much more stable, just like yours, Mac." But, in the end, I was bought a case fan, reversed it, and was told "But, it's still running." With no other choice, I continued to abuse my PC with dreams of Linux and Macintoshness.

A couple of years passed without any major headaches surrounding the hardware. I did my due diligence and reinstalled Windows every 6 months or so. Somewhere along the way I put in a new secondary drive. I played with Linux. The Mac remained the workhorse. I cleaned it from Coke and fur, with a Q-Tip. And, it remained ever solid, never changing, and never needing an OS reinstall.

Time passed, and now focused on our careers, we were away on business. Upon returning I realized the PC was still on, so I decided to reboot. There was no reboot. Not even a meaningful attempt. "Come on, give one for Papa." The boot drive was fried. Luckily, I backed up prior to leaving, but needed the machine for work, Right Away. This was my chance, I begged, I pleaded, I begged hard. But, here's the rundown. Purchase new large drive. Install OS. Install applications. Restore backups. Set up to my liking. Three days later, no Mac for me, but, the process is complete.

Everything hums along fine for a few months. Again, we leave on business, I wisely shut my machine down before leaving. Back from our trip a week later, I was looking forward to getting in to the office and starting work right away. Instead, while my wife was greeted with a smile. I said "Hello" to an ominous SMART drive error report on boot.

The boot drive is failing.

I have a nuclear meltdown.

I recover and buy an even larger drive. I repeat the process from a few months earlier, and rinse. While in the process of recovery I discover that some very, very, VERY important files were updated before the drive fry, but were not backed up. "Accidently overlooked on my part, of course, honey".

These are my wife's files. They are for work.

Her fit makes my meltdown look like an ice chip in the summer sun. (Remember that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazis open the Ark?) She calms down. Here's my chance; again, I make my plea, but, she's too pissed, says "The work is repeatable, but will take some time to reproduce." We both lose about 3 days of our lives, professional and personal. But, now I have something to work with, she's got a grudge.

Everything is good for a year.

I leave for another business trip and to my surprise return to find my PC working just fine.

However, two months later, upon arrival to the office, I find my monitor displaying vigorous black lines and psychedelic colors. My blood boils, I'm about to lose it. Taking 30 or 40 deep, deep breaths I appeal to my wife. The response, "But, you can still see your icons." The solution, I scavenge an old 4 MB ATI Sony video card. On the plus side, it has a TV tuner. It doesn't work, but at least I have a useable display.

A few months later my mother-in-law visits with her laptop and is nice enough to share her viral infection. I'm not sure, to this day, how my computer was infected as I had a firewall and anti-virus running, and methodically ran anti-spyware scans at least once a week. Nevertheless, I was infected. Three days later, both PCs were clean. Three Days. Meanwhile, the Mac is fine, nothing is wrong, and my wife is happy.

Six months later I come across a great deal on a video card, nothing great, but definitely better than an ancient 4 MB ATI Rage card. I order the card. Not two months go by after I install the card, my boot drive dies. It's the third drive. I really feel that this is my moment. I work the grudge, I beg, I reason. It takes two weeks. Knowing that she likes to watch me play games before she goes to bed I work her for a Powerbook. A top of the line Powerbook. She says "Macs are not toys. This is a horse, not an XBox." She relents, but after careful consideration, and working the grudge angle thoroughly (she hates any machine that loses her work), she agrees for a top end Mac mini G4. She calls it "Lunchbox."

My first real Mac. It's all mine. Mine. And, it's beautiful.

Of course, a couple of months later we buy my wife a Mac mini. She gets lucky and gets the 1.5 GHz G4 with the 5400 RPM drive and 64 MB video RAM. We're both happy (actually, she's happier than me).

You'd think the story would end here. But, no, my mini becomes the object of accidental abuse. Since owning MY own Mac mini it's been soaked in water, thrice. Once by my own hand, twice, not so much. The first attempted bath was a light sprinkle. Just a bit of water spilling on top of the case. Upon second attempt, my wife dumped a full glass of water on the poor little guy (accidently). The computer immediately shut itself off. She tried turning it back on, repeatedly, against my frantic protestations. I couldn't get it away from her. The anger, the disbelief, she was trying to turn it back on?! After her third failed attempt to revive the poor little guy, and a lot of yelling on my part, I was finally able to pull all the plugs and peripherals. pick the machine up, and let the water drain out. The water, literally, drained like a waterfall. Her comment, "Macs are like horses. It'll be fine, you're so sensitive." We let the machine sit for some time and dry out, she offered to blow dry. No thank you. And, then we attempted a reboot. The mini came back to life as though nothing was ever amiss. The third, and last, time was due to my eldest cat, who, while blissfully sleeping on my wife's monitor, fell off, knocking over a full glass of water. In that moment I knew exactly what to do. Instead of catching him as he bounced off the keyboard, pick up the mini, thus, avoiding most of the splashing. And, the mini still lives (the cat's fine, too). Nowadays, it is nicely propped up on an external DVD burner. Safe from whatever high tides may come its way.

As for my wife's mini, as we speak, it's being slept on, stepped on, and sometimes used as a coaster. As far as rebooting, let's just say I never see her do that. I'm not even sure if she ever quits any apps. I know she never saves, she says she has a fear of commitment.

If you wonder what happened to the PC, it has been mercifully put out of MY misery. Taking a cue from Office Space we beat the machine, gleefully. Of course, beforehand, I did remove all of the useful bits.

The moral of this story is that sometimes the road to getting and switching to a Mac is long and hard, full of twists and turns. Character building events, trials, tribulations and a bit of Biblical suffering. But, if you've managed to survive it all, then it must be true love.