Thank You, Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

I've been busy today but every time I come back to the laptop, I find myself thinking about the passing of Steve Jobs. Online, there are many, many fine words being said.

Of course, I'm working on a Mac and this has been a Mac household since I bought a Mac in 1983, along with its MacWrite and MacDraw programs. There was even some kind of spreadsheet program, I recall.

At work, we were still fighting over using the IBM Selectric typewriter and being told not to do our own typing because that was a 'take-away' of jobs from represented (union) clerks.

At home on the Mac I wrote my poems and my short stories, my love letters and resumes, journal entries and letters home to parents. That Mac died along the way but it's still wrapped up and stored somewhere.

Changing jobs and changing times allowed use of the mainframe and desktop PCs. At home, with kids and family, it was always Macs, generations passing through the decades.

I followed the news about Apple, about Steve Jobs going-- then coming back. It was like family talk. After all, after old manual newsroom typewriters, I came to age on a MacIntosh. I would go to work on a PC; I expressed who I really was on a Mac.

Where I worked for the last 20 years started out as a Mac shop and until recently continued to be a Mac shop. I should have been more attuned to the winds of change when only a few of us Mac users were left-- and one day the ax just fell.

I'm not the early adopter today that I was in 1983. My laptap still works well enough to get my work done. I don't put my old Sony Ericsson cell phone out on the table with the Blackberries others have. I am still amazed  about the things I can do with my iPad Touch-- when I can connect up. I was supposed to stand in line for the iPhone5. I guess I will have to wait awhile longer.

I'll think about Steve Jobs when I get one.

--Mike Sato