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I've decided that, unlike others; I'm not really a collector. I don't really have a collection. It's more like the U.S. Air Force's boneyard, or the Navy's "mothball fleet". Much of what I have are either the actual items that I had and used, or a specimen that I picked up later so I can kind of commemorate the original. What am I talking about and what started me down this dusty trail?
Ikea's ubiquitous "Lack" floating wall-shelves. They range from $10 to $20 depending on length and are so common, there's a whole sub-culture built around "hacks" people do with them. Me? I just use them to put my old technology stuff on..... along with a few pictures and nic-nacs......, but mostly...... it's old tech. And now that I have a kind-of, sort-of man-cave; I've put up a few of these and have a place to put old tech that mean something to me.
Although, I just generally love technology, I blame becoming infected by the "collection" disease on this.... the IBM ThinkPad 701c. One of these, was my very first laptop and I loved pretty much everything about it. So, a few years ago, I went out and bought one to represent the original that I owned and used for several years before moving on. So, am I a ThinkPad collector? Not quite. Although I'll admit to having several which are for display only, I only have ones that are especially significant to me..... like the 701c. I also have an X20 (complete with X2 Ultrabase) and both a 760CD (complete with Dock) as well as an A31p (complete with Dock). The last two, partially because they were used on the Space Shuttle and/or the International Space Station.
Oh.... and I like docks too.
I also have the IBM WorkPad C505 which was the pinnacle of 6 different organizers I personally used during the height of the PDA era during the 90's. And there's the ThinkPad Tablet (1st version running Android); my very first tablet. Uh, I have the matching dock as well, and of course the charging cradle for the WorkPad.
I can definitely claim that I'm not really a true "collector" or I'd have the Palm Pilot Professional and Handspring Edge (both of which I own and used) in my little menagerie. Of course, if you follow that logic, I'd also have the following ThinkPads (600e, 600x, T20, T21p, T22p, T23p, T30, T40, T41p, T42p, T43p, X30, X31, X300, X301, X1, A21, A22, A30, A31, A31p, T430s, T530) in the collection as well.
..... but...... it's not a collection..... Next time, the other non- collection.
There it is, the baaaad beasty! Just look at it! What harm could it be, I asked myself? Just one little iPad for my wife so she could test classroom kid apps on iOS against the Android. We were an Android house with 4 Android tablets running variously "Honeycomb to Ice Cream Sandwich".
Then this happened. I got a great deal from a co-worker upgrading and asked my wife if she wanted it. "Sure", she said "What could it hurt"? Then she decided that iOS was more kid-centric on educational apps. And of course (as you know), iPad 1s can't be upgraded beyond iOS 5.
You can predict what happened next right? This right here, of course! We bought a "2" (got a great deal by the way), and the original became Katie's, but mom wasn't terribly pleased because it wouldn't run the same apps. What to do?
This happened of course! Apparently, any idiot knows you don't let 2 iPads into your house....except me of obviously! So, we sell the offending iPad 1, and put the money into a partial payment for the.......
iPad Air for my wife, who then passes the iPad 2 down to Katie. Now you figure, we were finished right? Ohhhh, Nooooo! Now we had an issue of the one child using the iPad and the other who didn't have the same apps to work on. You try having an 8 year old girl share "her iPad" with her 11-year old brother!
That's when this happened! Within a short amount of time, we got Josh a Mini for his birthday, then later in the summer, decided that we were better off with both kids on Minis instead of Katie trying to tote around the much bigger "2", which became the wife's "school" iPad to use in the classroom as she moved to a Mac-centric district.
In my mind's eye; it was this..... or this!!!
The effect was this! It was now the end of the summer and the school year was looming. I was tasked with the job of selling off the 9 old laptops that the wife had used in her classroom. I started selling old ThinkPads one after another and putting away the money. I won't regale you with the detaileds, but when the dust settled and it was "said and done" a week ago. We had as follows:
- 1 iPad Air 32Gb- Momma's personal property "NO TRESPASSING" by commoners
- 2 iPad 2s 16Gb/1 iPad Mini- Classroom iPads for working in "stations"
- 1 iPad 2 16Gb- Provided by her district for the teacher and used in her "stations"
- 1 iPad Mini Retina 16Gb- Katie's (she of the bad eyes) tablet
- 1 iPad Mini 16Gb- Josh's (he of the better eyes) tablet
That's 7 of these things if you count the school's and 6 if you don't! What am I using?
Well, duh! Did you expect Batman to start wearing green with gold bling? So, score one for the good guys! I did tell, my "Mac is great" brother-in-law" about the onslaught and he laughed, say "ahhh, iPads; the gateway drug of iOS".
So you all should see this as a cautionary tale!
