Far From the Tree

To quote Kip Dynamite, “I love technology.”

I’m not a super-geek, but I am a geek. I admit it. I like neat gadgets. During our trip to Louisiana last weekend, my mother-in-law asked me how I knew about the Kindle and the iPad and all this technology. I was stuck for an answer. I couldn’t exactly say, but I also couldn’t imagine not knowing about this stuff.

Along those same lines, my father-in-law is really good at carpentry, home repair and the like. I play along, but feel pretty inadequate about my own skills in that field. But when I installed a wireless router at their home last Christmas and tried to explain how to troubleshoot it, his whole tone of voice changed and he sounded . . . pretty much what I sound like when he starts talking about carpentry.

Now, it’s not like I’m always buying the newest and greatest stuff. I don’t play video games (I have too addictive a personality), I never adopted Blu-Ray, and most of my computers are from Apple’s refurbished store (same warranty, decent discount). And I tend to ride devices into the ground. I virtually never trade up unless a device is near the end of its service life. This has put me in a conundrum.

I use an iMac for my desktop computer at home. It’s a 24″ refurb model from mid-2007 and it runs perfectly fine (although it’s a little pokey trying to deal with my ridiculously outsized iTunes library). Amy uses it for her photo processing, and I do writing, research and general webbery on it. It’s outlived its 3-year AppleCare warranty window, but doesn’t show any sign of impending failure.

I’ve been pretty happy with the old machine, and figured I could keep riding it for another year or two, but I’ve just discovered that this computer is too old to run Lion, Apple’s new OS.

That’s right. Mr. Tekmology owns a machine that’s too antiquated. So now I have to decide whether I should pick up a new (refurb) iMac just to be able to use all these neat features. Can I just keep rolling along with the perfectly functional oldster, or will I start giving it resentful looks, irked that it can’t keep up with the hot new model?

(Cut me some slack: my old man’s mid-life crisis consisted of motorcycles, Corvettes and 18-year-old hairdressers, okay?)

BONUS!

While trying to find some info on my current iMac, I found the site where Apple keeps a list of all the devices I’ve registered with them over the years. (If you have an Apple ID, you can find yours at supportprofile.apple.com) Holy crap, has it been a pricey decade:

• iPhone 4
• Macbook Air (11-inch Late 2010): I managed to get $500 in trade-in value from Tekserve for my old Air, so this model didn’t cost me too much.
• iPad 3G: two (Amy deserved one, too)
• iPhone 3G: two (ditto)
• iPod classic 160GB (Late 2009)
• Macbook Air (13-inch Early 2008)
• iPod 5th Generation (Late 2006)
• iPhone: one (first-gen)
• MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010): for Amy
• MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo): two (I sold one to my boss; I can’t remember what became of the other one)
• iMac (24-inch Mid 2007): this is the desktop computer that appears to be just too old to run the new OS
• Mac mini (Early 2009): two (they were on sale in the refurb store; I gave one to my mom and use the other one to rip DVDs and serve up music & movies to my Apple TV)
• iSight: camera for my OLDold iMac
• iMac G5 (20-inch): the aforementioned old iMac. I gave this to my brother a few years ago; it melted down after around 7 years of use, which is pretty impressive
• iPod (Click Wheel)
• PowerBook G4 (12-inch DVI): I still have this 12″ PowerBook. I break it out once a year to print labels at our annual conference. The screen grows dimmer each year. It also weighs around twice what my current Air weighs
• iPod (10 GB with Dock Connector): This one is lying on the floor of the WABAC machine.

The 10gb iPod cost $299 back in mid-2003. It was the third generation of the device. That was the model with the buttons that had slightly raised rings around them and red lights for the icons. It was, at the time, the greatest thing ever. My current iPod has 16 times that storage space and cost less.