To the Dark Side

Way back in the olden times, I was looking for a computer. I traveled quite a bit, so while I was out of town, I’d hit the apple store to see if I liked Macs. At one point I had a salesguy come up and ask if I needed help. I told him I was thinking of going to the dark side and buying a Mac.

He said they like to refer to it as “Walking towards the light”.

Fair enough.

And I did wind up buying a Mac mini. I used that computer for nearly a decade before it went to my kids. Eventually, back to Windows I went. I simply had so much hardware lying around that it made no sense to buy anything. Eventually, I found that I could get thinkpads on eBay for dirt cheap. So for the last decade or so, I’d have a thinkpad coming off a lease of some sort. My last one was a T431s, identical to the one I had for work until they gave me an X1 carbon. Except it had an SSD and 24G of ram and ran Mint Linux.

That was the laptop I was using a few weeks ago on a Zoom call when it had a stroke and went the way of all good things. It booted up, I logged, the screen froze, and the fan redlined. Nothing worked to shut it down. I had to poke the reset on the bottom. That turned it into a brick. Luckily I had my X1 from work with me and I could get on the call.

When I got back, I took it apart and realized that I blew something on the power buss and was kaput. So I started looking at new laptops.

And why not? I have cash now, and no wife to blame me, no chains upon me hands…

There were deals to be had, for sure. I looked at Thinkpads, Dell, went to Microcenter to see what may be in the bargain basement. Then it hit me…

My iPad mini is ancient and 4 releases past when it can get an OS upgrade. I use it every day, literally. So I walked to the light so to speak and got one of these:

I went all in and got the keyboard cover and 256G.

The thing is sweet, and acts very similar to a Mac. You can see the task bar.

The funniest thing was getting it at the Apple Store. I figured delivery would be a mess at the new place. Things have had a habit of showing up here when I’m not at home.

So I get the text that my toy is in. I looked it over, sized up the map – Green parking is the closest. So off I go.

Got the the green lot, after circling around the red and orange ones. Had to go through Nordstoms, where the music was playing at club volume levels. I passed both the entrances to the red and orange lots on the way through the mall to the store.

By the way, why are they always in malls around here? Man, oh man, I hate malls.

So you get to the store and just mook around until someone comes up to ax what you want. There are no lines, just areas. Dude shows up and asks if I’m picking up. I let him scan my apple wallet, and off he goes. A second later, a girl comes out of the back with my stuff and hands to to a flunky dude that I noticed was trying like hell to look busy. Dude took forever to scan my toys and put them in a bag.

He said he didn’t thing that keyboard went with the iPad I bought. Before I told him to shuddup and bag it please, a girl told him it does. Of course it goes. It was an add on when I ordered it.

Blew a few hour hole in my morning. I should have had it shipped.

Setup was idiot easy. Hold it near your old one. Scan the screen with all the swirling dots.

Set it up like the old one?

Yes. Do that.

A nanosecond later I’m up in business.

It’s a cool device, and will free me up quite a bit.

BTW, I ended up getting a Thinkpad T480 on EvilBay. $120. Couldn’t resist. I’ll stuff my SSD in it and reinstall Mint.