Notes - PC's / "motorcycle" /

          Mid-afternoon. Busy morning with house problems – with the heavy rain yesterday Carol noticed water seeping through in the basement from under the sliding door in the kitchen and the basement outside door. Scott was called and you are getting a new door and frame for the basement and a water test tomorrow to determine where the leak is coming from under the door. Scott thinks it is from the pitched roof of the family room just to the left of the door. Time will tell. The important aspect here is that it is being fixed. Yesterday you and Carol went to the Stone Works on Cox Road and picked out how you want the granite pieces to be cut for the kitchen. You are glad you went because Don, one of the owners of the place helped you to show off the unique aspects near the sink as well as the kitchen island top. Today you have been reading more of the bio of Steve Jobs.

         It is funny. Jobs and Wozniak were making a real computer while I was using domino chips and such to create a mock computer board model to be used in my first novel, Anno Dominae. We were both reading the same electronic magazines and had the same interests but mine were purely for plausible fiction. And, on our block, Majken Place in Mason, Bud C., Rich G. and myself were into Atari gaming. Both were software/hardware engineers so I saw some real RAM chips and boards along the way and I tore down a few old electronic gadgets to use for chipboards in my make-believe computer that had spider control of the Web at the time. I am a lot like Wozniak philosophically and would have loved to have been a geek. I like scientists and engineer-minded people. Alas, I have never had any ability in mathematics.

         I remember tapping the keys of an Apple II at school and I really wanted an Apple IIc but they were thirteen hundred dollars and I could not afford it. The IIc really caught my attention. I loved the clean lines as much as anything else. I used one at school whenever I could. I really had a craving for such a machine. 

Apple Iic

            I ended up with the British-made Amstrad 1512 of course. It costs three hundred dollars at Sears, and I could barely afford that in the mid 1980’s.

Amstrad PC 1512

         I put in the photos because I still am attracted to the initial concept of keyboarding. I can’t include these two without my less than a year old MacAir. Amazing how far the world has come. If I ever have a headstone they can bury one of my keyboards under it.

MacBook Air

         Not to digress here, orndorff, but today Kim sent you a short video of Owen from her iPhone and you and Carol saw and heard him pronounce his first four syllable word: “motorcycle”. – Amorella

         I wrote Kim: “I hope Owen has as great a love for words as his Papa O has.” Owen was quite delighted with himself to say such a complex word and said it over and over with glee radiating from his face. I can’t help but love the boy – I wanted to give him a kiss and hug and open a dictionary and begin to show him what all the excitement is about.

         Post. – Amorella