I’m writing this post from my shiny new computer, which is, surprisingly, the second computer I’ve ever owned.

I got my original Mac Book in 2006 and upgraded it a bunch of times. I doubled the RAM within the first year, replaced the hard drive two years ago, and went through more rechargeable batteries than I want to remember. I liked my first computer and was content to just keep rebuilding it. But it turns out, even if you keep the hardware and software current, laptops have a finite life span. My old computer has more than its share of dings and scratches. The hinge is loose and I literally have a piece of masking tape holding one of the latches on. But the cosmetic damage wasn’t the problem. Too many internal parts were wearing out. The disk reader quit working, it has trouble holding wifi signals, and the screen as been gradually growing darker for some time now. When you work in visual arts, the screen is kind of important.

Now I have a new Mac Book Pro. It has all the features I want and all of them work as they’re supposed to. Having nothing broken feels like an embarrassment of riches.

I’m not going to get rid of my old computer just yet. I’d like to use it for traveling and maybe let my art students borrow it from time to time. Before it goes into active retirement, I’d like to take a moment to remember all of its accomplishments:

• I did the last 1/4 of my animations on it, back when I was a character animator for a computer game.
• I used it for all demonstrations and archival work for the art classes I teach on weekends.
• I used it to demonstrate painting in Photoshop to my former online class.
• It got me through grad school when I earned my master’s degree.
• I learned HTML on it and used it to write all my websites.
• I prepped and colored every episode of Urban Underbrush and Draconis Wicked with it…until now.

It really had a wonderful life. I look forward to wearing out the next one.

-Marj
www.lepusstudios.com