saying goodbye to an old friend

Back in college, I had kind of a hobby in computers (along with biking, rugby, and some other... stuff). As I learned about things like email, or eventually HTML, I forced myself to get in and learn whatever I could about them... because as a mass-communications and sociology student, I was convinced that communication in the future would revolve around those technologies. One of the few occasions when I have been right. :)

When my grandma passed away, I used some of the money that she left me to get a computer of my own, instead of having to go downstairs and spend an unhealthy amount of time in the computer labs in my residence halls I bought this old Apple LCII computer (to the ultimate annoyance of my dad, an IBM devotee). :). I learned so much with this old box... design, layout, communications, csh, vi... and I met the most amazing people in places like the ISCA BBS, TRE BBS, or some old MUD's... worlds that probably only exist in human memories now. We're still in contact with some of those people today, and most importantly, I met my wife... the best thing to ever happen to me.

All of that, and probably my career today, probably happened as a direct result of this tiny little computer.

Nebraska Furniture Mart in Omaha is doing a recycling thing today. Displays, computers, etc. You can bring in 3 items per family, and they'll recycle the items for free. Since no one has been interested in my little "pizza box" in countless garage sales, and there is no way I'd want to think of it (not) decomposing in a landfill somewhere... I'm going to recycle it today. Maybe a less worthy ending than it deserves, but hopefully it'll recycle into something really cool. I think it's built up some good karma.