The Fabulous Illustrator has a new computer!!! Yayy!

So a couple of months ago I walked into my local Apple store, consulted with Rustin the Fabulous Mac Dude, and plonked down a small wad of cash for a brand spankin' new iMac. This last month I have been breaking it in on a huge project I do twice a year and, happily, it's really settling into its new home quite nicely. I don't buy new computers that often, in fact I have only ever owned four since I became Mac literate, circa 1994. My first was a Power PC7100. It was the computer I started my business with and it was such a weakling compared to what I have now, but oh, I still have a soft spot for that computer. I bought it in 1995 with my leftover college savings and when I finally upgraded to a new computer 5 years later I kept it in our attic for a while because i just couldn't bear to throw it away. The second computer I bought was a G4 tower which is still sitting right here, eyeing the new iMac grimly. It knows the computer hierarchy is about to change and it will have to give up the premier spot on the desk. A couple of years ago, after the Small Fry was born, I bought a laptop, a MacBook Pro. At the time it became the lightening fast computer, faster than the G4 and I had every intention of it being the new new studio computer but discovered that it was much more convenient with a baby to have TWO computers - one in the studio, and one in the house on which I could simultaneously do page layouts and color corrections, cook dinner, feed a baby, and check e-mail. So the G4 maintained its reign, but time (and software and internet apps) marches on and late last year I realized the G4 really was showing its age. It's 7 years old now and it had brought me into the second phase of my business: moving from surviving to thriving and moving into my swanky custom designed studio in the garage. Anyway after much hemming and hawing, budget crunching, and drooling as I strolled with Small Fry past the store in Green Hills Mall I called my husband at work and announced that we had a new computer.

Now I just have to say that I have always thought of my computers as having personalities. Maybe its because when you work by yourself and you work on this one particular thing so much, it begins to seem like a person, a co-worker. It has days it doesn't want to work as well as the days you could just kiss it for coming through for you. Maybe because it was my first, my Power PC was always a scrappy determined little machine, always hardworking, always dependable. It was like the nerdy guy in accounting that saves the company billions and then gives all the credit to his goofy boss. The G4 is much more dignified. When I first pulled it out of the box I remember thinking "now this looks more like a computer for grown-ups." Its like the old time CEO who works hard, plays hard and expects respect from everyone. The new iMac is pure bad ass. With its sleek styling and dizzyingly fast processing speed it looks like the young hotshot brought in to take over the company. It doesn't really care if people respect it as long as they get out of its way. I was hooked watching it toss 100MB files around like summer homes in a hurricane. But I better not tell it that it was not the fastest computer in the store that day.... just the fastest one I could afford! It may just have a Mac Pro complex somewhere behind that immense 24 inch screen. Thats ok, if it keeps working like it has the last couple of months, it can keep its new spot on the desk.... for the next few years anyway.