Daniel's Adventure Artifact

In our business the adventure often takes place right at the desk. Steve Jobs knew this well. When I launched Signal Hill in 1999, my first computer was a Blueberry iMac. I left a PC environment to be a free agent, and the iMac stood for independence, a new way, a decidedly different chapter.

The iMac was a thing of beauty. My family and I delighted in the computer as it sat on the desk in a room we called the Dreamery. The iMac was like one more chubby toddler in the house. We couldn't help but smile at it. And I believe the uniqueness of the computer shaped my work in those early days, made things magic in some way.

It wasn't my first Apple experience. I used the Macintosh in 1985 for the high school newspaper and, later, when writing stories and laying out my college newspapers. I graduated to the IIe, I think it was, in my first newspaper job, and pounded away on "Macs" (that's what we tended to call them) through my second newspaper job. But the iMac was probably the most significant. Steve Jobs had designed a computer you could actually feel for.

I still feel for it. The Blueberry iMac sits on a desk next to mine. I haven't run it in a long time - I'm on my second Apple laptop now, and I use my iPhone a lot these days for email and other tasks. The iMac tends to gather dust, but it's still beautiful, and it still makes me smile. I can't imagine letting go of this artifact of my adventure.