iSad: My one (sort of, kind of related) Steve Jobs Story

1998's iMac in "Bondi Blue"

"iSad" was my favorite twitter tag for Steve Jobs's demise. It made me chuckle and then feel bad about chuckling.

Aside for my love of the iPhone, I only have one brief brush with Steve Jobs, which clearly didn't happen directly. When I was interning at a plastics manufacturing facility (the largest in North America--which I was taught to say because part of my experience was to give tours of the facility--to who, I have no idea, but I digress), I got my own tour of the site. There are actually four separate divisions of a large multinational conglomerate all under one site. One of those divisions made audio quality plastics used in CDs which required the workers to wear those particle free spacesuit looking things all day.

But one section of the plant that I got to see (it's a perk of being in PR--you get to be in the know on things--most of which you really don't want to know) was a room built for the CEO of Apple. This was 2000, so the iMac that was all in one and colorful had just rolled out about 18 months before. They originally came out in "bondi blue," a color I'm sure we all know now. But they soon rolled them out in many colors and thus began the modern boom of Apple.

The plastics for the iMac came from the plant that I worked out and the room that I got to see was about 200 different color prototypes for new versions. At the time I had to sign a non-disclosure form to enter. There were tons of different lighting set ups so that the Apple execs could see the prototypes in any kind of lighting that might come up. "They're really that detailed?" I asked. "Yeah," said my co-worker. "The CEO comes in to the plant himself to check on the colors. He's into details, apparently."

Little did I know that Steve Jobs was visiting this big ole factory. I was too young to really care about giants of industry (and to a certain extent, I still feel I'm too young to really care). Either way, that's my Apple story.

Coming To The Jesus Phone

Chef and I had a come to jesus moment this week. Although instead of it being Christ, Jesus was in the form of the iPhone. AKA the Jesus Phone.

It all started about two weeks ago in Fort Walton Beach, FL. We were there for a brief stop as Patrick's Grammie had passed away. I have to take a moment and say how truly awesome Grammie was. She literally opened her arms to me the first time I walked through the door and was one of the best pen pals I ever had. I also know she was a fantastic mother and grandmother that is sorely missed.

Anyway, while in Florida my work cell started freaking out on me. . . again. So I was relying on my personal cell phone which was literally the smallest, cheapest flip phone Verizon had to offer. I still contend that no one was meant to text 26 letters with the use of only 9 keys. It's against nature. It also made the texting experience suck and I began to realize just how useless my personal cell was.

The trouble with the work cell continued and finally culminated in the cell phone crashing while I was in Evansville this past weekend for the annual Komen Walk. It was a great day where I got to see some of my cousins and aunts, and of course had a very memorable day with my stepdad Jack and his fiance Sara. It's always a great experience and would've been perfect except that literally all my contacts, email and other relevant information was gone from my work cell. It's super awkard when someone texts you and you don't have any contacts so you know it's from Indiana and you assume it's a family member, but really you're flying in the dark.

So after two days with a personal phone that didn't work and a work cell that was going nuts for the 5th time, I decided that I couldn't wait 6 more months to upgrade my phone. Chef did the research and it was easy enough for us to switch over to AT&T (who thankfully have dropped Luke Wilson as their spokesperson--at least for now) and get iPhones. We both really hate lining Steve Jobs's pockets, but really like being able to communicate without punching 100 keys to spell two words.

So, two weeks and we've had two trips to our hometowns--both in remembrance of someone. And iPhones. Now you're caught up.