Welcome to Black Friday week!

This is the absolute best time of the year for large ticket purchases, I’ve been a big fan for a long time.

Something else I like is Apple products. I gave up on PCs long ago; they are just too buggy. I’m forced to use Microsoft products for writing purposes- Word is the industry standard. But that’s the full extent of Microsoft’s reach into my house. If I have my way about it, things will stay that way.

But I digress.

A year or two ago we replaced the family MacBook with an updated MacBook Air. It has the new “Magic Keyboard” (not really new. A refinement on the old keyboard after an experiment that didn’t work) and an M1 chip. The computer has proven to be a real beast- reliable, fast, and extremely capable. It meets all expectations and then some. It’s an amazing machine. However, there is only one, and there are two primary users.

This has created a number of bottlenecks over the last few years. My wife has a lot of work she needs the computer for, and hey, I’m a writer. When we need to use the computer at the same time, as we frequently do, her work takes priority because she actually gets paid for what she does and she always has external deadlines. Mine are internal.

This has been a hassle.

This morning I came across a wonderful story on CNN. Actually, it amounts to an advertisement, but it was a welcome one. Apple is having some significant sales right now, and I clicked on one and took advantage of it.

USD 799 for a clone of the family workhorse. Guys, I couldn’t refuse this deal. Seriously. There is nothing better than an Apple laptop, and to score a very capable machine for much less than a thousand was an offer I couldn’t pass up.

So I didn’t. I clicked on the yellow button, and now that bad boy, my very own dedicated writing laptop, is headed my way.

No more scheduling conflicts. No clutter on my desktop. No kids running off with the machine because they need to print something or worse yet, screenshotting endless websites with good deals on clothes, shoes, or something. No million tabs open. No one closing out my files that I left open for a reason. The list goes on.

Of course, I’ll have to configure my new machine, which is a hassle, but when it’s done it will be mine all mine.

This is amazing in so many regards. I haven’t had my own computer since I left the service (a junky little HP mini laptop that I used to carry in my rucksack. But hey, it worked). So, you can imagine that I’m looking forward to this.

Finally.

If you are looking to upgrade an old machine, now is the time to do it. I can highly recommend the model that’s on sale on the link- it is very capable, and right now, affordable.

Recommend.