End of One Life, Beginning of Another

Before I went home for Labor Day, in fact before I even moved to Pittsburgh, I was considering purchasing a new computer. My old laptop, affectionately nicknamed "Grandma," was nearing the 5 year mark and I didn't really trust her to get me through this year. This past weekend, I was pretty sure that this was the weekend that Grandma would be retired. My thoughts were confirmed Friday night.

I was sitting at the kitchen table with mom and doing some school work on my computer. Out of the blue, my cursor would not move where I commanded it to. I could move it around just fine with the touch pad, but when I clicked on the button to signal where I wanted it to be - nothing. In a flurry of concern I did what anyone else would probably do - turn the computer off manually and reboot. Again, the cursor remained in exactly the same place blinking at me. I tried clicking on other windows and applications with no luck.

With concern, I showed the problem to my dad. He started playing around and I noticed that the cursor would move whenever my dad gave it a commanding click. What in the world? I thought. He looked at me and just told me I needed to click the button harder. Oh... right. I returned to the kitchen table and began pounding away with the clicking button. I couldn't just press it harder to make it work, I had to pound the thing. It seemed rather comedic. Had anyone who walked into the room that moment, they would have thought I was very was writing an email in a fit of rage from the loud clicks that filled the air.

Grandma was still operable, but after Friday's incident, I didn't dare to trust her to carry me through eight more months of graduate work. I had been researching computers for a few months already, so I had a good idea as to what I wanted. Sunday afternoon my dad and I walked into the Apple store at the mall and about an hour later I officially became a Mac.