Thank you sir

A complete stranger who changed my life for the better, passed away today. I don't know why I feel surprised to feel so affected by this, because when I heard the news that Steve Jobs died earlier while at work I didn't feel anything beyond surprise. Then it slowly started hitting me throughout the night.

On that chunky little box with the rainbow apple, I played Oregon Trail, went bankrupt weekly with Lemonade Stand, and was obsessed with Number Munchers, all educational games played during 'Computer Lab' days in grade school. Good childhood memories from the late 80s.

www.flickr.com/photos/soxiam/1419384374/

I had a brief stint with an impossible PC during my middle school and high school years, where I was basically computer illiterate in that I never knew how to use a floppy disk or had any concept of what a drive or operating system was. I was so intimidated by my computer and it's complexities that all I did was open Corel Draw to make make jagged drawings of Kurt Cobain to print out and decorate my binder. Little did I know then that I was making stilted steps into what I'd pursue as my career.

Then I graduated high school and next thing I know I was alone in NY, staring at my brand new strawberry imac that my parents bought me because apparently when you are going to art school you need a Mac so that you can do this thing called Design, which I was about to find out all about. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to know that something really special was in that minimalist box. I'd never been that excited to open up ... a computer?!

I can honestly say that I didn't know what the difference between a PC and a Mac was until then. But it was sink or swim time and I learned really fast just how different a Mac was.. how intuitive and approachable. Within a week I was sold. Not only was my new computer eye candy to behold, I understood what I was doing, and what everything was about. 

Obviously since then everything else is history. Life as I knew it changed completely in NY as I started learning about design via my new computer. Since then I've moved onto a G4 Tower that got me through Art Center, a Powerbook that lasted for seven solid years, and now the Macbook Pro that I do freelance on. As much as I joke about how I have become a slave to Apple, it's shaped who I am today professionally.

And I haven't even begun to talk about the stuff that enhanced our social lives by way of ipods, iphones, ipads... and my personal favorite: the shuffle that made running a breeze.

Steve Jobs changed the life of my generation at just the moment in which we were all growing up and discovering who we were–what we aspired to be and how we chose to express ourselves. While he was around, life got pretty damn exciting. And for that I feel really bittersweet tonight.

*I still have my strawberry imac. For some reason I couldn't bear to part with it–perhaps in the future we'll will display imacs in our homes like we do vintage typewriters now...