In my defense, there were mitigating circumstances that I hadn't considered beforehand AND factors that I thought I'd weighed properly but hadn't given enough weight to. Let's start with the improperly weighed factors. I knew I'd be in a hotel for a week. I'd be without my computer for daily viewings of facebook, twitter, The Athletic (college football coverage), games, porn, and Caitlyn stuff. I just thought that it would be okay. I had my 11 inch iPad Pro and it can do any and all of those things. The only thing its not good at is typing and I can go a week without anything typing too difficult. Right? I wasn't wrong in considering any of that, what I was wrong about was realizing how relaxing I find it to be sitting upright with my arms in front of me resting on a keyboard and mouse as I brows through all those things I listed before. That's my "relaxed" pose. Sure, I check out facebook and twitter all the time on my phone and those two tasks were just fine. But not reading the Athletic... sitting back on the couch isn't how I consume that and I wasn't comfortable and it bothered me. Games, porn, Caitlyn stuff... they can all be done on the iPad while sitting back, but they're not 'right'.
So over the last few days the desire to have a computer... any computer... was growing. Most of the time I'm away from my computer for this long, I have other stuff to do. I'm on vacation and I'm only hitting up facebook and twitter and never get to real reading or games or porn or Caitlyn stuff. But this week isn't vacation. I'm just hanging out with my brother in a small hotel room.
That was gnawing at me when the new mitigating circumstances arose. I'm on call at work. That means if anything arises there, I'm the supervisor to call. Most of the time a call coming in from work is just scheduling stuff and I have the next few days worth of sheets so I can see whats going on. When something outside of that comes up, I just hit up the computer, log into my work email account and look for files that I've either emailed out or received. I can't save them or print them, but I can view them and generally thats all I need. Well it turns out that I got a call earlier in the week where I needed to do just that. It didn't work on the phone. I couldn't even click on the attachment, let alone view/save/print it. So, I moved on to the iPad. It's a 'computer' right <eye roll>? It didn't work either even though I was using the desktop and not mobile web browser. I tried both Chrome AND Safari, and neither worked.
At that point, I'm just S O L. I had to guess at what I thought I'd find and tell the nurse that I'd find out for certain in the morning when I got back to the office. It's not that big of a deal as I'm not expected to have that information at my fingertips all the time. I've been told that it's okay for me to say "it will wait until the morning" if I need to. But I really LIKE being that guy that has all the information at his fingertips. I like going above and beyond what is expected of me even if no one sees or recognizes it.
So the next day I was fretting over a macintosh computer purchase. I briefly thought of the Mac Mini as it was what I had settled on before, but tossed that idea quickly as I'd also have to get a monitor. A monitor that would have NO use once I got the new mini back home. Plus the fact is if I'm buying something new then I want it to be good. It doesn't have to be the best, but it has to be above 'entry level'. The Mac Minis they had available in stock were all Intel i3 processors with 8 Gigs of Ram and 128 gigs of solid state storage. Just barely entry level. Their iMacs weren't any better as they were the smaller 21.5 inch models and I knew that having an all in one would be fine here at the hotel but pure hell at home (again, don't need the extra monitor).
So I looked at laptops. They only had one Macbook Air, but it was just a touch better than the Mac Minis above. i3 processor, 8 gigs of ram, 256 gigs of storage. Sure, it would probably be enough and it would only cost a grand, but damn it it was really bothering me that it was so entry level. What if I like photoshop on the mac better than the PC? I'd want more ram to be sure, but I'd almost assuredly want more hard drive space. I had no headroom for growth and was paying top premium dollar for it. So, I looked at the Macbook Pros.
They had 3. 2 of them had the older 8th generation processors (both i5) and 8 gigs of ram. One had 256 gigs of storage for $1299 while the other had 512 for $1499. The last one was my immediate choice as it had the newest 10th generation processor (still i5), 16 gigs of much faster ram and 512 gigs of storage for $1649. All three are current generation MacBook Pros meaning they have the new keyboard, but the two 'lesser' ones were just using last years processor and ram. I was damned tempted by the $1499 pricetag, but I figured I wouldn't noticed the difference in 8 gigs of ram or faster ram NOW.... I'd noticed it in a few years. So for $150 I was giving myself a couple years worth of futureproofing.
With the extended Applecare warranty and tax, it came to just over $2000. Setting it up was a breeze and I can honestly say that this keyboard is ROCKING. I mention that first because I've never had a keyboard experience on a laptop that was anything but bad. The Surface Pro keyboards were pretty good.... but they were on that flimsy almost cardboardy piece that just made it feel cheap. This is just solid keyboard with good key motion and spring-back. Obviously, it's not as good as my mechanical keyboard at home, but I'm typing damned near full speed on this thing and making as few errors as I do at home. In fact the only thing that stops me from typing faster is the lack of a mouse.
I'm going to have some fun with this at home. I still will have to figure out how to set it up on the monitor, and how to properly share the keyboard and mouse. I know I'll need a dongle to go from thunderbolt to HDMI. With that I'll just be a flick of the monitor button away from having the Macbook and the desktop Windows system up. The keyboard and mouse are different things though. I'm just not sure if sharing them via software is a good idea or if I should get a KVM switch. I'm also considering getting a dongle that will handle more than just HDMI. A couple USB ports would be nice as well as a card reader. There's one here at the local best buy for $50 (on sale) that looks just about perfect. I could also pick up a sleeve, but I'm not sure if that should be an Amazon purchase as it doesn't have to be Apple specific and it doesn't have to be now. It's just going to be there for when I transport it.
So far, I've downloaded and installed MS Word, MS Excell, MS Office, and MS One Note. I'm downloading/installing Photoshop right now. Oh, and of course I put Chrome on it. Not gonna use Safari. Next up will be cleaning up the... um... dock? The thing at the bottom of the screen with all the little icons on it. But that might wait until I'm home and looking at it on the big screen.
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Some of the last three paragraphs is already moot, only 4 hours after writing it. Something happened that spurred me on to a few purchases. I texted my cousins to make sure they were leaving tomorrow and see if I could pin them down with a time. Cuz told me that they were in fact not leaving until Tuesday.
Fuck.
I'm without a razor as I was fully expecting to be home Tuesday morning and I desperately need a shave. I'm without clothes for Tuesday as I was expecting to be home Monday night and able to do at least a load of laundry (if not all my laundry). And now that I'm growing accostomed to this little lovely laptop, I want to use it more. And yes, the not having a mouse thing was killing me. For one... why isn't right clicking easier on a mac? Why do I have to hit control? There might be a setting to change the large track pad and let one of the corners be a right click, but that's not easy enough to find. So fuck it... I went to Best Buy with the intent of buying a cheap mouse. Something that I'll just throw away when I get home (I won't REALLY throw it away, but it will end up in a box of extra 'stuff' that I don't expect to ever have a good use for). I know that they don't make cheap mice with USB-C connectors yet, so I figured I'd have to get that damned dongle. It just so happens that Best Buy has a pretty good one for a damned good price. It takes up two of the USB-C ports, but it has a charging USB-C port on it, so it's really just extending the one out. It also has a data only USB-C port, two standard sized USB-3 ports, an HDMI port, and an ethernet port. That's practically all I could ask for. It was only$59.99. It was a Best Buy brand, but the Belkin equivalent was $99.99. I also looked at sleeves figuring I should take some effort at keeping the aluminum chasi scratch free. They were all about $40, so for $10 more I got one with a little extra pocket (perfect for the dongle and mouse!) and handles. Once I wandered over to mice.... well lets just say I'm proud of my control and embarrassed at my lack of control.
The first one was some no name brand for $5.99. It was corded, huge, and fugly to the extreme. For $2 more they had one that was a least a little stylish, but still corded. Honestly, the desk I'm using here in the hotel is small and has to hold my tasty beverages, a lamp, my wallet/keys/smokes/mask/cahs/phone/change, as wall as the laptop and mouse. So cordless would be better. Back to huge fugly cordless mouse for $12.99 and slightly stylish one for $15.99. Next to that one was all the Logitech mice. I'm a fan of Logitech, especially in the 'not gaming' mice category, so I looked and lo-and-behold there was a tiny stylish bluetooth mouse for $24.99. Only when I got to the checkout did it occur to me that with a bluetooth mouse I didn't actually need the dongle and could probably get a better one on Amazon and have it shipped home by the time I get there....
fuck it, it's sitting in the bag on my hotel bed.
The mouse is... finicky. It has some kind of acceleration that I'm not sure if its the mouse or the Mac and its scrolling is hilariously sensitive. But it has right click and it's more comfortable in my hand.
I also got some more deodorant, some disposable razors, and even some Panda Express to take home. I've always ordered Panda Express in the mall shops, so getting it through drivethrough was a new experience. I got some kind of beef and peppers dish with some fried rice. When I got to the hotel I packed everything up in as few bags as possible so I could do a single trip. That means putting my smokes, my phone, my extra cash all into the Panda Express bag. Once I got to my room I found out that all that beef and peppers and fried rice were all in a styrophome container that was specifically designed to sit on it's bottom but was placed in the bag on its back.
That's right... it was on everything. I ruined a lighter, had to literally launder some cash, and even got some of that damned beef sauce/gravy onto the MacBook. I know it's aluminum so I wasn't in a hurry to wash it off, which is unfortunate as it wasn't just on any part of the laptop, it was on the speaker grill. Now my MacBook Pro is going to smell like asian beef for a long while.
Anyway, I'm happy with the purchase. I'll be playing around a lot with this and think it will be even better once I get it on the 3440x1440 monitor.
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