Okay, I’m fickle, I admit it. For some time now I have lusted after an Apple Titanium Powerbook G4 notebook computer. It has everything I want in a portable computer in the most pleasing form factor I’ve ever seen. It is unique.
Well, it was unique. It seems that Best Buy is horning in on the upscale notebook computer market. Their entry is the vpr Matrix 200A5, a stunning new notebook computer designed by Porsche. Like the Powerbook it has a 15.2 wide screen LCD and a slot loading combination DVD-CDRW drive. At 6.4 pounds, the Matirx is just slightly heavier than the Powerbook.
Comparing the two is still apples to oranges. The Matrix is Intell based and runs Windows whereas the Apple is PowerPC based and runs Mac OS X. The Mac processor clocks in at 800 MHz where the Matrix sports a 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 mobile processor. If you believe the propaganda the two are roughly equivalent performers.
I must admit that where my decision based purely on the technical specs I would be leaning towards the vpr Matrix 200A5. At $2400 it is $800 cheaper than the base 800 MHz Powerbook G4. However, there is an elegance, a certain panache to the Titanium Powerbook that hasn’t been matched. Yet.
Why do restuarants find it necessary to play music constantly in the background? When I go out to eat I want to enjoy my food, and the conversation with my companion. I don’t want to have to yell over the too loud music. This is a case where just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
And if you are going to force me to listen to music, please select something other than angry grunge music. I wouldn’t listen to that atonal crap in my home, why should I have to pay for the experience?
I find that I am in a bit of a quandary this morning. I know from the Comptroller’s web site that my latest check was cut on the 18th, which was last Friday. Assuming that the state doesn’t come into work on Saturday just to mail things in a timely fashion, it was mail on Monday. The man I subcontract through, therefore, should have it in hand no later than today. There is a good chance he had it yesterday. He is going to be out of the office starting this afternoon about 2, until Monday. So if he doesn’t walk up to me before he leaves today and hand me a check the earliest I’ll get it is next Monday, five days from now. Now, we don’t need it immediately, but I don’t like that it is starting to become a habit with him to take a week or more to process the check and pay me. I don’t want to blaze into his office and attack him because he will only become defensive and then I won’t get anywhere. I do want to inquire as to the status of my check. By saying all of this here I feel less out of control and better setup to approach him without making him defensive. I am not trying to take care of him, I just want to maximize the potential that I get what I want out of our discussion, which is my check. And an understanding that I don’t appreciate the length of time it appears to be taking him to deposit the state check and pay me.
By stating the situation here I am clearer on what I want and need. I know that I need to ask him as to the status of my check. Depending upon his answer I am prepared to let him know the truth of how it feels to be unimportant enough to not get more timely treatment. Not attacking, not yelling, just plainly stating that it doesn’t feel good to have to ask about my check. And that it feels even worse to have him say he hasn’t had time to deal with it yet. It is hard for me to allow myself to say these things because I don’t feel like I should. For me this is about confronting “dad” in a major way. As I say that I realize that I must have set this situation up for exactly that reason. Since the man I subcontract through hits several of my dad issues, having this check situation gives me the opportunity to grow past some of my fears about being a child around authority figures. I am afraid that he will get angry at me if I confront him about this check. Just like I am afraid of my father shutting me down when I try to confront him. I need to know going into his office what I am going to say and how I am going to say it. And I need to be strong enough to take care of little Mark when the pressure from outside tells him to be quiet. Always in the past I have been afraid to confront people like this because little Mark could never confront his father. I was always scared that he’d leave or stop taking care of me or something if I ever confronted him on anything. When I have contact with someone else who brings up my dad issues I get trapped by this fear of confrontation. Now I have created a situation where I have a legitimate reason to confront a person who feels like my dad in some situations. I need this so that I can start to move away from my default posture in this area. Getting paid today or next Monday isn’t the real issue. Money never is the real issue. Being able to say, hey, having you delay my payment for no good reason doesn’t feel good to me and I don’t like it; that is the real situation here. I need to stand up for how I feel regardless of how the authority figure wants me to feel or act.
Now I am getting it. Now I feel much more like me. I don’t care what he does. I don’t care how he handles this situation. I don’t want to build karma with the man over something this small. What I do care about is how I am treating me, how I am treating little Mark. I need to stand up and be heard, and I need to show little Mark that he isn’t bad and that I am not upset with him. Then I will have gotten paid in a way that money can’t buy.
I am really feeling ADD this morning. When I got to work I discovered that I had left my Palm Pilot at home. I use this tool throughout the day, and especially at lunch when it serves as my electronic book reader. When I realized that I had forgotten it I nearly drove the 40 minute round trip to get it.
When I talked to my wife on the phone she offered to bring it to me. This grew into our having lunch together since she would be in town anyway. As much as I enjoy having meals out with her I couldn’t let myself have this lunch. I need for some things to be the same way and one of those is my Tuesday lunch.
Every week I have chili at a local hole-in-the-wall on Tuesday. I go that day because the woman dishing it up makes it perfectly in my opinion. I know that forgoing lunch with my sweetheart just to have a bowl of chili the way I want is pretty silly, but doing anything else would not take care of me today.
I need the comfort that some boundaries bring. Knowing that Tuesday’s I have chili for lunch feels good. It is a stable touchstone that I can count on each week. The rest of the days I eat at a variety of places, but Tuesday is chili day.
It is difficult to express these feelings and reasons even to my wife, even though she assures me that I am more normal that I believe. I am even finding it very difficult to put it into words here and now. However, I know expressing this, even poorly, is vital to my continued growth.
Finally I am truly blessed to share my life with Michele. She not only understands that I am like this, she is okay when my need for consistency impinges on our activities. I think it impinges less today than ever before, and as long as I can talk about it with her its hold over me will continue to diminish.
My earlier posting about feeling ADD seems to have opened the door to feeling depressed. I am spiraling down right now. I feel tired and listless, my focus is completely shot. I am having one problem after another here at work with my assigned tasks. Each problem feels like someone else is responsible, at least I want to make someone else accountable for fixing it.
I want to ignore all of this until the stress of it is gone. If I had my Palm here today I would retreat into reading the book loaded on it rather than working. I want to escape and not have to be adult and responsible. I am tired of every single day having to be responsible. I want to be care free. I want to do nothing and everything all at once. I want to spend money and buy all the large ticket items we want. I want to go home and just sleep and sleep. I am so tired right now. So drained and spent. What is the point of all this?
I know that I am here to learn and growth. I know that the essence that is me decided on the major events of this lifetime so that I would have opportunities to grow. So why am I stuck with all this meaningless bullshit here at work? Who cares about this application we are developing? In a few years I hope to move on to another job in another place. Why am I so driven to suffer through this here and now? What life lesson does coding object oriented applications hold? That I am a masochist?
I am so tired of it all.
(1) The seller must have a real e-mail address. Not just a hotmail, yahoo or other web based service. Web based e-mail accounts are simple to set up using made up personal information. Don’t trust them. If the seller claims it is their only address then ask for a home phone number.
(2) The auction listing must contain actual photographs of the item for sale. If not, the seller should be able to produce these in response to an e-mail query.
(3) If the seller has no feedback (“I’m new”) then they should be willing to accept the use of an escrow service or a program like amazon payments that protects the buyer against fraud.
(4) If the seller has a positive feedback rating they still should be willing to use an escrow service at the expense of the buyer. Yes it will take a little longer for them to get their money, but without it the buyer could be left holding the bag.
(5) The seller should promptly respond to all e-mail queries. At the risk of being xenophobic, the seller should be able to use English without sounding like a two-year old.
(6) Sellers only wanting Western Union payments should be avoided at all costs. This coupled with a hotmail account gives the seller complete anonymity.
(7) Auction listings that are merely copies of the manufacturers web site should be avoided. Likewise if the picture on the listing, or provided in response to an e-mail, (#2) above, is from the manufacturers web site avoid the auction.
(8) Auction sites with a bare minimum of description or details should be carefully evaluated. No picture plus no description equals potential fraud.
(9) Any auction that seems to good to be true probably is too good to be true. Compare the item you are bidding against with other similar items. If the bids, or take it now price aren’t close, then be wary.
(10) If the seller cancels the auction and then contacts you to sell the item directly because “they want to avoid any auction site fees”, you should be very wary. Most auction fees are paid up front. Once you are outside of the boundaries of an auction you have even less protection than before.
I bought tickets to see the Peter Gabriel concert in Chicago today. In the process I learned a lesson. You see, I didn’t ask my wife if she wanted to go with me. I knew that she wasn’t a big fan and that huge crowds like that just aren’t her cup of tea. So I assumed that she wouldn’t want to go and got tickets for a friend, who is a fan, and myself.
What I should have been thinking was how she would feel to be asked, and conversely how it felt to her not to be asked at all. My “knowing” that she wouldn’t want to go didn’t take into account her feelings about being included.
We had a long discussion about inclusion and our relationship. Like all relationships ours has needed some nurturing to grow and be successful. I have learned to be considerate of her and her feelings over time. She has learned to consider me and mine as well. We both know that there will be times when our feelings are hurt, further we both understand that we each, individually, control whether we are hurt by the other’s actions.
We have learned that there is a cost to having a partner. By having open honest talks about what is going on we avoid having this cost grow to a point we can’t pay. We deal with things when they are little, before they grow.
I fell down in not asking her if she wanted to see the show with me. I didn’t keep up my end of the bargain, and as a result I have to pay a higher cost now to allow her the space to say the things she needs to say, and to express her emotions without any judgment from me. I gladly paid this cost because we grew closer together in the process.
Last night, actually this morning at 1:21 am I won a bid for a supposedly new Apple Powerbook G4 Titanium laptop. The upscale 800MHz model, with 1 GB of RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. The seller accepted Amazon payments so I’ve plunked my cash down and now I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of a box.
Then I’ll know if I got the deal of a lifetime or taken for a ride.
I am still struggling with purchasing a Powerbook G4 laptop. I have rationalized it over and over again, and yet, when I get to the point of actually making the purchase I get stuck. I want someone else to tell my it’s okay, I want someone else to be responsible for the ultimate decision. To her credit, my wife won’t play that game with me. I want her to say, “Mark get the laptop. I think it is okay and that you should make the purchase.” If she were to do that it would move her into a parental role for the boundaries of this purchase. I would be the child, absolved of responsibility since the adult made the choice. This would not be healthy for her, our relationship, or me.
Since I don’t want her to make the decision, and given that I am not moving forward with the purchase I realize that there is something else afoot that I am not acknowledging. There is some other emotional piece that I hadn’t sorted through to my satisfaction. In my private thoughts I wonder about the fiscal responsibility of buy such an expensive toy when we have some obligations to meet. Even though I am qualified for the Apple loan program and can spread the cost of this purchase across many months if I desire, I am hesitant to oblige us in this manner. We spent over 2 years paying off all of our unsecured debt. Today we only owe on our cars, the house, and the pool. We got rid of all our credit cards and now we only buy things that we can afford in the moment. Buying this laptop is a break from a pattern that is well established; it is perhaps a step backwards.
I guess I am afraid that using the Apple loan scares me because this would be the second purchase made on time in almost 5 years. (The first being a refrigerator for our home.) It feels very good to have qualified for the Apple loan, especially since we have difficulty getting unsecured loans due to the marks on our credit from using CCCS to pay off our debt. I know that this laptop loan would not be unsecured ~ the laptop could be repossessed if I didn’t pay for it ~ and that is why I qualified. Still, it feels very good to be accepted and I want to act on that acceptance and use the loan program to give myself this new object. The conflict comes from that part of me that worked so hard to pay off our debts, from that part of me that is proud to be debt free. I am loath to step back towards buying things I can’t pay for immediately.
We do have enough money in the bank for me to purchase this item outright. That is also a great feeling. However, as I am independently employed I have to be careful about depleting our savings. The total purchase price for the top-of-the-line model represents about 8 days work for me. I could work extra days for a couple of months and have cash to make the purchase without regrets.
That last thought resonated with me; I like the idea of having no regrets about this purchase. In rereading this posting and the others on this same topic, I see that I am really struggling with the perceived aftermath of making this purchase. How will I feel about it afterwards? If I knew that I would be satisfied and happy, with no regrets or remorse, then it would be easy to make the decision. However, I feel as if I am going to have some remorse unless I find a way to make this purchase in a way that feels fiscally responsible to me.
I understand that I associate my emotions about a purchase with the purchased item afterwards. If I buy something when I am in a good space emotionally then that object always feels good to me. If, however, I purchase out of fear, or unexpressed emotion, then the object always makes me feel uneasy. Once upon a time I leased a new BMW when I was feeling very depressed and anxious emotionally. For the entire term of that lease I fretted and worried about that car. Most of the enjoyment of owning it was lost in the worry and stress it caused in me.
Currently I have a bid against a Powerbook in an online auction. I have place a maximum on the bid that I can afford to spend without feeling any regret afterwards. If I am successful and I get the laptop I will be very happy. If I am not successful then I will continue to save my money and watch the auction sites for other opportunities. Whether I find one for a good price online or save enough to buy one new, I will have acquired this object in a way that respects me. I won’t have any remorse afterwards, and I will be able to fully enjoy my purchase.