Habits and Patterns

I have access to several computers. Four Windows desktops/laptops and three OS X Macs are scattered around here. But my preferred machine is a little Apple iBook. I long ago tired of the "blue screen of death" and the viruses (and etc) of the Windows world (and isn't it amazing that a Windows PC will blue screen you or freeze at exactly the worst possible moment- like right before you were going to save that brilliant but long piece that really nailed an issue?).

So while the iBook is not perfect in every single way, it is pretty darn good and it has become part of the pattern of my life. I go on line, I scan the news, I visit other blog sites and I dabble at blogging myself. It has become a habit - visiting the sites of people I have never met but with whom I suddenly find some connection or vigorous disagreement... and occasionally having someone visit who finds a connection or disagreement with something I wrote.

Well, the other day the little iBook fell prey to a "logic board" fault that Apple has been warning me about. My favored blogging device suddenly went blank and I had to lug it over to the nearest Apple store (they said I could take it to CompUsa but really...). Since then I have been notified that my iBook has reached an Apple center for repair of the logic board problem. But I don't have it in hand. And my habits and patterns of life have been disrupted. Sure, I can get on the other computers and dance around the internet, but the dance is different when you've changed partners. Funny, but I don't recall ever missing what amounts to a tool before - at least not like this.

There are some advantages to blogging in Windows that I seem to miss out on using the Mac. I can bold or do other fancy type tricks that seem to be denied to me on the iBook. But it feels odd. Perhaps I can and should develop some new patterns of behavior, but, in fact, I really am looking forward to getting that silly little iBook back.