Kirk Hiner's

"When thinking differently just isn't different enough."

Love Death and Trees

By Kirk Hiner

Writers have always taken inspiration from nature. This is no secret. Clear back when I was in high school--back before my skull had fully hardened--I realized that all poems are about one of three things; love, death or trees.

Trees, in my theory, covers all that which affects them. Wind, rain, sun, dogs, bulldozers...anything that either aids or hinders their quest to provide the Earth with life. And it's in these elements that I got the inspiration for this month's article. It's a little heavy this month, so bear with me as I approach my point(s).

It starts in New York City, where I once heard someone say that Manhattan has the best autumns in the world. This kind of statement could come only from someone who has never actually left New York. Call me a loyalist, but I'll take my Ohio autumns any year.

I was reminded why in early October when I returned from work to find my phone ringing. The monitor for my G4 had arrived that day, and I wanted to spend the rest of my evening just admiring it. But Tieraney, my fiancee, was on the other end of the call. She was at a hospital near where I lived, as her sister, it would seem, was about to finally have her baby.

"It'll be born by the time you get here," she said.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"She's dilated to 9.5" Tieraney explained.

"On a scale of?" I persisted.

Tieraney seemed confused. "I don't know."

"I mean, does your sister dilate to ten, or does this one go to eleven?"

Sadly, my Spinal Tap reference was all but lost on Tieraney, so I quit telling jokes and just left for the hospital. Now earlier that day, the sky had turned the sort of greenish-black that's normally reserved for aliens in horror movies, and the rain beat down with purpose. Mother Nature had let up by the time I got home from work, and as I made my way to the hospital, the weather finally broke. The result was nothing short of dynamic. It was the kind of sky that makes you want to pull over to the side of the road and just watch it develop.

To the north, the overcast skies were still a deep, dark gray like...well, like a PowerBook. But to the south, the clouds had opened up into towering pillars of blue and orange like...like the iBooks.

But the Mac analogies don't stop there. Oh no. Just take a look at the gaming industry in October. We saw the stormy reactions of fans to having Half-Life pulled and the announcement that there would be no Homeworld port. But across the horizon, all was sunnier as Tomb Raider III was released and we were told of a port of Heavy Metal FAKK 2.

Think I'm done yet? I've only started. Need I even remind you of the hurricane force winds that rose up from Mac users everywhere over Apple's moronic announcement that they were going to ship computers 50MHz slower than promised, but at the original cost? Our cries of foul rolled out like thunder, and Apple reversed their original bone-headed decision. The skies cleared, and all was sunny once more...although I, for one, will never again step out into a bright morning without at least pausing by the umbrella. After all, had Microsoft pulled this stunt, we would've been relentless in our attacks. I can only imagine the MacAddict headlines that hypothetical day.

Finally, I reached the hospital. And do you know what? No baby. Poor Tracy had been dilated at 9.5 for a couple hours now, and her family was starting to fall apart faster than those three kids in the Black Hills Forest. It got to the point where one member of the Clan Patterson accused the doctors of not knowing what they were doing.

Let's see. The doctors have collectively gone through more years of schooling than most of us in the waiting room had spent standing upright. They've delivered babies day-in and day-out, we've never even delivered mail.

I found this sudden baby-delivery-omnipotence to be quite comical, but then it took me right back the Mac. As a journalist, I spend a good deal of time second guessing Apple and Mac software companies in general. I read hundreds of emails from Mac gamers crying conspiracy because this game or that isn't receiving a Mac port. Yet what knowledge do most of us have of the business? Only that we want what we can't have. But quite often, that can be a more powerful motivator than even revenue. When the Pattersons complained about the doctors, it was because they wanted be sure of the health of both Tracy and who would eventually, at 9.7 lbs, become a bouncing, baby Killian Patrick Schilliday.

So I've now covered love and "trees," and it's with deep regret that I have to reach the third. Whereas the month started with the birth of the boy who will soon be my nephew, it ended with the death of the greatest man I've ever known. I will spare you all my reminisces of Earl Jones, a man you've never met, and I won't cheapen his life nor what I write with comments about how none of this computer stuff really matters in the long run. If there's one thing Earl taught me, it's that all of this matters. Love matters. Death matters. Trees matter. And even Apple computer matters, so long as it's important to you. And the more passion you have for all of these, the better off we'll all be.

I end this article with someone else's thoughts that currently reflect my own. I always tend to leave the poetry to poets, so, in the words of Roger Taylor:

And so I raise my glass in a last goodbye
Sleep in peace, old friend. For me you'll never die
The best thing I can say after all this time
Is you were a real friend of mine

Take care, Earl. More so than anyone I've ever known, you mattered.

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Friday, 29-Aug-2008 01:48:20 EDT