A Retirement Party For "Mac"

Cheers To My Long-Time Partner-In-Crime

Today’s Studio Saturday will be part office remodel and part tech retirement party.

After almost ten years of faithful, reliable service, it’s finally time to give my old iMac—affectionately known as “Mac”—a well-deserved rest.

“Mac” and I have been collaborators and roommates since 2015.

But with his replacement “Jr.”—a shiny, tiny 2024 Mac mini—arriving tomorrow, I’m wrapping up a few projects today before relocating “Mac” to his new home in the living room, where he’ll enjoy his retirement streaming videos.

If you’re a tech geek like me, you’ll understand why I’m both excited and a bit nervous about this upgrade. Change is good, right?

Once upon a time, I followed tech news like others follow fashion shows or sports teams. For years, I was a die-hard Windows user, loyal to a long line of PCs that I upgraded every two years or so.

I only “got a Mac” about 12 years ago—at least at home.

After years working on large design teams—for corporations who could afford Apple hardware—I proudly called myself “platform agnostic.” Until I bought a MacBook Pro of my own.

The switch was complete: I haven’t touched a PC since then and have no idea how to use the latest version of Windows.

After my laptop died in a freak accident—in other words this freak tripped and dropped it one too many times—I bought “Mac,” a 27-inch 5K iMac.

By day, I worked on company-owned iMacs and MacBook Pros. By night—and on weekends—”Mac” became my creative partner-in-crime on many freelance and personal projects.

With its beautiful display and computing power, “Mac” was more than everything I needed. For years.

From photo editing and video projects to countless design files, “Mac” never missed a beat—or, well, almost never. He’s had the occasional hiccup and has gradually slowed down over the years, but he’s largely held his own long past what most would expect in the ever-changing, fast-paced world of tech.

I’ll admit G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) has been a problem for me—and my credit cards—in the past. The urge to keep up with the Joneses—whoever they are—and play with the latest features has been sometimes hard to resist.

As a freelancer and small-business owner, I’ve learned to respect the tools I have and make them last as long as possible. And so, I stuck with “Mac,” even when I heard the siren song of newer models.

Until just recently, when “Mac” began huffing and puffing while editing video projects, I was determined to make it a full decade before upgrading.

After a few blackouts and “senior moments,” I realized “Mac” deserved an earlier retirement. And Clint deserved a newer collaborator who could keep up with the daily demands of multimedia content creation.

Yesterday morning, after yet another glitch, I bought a new 2024 Mac mini. I’ve always been a fan of this budget-friendly powerhouse. Only after buying it did I realize it was only announced a few weeks ago and is getting rave reviews.

So here we are, at the end of an era. “Mac” may have slowed down a bit, and he’s a little crankier than he used to be, but he’s served me well. I’ll miss his steady presence on my desk, his familiar screen glow during late-night work sessions, and the way he’s felt like so much more than a computer.

Here’s to almost a decade of creativity and productivity with “Mac.”
And here’s to the next chapter in my creative journey with “Jr.”

Thanks for reading!
Clint

P.S. Special thanks to all the patrons—past, present, and future—who made this upgrade possible. Without Substack and its supportive community, “Mac'“ would have been working hard, for a whole lot longer.

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NEWS + VIEWS

• David Gilmour Addresses Rumors Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon Was Written To The Wizard Of Oz (NME)

• Photographer Recreates Famous Artworks Using Everyday Household Objects (PetaPixel)

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ON THIS DAY = NOVEMBER 9

BIRTHDAYS

• 1870 = Magnus Enckell = Finnish symbolist painter 🌈

• 1902 = Anthony Asquith = English film director 🌈

• 1905 = Erika Mann = German actor and writer 🌈

• 1914 = Hedy Lamarr = Austrian-American actor and inventor 🌈

• 1923 = James Schuyler = American poet 🌈

• 1924 = Robert Frank = Swiss-American photographer and director

• 1926 = Hugh Leonard = Irish playwright

• 1934 = Carl Sagan = American astronomer, astrophysicist, and cosmologist

• 1936 – Mary Travers, American singer-songwriter

• 1941 – Tom Fogerty, American singer-songwriter

• 1947 = Kate Clinton = American comedian 🌈

• 1951 = Lou Ferrigno = American bodybuilder and actor

• 1965 = Ryan Murphy = American television writer, producer, and director 🌈

• 1972 = Corin Tucker = American singer-songwriter (Sleater-Kinney) 🌈

• 1972 = Eric Dane = American actor

• 1973 = Nick Lachey = American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor

• 1980 = Vanessa Lachey = Filipino-American television host and actor

• 1988 = Nikki Blonsky = American actor, singer, and dancer 🌈

EVENTS

• 1878 = New York Symphony Orchestra, led by Leopold Damrosch, is founded. The group merges with the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York (later known as the New York Philharmonic) in 1928.

• 1918 – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates after the German Revolution, and Germany is proclaimed a Republic.

• 1921 – The National Fascist Party is founded in Italy.

• 1936 – American fashion designer Ruth Harkness encounters and captures a nine-week-old panda cub in Sichuan; it becomes the first live giant panda to enter the United States.

• 1984 = A Nightmare on Elm Street is released in theaters.

• 1985 = Terry Sweeney, arguably the first openly gay performer on network television, joins the cast of Saturday Night Live.

• 1989 = Variety reverses an earlier policy and begins listing the surviving same-sex partners (listed as “longtime companions”) in the obituaries of LGBT entertainment professionals.

• 2004 – Firefox 1.0 is released.

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PHOTO + QUOTE OF THE DAY

“We are all the foolishness and all the crimes we did. We're also all the kindnesses we did. I hate to think of life as if we understood time. We don't understand time.”
Hugh Leonard

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