To all the computers I've loved before...

Ah, the operating systems of the past.  Here's the computers I've owned, along with a few memories of each.

Commodore VIC20. My first computer exposure, in a summer camp.  Wrote choose your own adventures in BASIC.

Commodore 64/128 - First computer I owned.  Had to put ice packs on the power supply. Very slow modem,  lots of hacked software.  Wrote games using Gary Kitchen's Game maker. Wrote choose your own adventures with ASCII art in Commodore Basic. Spent a lot of time trying to figure out Super Huey flight simulator.

Apple II E - Early nineteen eighties at St. Anthony's Pewaukee.  Enjoyed such applications as The Print Shop, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Turtle, a Typing Tutor, and Oregon Trail.  Captured Carmen, of course.

Apple II GS and Imagewriter - Late nineteen eighties.  That was the first color printer I'd been exposed to.  It was sleek though and used a lot of ink.  The II GS also had color which made it seem modern. But I never owned one.

Apple Mac Performa - Mid-nineteen nineties.  College music writing phase. Fell in love with Opcode Studio Vision. Realized I had to own a Mac some day to write music.  Wrote two albums worth of songs before being forcibly kicked out of lab by snotty music majors (I was "only" a music minor.)  Got lots of downloads for my stuff from mp3.com, when there was an mp3.com.

At work got first exposure to Sun Solaris and UNIX at ExecPC in New Berlin. Had a basic Win98 machine there that i customized and broke often.

AMD Athlon K6 PC - ah yes. This saw me install every alpha and beta of Windows 98.   I was nuts.  I think I installed every build released until the final one. I felt so ahead of my time.

P3 667 mhz - Wow, P3 speeds. still windows.  Stuck with 98 SE for a long time.  Used Trumpet Winsock to get into the Internet until it was translated into Windows Sockets. Wow. That was a long time ago.  Wrote the NDL page.

iMacs running OS 8.6-9.0 - used them to author footspot.com in an obscure scripting language called SmithMicro WebDNA.  Realized I hated Mac OS Classic for business related tasks. Stopped using Macs out of disgust with the "Chooser", memory leaks and a whole bevy of other issues - but got hired to use Filemaker for database administration go figure.

Got on the job MCSE training for certification. Became a bit of a Windows nazi for a brief period of time with Windows 2003 server.  Bet people who know me now wouldn't believe that..but it's true.

P4 3.2 ghz Got a hot and fast but not "extreme" P4 box home built. Ran Windows 2000, XP, and now my wife runs Vista on it (soon to be Windows 7.) Used it for everything, including music composition with Cakewalk Pro, writing websites with Macromedia dreamweaver, etc. If I wanted to play with Windows 2k server or Windows 2003 server  or SQL 2000/2005 I just went to work. :)

Macbook - 2006 - Got my wife a Mac for graphic design reasons, it ran Tiger.Promptly fell for Unix/MacOS again.

Macbook Pro early 2008  Core 2 Duo - My current and primary computer.  Logic Express works JUST LIKE Vision for writing music, I love it.  Use the computer for everything, except Outlook and some work-related apps. Digging around in Darwin and Unix, but don't shy away from my Windows VM either.

Liking Windows 7; I may switch to a netbook next generation...we'll see..but they say, once you go Mac...

What happens when you surround yourself with greatness - defining success

It's been a long time since I've been creative on the Internet. It's been a long road rebuilding my life and career, growing, organizing, coalessing, digesting.  But, the time has come to give back again.  Edgar Garcia, Felicia Day and the Guild, online friends, real life friends in church and  all the great people I work with at CDW, my family, they all have taught me some very important lessons about being a creative professional and what it takes to be a success. The formula is simple, but, like doing a workout, difficult at the same time.

First of all, what success is not:
* Being famous
* Being rich

Success is:
* Becoming more and more proficient at what you love
* Expressing yourself through your art consistently and effectively
* Blood, sweat and tears
* Self discipline
* Organization
* Surrounding yourself with good people that pull you up and don't drag you down
* Fighting and overcoming your own personal demons
* Always, always upping your game
* Humility and a positive attitude
* Giving as much as you take
* Having fun
* Forgiving yourself when you fall down and having the courage to face your failings and correct them
* Shielded vulnerability.  When you create something, you put yourself out there.  Having healthy boundries lets you protect your core but at the same time be exposed.  Good friends and a healthy inside/outside boundary prevents drama and enhances beauty of the end product, like granulating sugar or preparing a great meal from raw ingredients.
* The ability to take constructive criticism and reject destructive criticism and the ability to discern the difference.

This, along with a good deal of love, both for yourself and others, lead to success. I get this now. It's the reason Felicia Day signs all of her emails 'XOXO Felicia' and why Edgar Garcia wants everyone to share in his Year of the Edgar.  It's a healthy, outgoing love to be shared with anyone who wants a piece of it -- the type you'd find on an Olympic sports team or in the best work environments. It's a modus oparandi, and it can change your life.