No MacBook Like Home
It’s good to be home.
While the vast majority of my current working life takes place from a home studio, occasional on-site client visits are part and parcel of the routine. When starting up with a new, major client, an extended initial visit to get to know folks and get up to speed is usually a wise idea. That said, three weeks away really makes you appreciate returning.
Now if only my sinuses would stop taking their revenge against me. I didn’t get sick on the trip out, but rather around two-thirds of the way through the stay. This meant I was almost, but not quite over the last of the congestion before the flight home, and now my sinuses have decided to throw a revolt.
Prior to the trip, I had been musing computing options. My laptop, a Dell Inspiron 8100 purchased in late 2001, was still motoring away. However, while functional, it was not what I’d want to be using for primary software development. It also struggles on large WoW raids. Not that, uh, that was a deciding factor or anything. So I was seriously contemplating a new laptop. The laptop I really wanted wasn’t out yet: A Core 2 Duo based MacBook Pro. I eventually decided to cast my fate to the winds of Apple release schedules and was prepared to make do with the Dell. Then Apple released the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro less than a week until I was scheduled to leave.
Naturally, it wasn’t that easy to actually get a hold of one, but thankfully, after some headaches with phantom Apple Store availability, I got my hot little hands on the high-end 15” model two days before my trip.
My impressions now that I’ve had a few weeks to use it? Man, I’m glad I bought it, it just rocks. I’ve wanted to spend more time in OS X for years, and thanks to the MBP, I finally am.
Of course, it wasn’t cheap, and this has saved me from buying more game systems that I really shouldn’t buy right now. There are actually quite a few things on the 360 that I wouldn’t mind playing. And, of course, now there’s the Wii. Zelda on the GameCube was one of the last games I actually played all the way through. Thanks to Mr. MacBook, I can safely table these for a while.
That wasn’t to say, however, that I wasn’t going to check out the console launch day fun. I was out of town and car-less for the PS3 launch, but not only was I back home for the Wii, I was still on East Coast time, so getting up early felt normal. I was hoping the Wii would be cleared out, because while I wasn’t going to wait in any lines, if a Wii happened to stare me in the face, I’d probably lose resolve and buy one.
I was thankfully disappointed. There was a large line in front of the local Target an hour before opening. It looked like at least 60-70 people, plenty to clean out their initial shipment. The local Wal-Mart is 24-hours, so they were promptly emptied at 12:01 AM. Even the local Sams Club had a small line for their limited quantities. A good day to be Nintendo.
While the vast majority of my current working life takes place from a home studio, occasional on-site client visits are part and parcel of the routine. When starting up with a new, major client, an extended initial visit to get to know folks and get up to speed is usually a wise idea. That said, three weeks away really makes you appreciate returning.
Now if only my sinuses would stop taking their revenge against me. I didn’t get sick on the trip out, but rather around two-thirds of the way through the stay. This meant I was almost, but not quite over the last of the congestion before the flight home, and now my sinuses have decided to throw a revolt.
Prior to the trip, I had been musing computing options. My laptop, a Dell Inspiron 8100 purchased in late 2001, was still motoring away. However, while functional, it was not what I’d want to be using for primary software development. It also struggles on large WoW raids. Not that, uh, that was a deciding factor or anything. So I was seriously contemplating a new laptop. The laptop I really wanted wasn’t out yet: A Core 2 Duo based MacBook Pro. I eventually decided to cast my fate to the winds of Apple release schedules and was prepared to make do with the Dell. Then Apple released the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro less than a week until I was scheduled to leave.
Naturally, it wasn’t that easy to actually get a hold of one, but thankfully, after some headaches with phantom Apple Store availability, I got my hot little hands on the high-end 15” model two days before my trip.
My impressions now that I’ve had a few weeks to use it? Man, I’m glad I bought it, it just rocks. I’ve wanted to spend more time in OS X for years, and thanks to the MBP, I finally am.
Of course, it wasn’t cheap, and this has saved me from buying more game systems that I really shouldn’t buy right now. There are actually quite a few things on the 360 that I wouldn’t mind playing. And, of course, now there’s the Wii. Zelda on the GameCube was one of the last games I actually played all the way through. Thanks to Mr. MacBook, I can safely table these for a while.
That wasn’t to say, however, that I wasn’t going to check out the console launch day fun. I was out of town and car-less for the PS3 launch, but not only was I back home for the Wii, I was still on East Coast time, so getting up early felt normal. I was hoping the Wii would be cleared out, because while I wasn’t going to wait in any lines, if a Wii happened to stare me in the face, I’d probably lose resolve and buy one.
I was thankfully disappointed. There was a large line in front of the local Target an hour before opening. It looked like at least 60-70 people, plenty to clean out their initial shipment. The local Wal-Mart is 24-hours, so they were promptly emptied at 12:01 AM. Even the local Sams Club had a small line for their limited quantities. A good day to be Nintendo.
Posted by Nathaniel Trost on
Monday November 20, 2006 at 4:53pm