Apple-Sider

It's closing in on a year ago that a major life change started to take place. What started out as a small tweaking of my day-to-day activities has wound up becoming a total life overhaul. I'm a completely different person now as a result. And to think, I spent years saying I'd never be one of those folks. Smug. Self righteous. Arrogant. Posh. Mac-ophiles.

Recounting the events which took place that eventually lead to me jumping out of Windows and into a sider of Apple's. (See what I did there? Sider/cider. Is this thing on?) I bought a Dell laptop when Vista first came out. Straight out of the box it was crap. The battery was garbage almost instantly. Slow doesn't even begin to describe the performance. And if you've ever used Vista, you know the constant interruptions and moodiness that OS incessantly provides its users. The only good that came of that was trading it for a wireless rig for a guitar.

My Dell desktop decided that one day it would greet me with an error screen. After researching the meaning of the error, I found that an IDE cable needed to be replaced. That's simple enough except my harddrive didn't have an IDE cable connection. Microsoft wasn't able to even update the error messages! But, thanks to Zero Cool, (or is it Acid Burn?), he worked through the mess and got it working again. Thanks again. You are a genius.

Despite all of that, I still had some love for Microsoft. Honestly, the only reason I tolerated these ever frequent interruptions in functionality was that 1) I don't know how to use Linux and 2) I didn't want to be one of those high and mighty Apple people who don't even use their machine to even 50% of its potential. So, I hung in there with Mr. Gates. But, there was a final blow and it came in the form of the Zune. Yes, I was one of the last few people still rocking his 30 G black brick of an MP3 player. And I was quite proud to have resisted the cursed click-wheel. I stuck in there even when one update caused the Zune software to play one song while displaying different album art and different song title and artist. For example, let's say I was listening to "Orion" from Metallica's Master of Puppets album. Well, Merle Haggard's album art was displayed, Jay-Z's "Renegade" was listed as the song playing and the song's artist would be AFI. My solution to this was to re-rip all of my CDs. I've had to do this twice. Annoying doesn't quite capture the emotion I was feeling. Seething is closer yet not quite fully descriptive.

The final straw came when I was running one day recently while listening to my Zune. The music stopped for a bit and I figured that it was just a song with a long, quiet intro. Nope. My Zune was skipping songs with a display message informing me that all the skipped songs couldn't be found. ENOUGH!

Even though I bought an iMac a few months ago, I wasn't opposed to using Microsoft's products here and there. In fact, I wanted to keep using my Zune until it finally just wore itself out. But the constant headache of having to coerce my technology to work finally took its toll. I've had enough. I'm finished with Microsoft products and I am weening myself off my Windows dependency bit by bit.

So, I've joined ranks with the elitists. I don't consider myself as one though. I just want my equipment to work. That's it. With that, I decided to sell my Zune and all the accompanying accessories on eBay. But before shipping it off, I made sure to fill it with 30 gigs of Keith and The Girl podcasts. I provided a little drawing and note to go along with the Zune for that personal touch. Coupled with becoming Windows-less, I had to rip all of my physical media. Again. This time wasn't as frustrating as times previous. Why? The answer is twofold: This time everything will work properly, as it is intended and I'm not ripping my Dane Cook CDs to my Mac. I have a different plan for them.

One of the several stacks of CDs to be ripped.

Zune, packaged with 30G of KATG.

Return to Arkansas: Part III-The Returning.

Bruster

It's somewhere in the neighborhood of hour ten or eleven of this westward journey of mine. "Keith and the Girl" have kept me company and awake throughout.  Bruster, who assumes the role of co-pilot, lies sleeping in the seat opposite waking only long enough to show that he's annoyed that he has to be so far away from me. If he had his druthers, he would be draped over my face. My bordem of driving on an interstate for so long finally reaches a precipice and I decided to take a scenic route of winding, twisting two-lane road to Viliona. A terrific friend offered, at my suggestion, to let me stay at his place for the night. And I couldn't be there soon enough.

Climbing out of that moving van around 2:00 or 2:30 brought not so subtle hints of my age along with it. I didn't care though. I was finally finished driving for the day. My buddy, we'll call Zero Cool, greeted me at the door, obviously sleepy and aware of the hour yet he was feigning cheeriness quite well. I was shown to my quarters and instantly passed out. Instantly, 7:30 rolled around and I was up and at 'em. After a shower, Zero Cool took me on an apartment hunting adventure. Driving all around Conway, we finally found a place for me to live. Skipping over some mundane details, we make our way back to his house. It was then that I realized that I didn't know where my new apartment was. We had a couple old fashioned LOLs about that. (On a side note: Bruster was kind enough to wreck Zero Cool's carpet by gnawing and pawing it from the floor. Again, I'm sorry about that.)

Study; left.

I was set to move in the following day. Luckily, I had another great friend who offered, again at my request, to help me unload my belongings. We'll call him Waltonius. Waltonius was pleased to help. We had a few drinks, some reminiscing, some conversation, and a little bit of guitar noodling. Helluva guy, that Waltonius.

Study; right.

Now, thanks to these great fellas, I am back in Arkansas ready to begin my new life. I really don't know what would have happened without Zero Cool and Waltonius chipping in and offering to help me. And for that, I offer my most  sincere and honest thanks. Thank you both.

Living room; panorama.