GIVING, GOING, GETTING

I know, I know -- I promised. And I'll send it, I really will.

What am I talking about? My old PowerBook 540c, that's what. I'm giving it to my sister, an artist in Austin, Texas -- or rather I will, as soon as get around to boxing it up and handing it over to UPS. The thing is, even though I'm sitting here with a shiny tangerine iBook in my lap, I know I'm gonna miss that 540c. It doesn't make sense, but love rarely does.

It's like when the kid with the wrecker came to haul away my '84 Jetta GLI. There wasn't any choice, really. After 224,000 miles, the bright-red sports sedan was too old to sell and too far gone to spend good money on. So when the rear brakes mysteriously locked up while it was sitting in the faculty parking lot that day, I had to follow through with what I'd promised my wife: "OK, if anything else goes wrong, that's it!" I watched the kid crank its obstinate rusted ass up in the air and climb up into the big truck. He pulled the only car I'd ever bought new up the hill and out of sight, and damned if I didn't cry.

Oh, man.

I'd been so proud of that machine. German engineering! It never once failed to start. We racked up all those miles on long road trips, too, not just driving back and forth to town. But my feelings at that moment were because of how much of our lives that car represented. The things we'd seen, the places we'd been, the emotional energy we'd exchanged while sitting across from each other in those black-and-silver sport seats! How could a 19-year-old, a local boy, ever understand?

The irony was that we already had a replacement road rocket, the '91 Nissan 240SX. Bought used in '94, it was nonetheless a much better high-speed GT car than the Jetta. Superior in every way, actually: quieter, faster, smoother, and better-equipped. Engine-wise, its sophisticated chain-driven double overhead cams and hydraulic lifters were a vast improvement over the Jetta's single belt-driven cam and mechanical lifters. There was no comparison, really. The Nissan was a higher order of machine, but it hadn't taken us on that first trip to Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. It hadn't crossed the Mississippi several dozen times on the way to and from the rolling hills of Iowa. It hadn't carried Lady the Wonder Dog to the vet to be put to sleep. It hadn't been the first John-and-Kathy car. . .

That's the way it is with the PowerBook 540c and the iBook, just not as emotionally loaded. The laptops do have a direct relationship to crossing the wide-open spaces, though, because having them made it possible to travel. I bought the 540c in Columbus, Ohio after an overnight stop on the way from Maryland to Iowa. Without a portable Mac, I wouldn't have been able to hit the road and keep writing the news or this column. The places that Blackbird went! New York, Tucson, Des Moines, and all points in between like Ogalalla, Nebraska; Great Bend, Kansas; and darkest Indiana. It also took a long ride with the Kayak-Cam on Still Pond Creek one fine day.

Now it's going to live in Austin, Texas. Austin, old hometown extraordinaire. Bats under the bridge, Stevie Ray Vaughn by the lake, and now more software engineers than bartenders or teaching assistants. All my old haunts yuppie-fied or paved over, yet the mystery remains: in the right neighborhoods, incense still drifts through screen doors as boat-tailed grackles glide from live oaks to alleys and back again. The improbable as everyday occurrence. (Not a bad life for a computer or anyone else, as long as they stay out of the sun!)

Meanwhile, I have the iBook and I'm glad of it. No one in his or her right mind would prefer the 540c to the iBook, but it's still hard to let the thing go. At least I've moved it from the shelf to the floor beside my desk. It's sitting there with its carrying case, external CD-ROM drive, and enough spare parts to build another half a PowerBook. I dunno, maybe I just have to get used to not having my old friend around. It'll be easier to take if my sister actually gets interested in the thing and learns to have fun with it, my little old do-everything, liberating laptop with its PowerPC-upgraded soul.

These kinds of changes, giving up and gaining things, have been on my mind a lot lately. Leaving a place you've lived for 25 years and the only house you've ever owned can do that to a person. The only way to make any headway in these circumstances is to get engaged, to invest a part of yourself in the new thing, whatever it is. I recently wrote a column titled "Sentimental Divide" for a local publication of some note. In it I said:

"Homesickness is less the loss of a particular place than missing the connection to the spirit of where you were, like turning off the heat inside the room where all your love is kept. To heal you have to be surprised, to feel the flash of recognizing what you never knew before."

When that happens you begin to feel connected. You begin to be woven into your new world and it too becomes a place you'd miss if you left. What does this mean and where is it taking us? I don't know, really. It's all up one minute and down the next. Since giving up what we knew and coming out here, I've seen an incredible number of things I've never encountered before. But the more things I experience for the first time and greedily assimilate, the smarter and happier I feel.

One way this is happening, something I can show you and share with you because of the cool technology beneath my fingertips, involves the the incredible weather out here in the West. There's a whole new fascinating set of meteorological signs to learn, all the more interesting because a person can see so far in the dry, clear air. Because playing with different desktop pictures of these things is my latest diversion, I thought I'd leave you with a few images currently gracing the iBook and the 8600. This is also a nifty way of integrating my surroundings with my work, though I sometimes find myself hiding the applications just so I can gaze at the screen and marvel.

The first one shows a blizzard approaching! What looks like clouds dragging on the ground about 15 miles away is actually snow, a swirling, wind-driven mass of frozen powder.

The next shot is also of snow clouds, but only bringing snow showers this time. When these things run into the mountains, it looks like someone has airbrushed snow along an invisible line.

This last one is from early fall and shows the landscape bathed in orange-pink sunset light.Our rented house is down in the lower right-hand quadrant. (Don't strain, you can't see it.)

Maybe when my sister fires up her new (old) PowerBook and takes a look at this, she'll understand why my wife and I decided to grab life by the shoulders and give it a good, hard shake. (Enjoy your Macintosh, kiddo, and come out and see us sometime! ) And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go step outside and look at the clouds.

If I can find any, that is!

John H. Farr edits the Apple Computer News for Applelinks.com and invites your comments. The Farr Site Archives will take you to the past two years' worth of columns. John also writes his WebFaust column for MacAddict.com and a monthly op-ed page column called "El Emigrante" for Horse Fly in Taos, NM. His personal Zoo Zone site, originally designed to market bronze sculptures based on cat skulls (yes!), is now on the Official Internet Historic Site Registry and may soon be donated to a museum.

[FREE FARR SITE OBSERVATION for friends and associates: When my lovely wife looked at the picture of Still Pond Creek above ("Splendor in the Reeds"), she said "This one just kills me," meaning that the sight of all the greenery and water made her homesick all over again. (She doesn't remember how hot & humid it was under the white August sky!) The adventure continues, obviously. I note for the record that when I took the 540c out in the kayak, it was a three T-shirt day. Here you can wear the same shirt for a week before it starts to stink. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. :-) -- JHF]

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November 20, 2008