The Marathon

You just keep going..... That was the advice that he gave her....those four words kept running through her brain, like a constant marathon which ironically was the motivation behind it in the first place. So today, she just kept going.... She just kept running. And when she got home, she kept going. She went to the grocery store and she downloaded a movie.... She kept going. She started to make dinner, and stared to watch the movie. She kept going. She looked outside and saw the sun starting to set. In a quick moment of spontaneity, she threw a bag together to head for the sea wall... Urged by something unknown inside of her. She kept going. She rode her bike quickly to the wall, and jumped up. She saw the silhouette of Mt. Fuji staring powerfully back at her... Also urging her to keep going. She stared powerfully back at Mt. Fuji as it slowly started to merge with the impending darkness. She kept wishing.... As the tall grasses rustled in the wind, she kept wishing. As the fishermen swooshed their poles in the air to cast for fish in the glassy river, she kept wishing, and they kept fishing. The fish kept jumping. And as Mt. Fuji faded into the night, she took a moment. She took a moment to stop.... to stop going, and to stop wishing. She took a moment to clear her head, appreciate her life, her family, her friends, her job, all the positive and wonderful things in her life that are the very reasons she keeps going.....every day. Life is like an endless marathon where you just keep going. You choose you path, you choose your pace. You choose your "running partners" and you choose certain challenges. It is a race against yourself, and how you finish that race can only be determined by you and how you choose to run. And in that moment of realization, she knew she was already a winner....and she kept going. -M

An Apple a Day...

iThink it's safe to say that iGrew up on Apples. iDon't mean the kind that you slice and spread peanut butter on or the ones you bake in a pie, but iMean the ones that are shaped like boxes or notebooks, that have a small mouse that doesn't eat cheese, a bunch of buttons with letters and numbers, a screen that looks like a TV... and has the power to help you create, compute, and take a trip accross the expansive universe of information called the internet. iHonestly cannot imagine my life without Apple. iCan remember the first personal computer we had in the house, it was the Commodore 64. That was the only non-Apple PC we ever owned. iAnd my brothers of course used it for the ever-important Montezuma's Revenge, but my dad was always working late nights inputting information for the office and writing his own programming to do so... At the time, it was the best-selling single PC, but the IBM/Apple race was about to change all of that... and Apple would soon enter my life and change it forever.

Mr. Holly's computer Lab at school was a sea full of Apples, and his enthusiasm for these innovative machines certainly inspired me. For some strange reason his enthusiasm for the Final Four Brackets didn't inspire me as much as Apple. iCan remember early mornings running into the lab to play games on the Apple (II??): Oregon Trail, number munchers, word munchers, and other such games not stopping until the bell rang and it was time to head to class.

When we moved my sister Deb into college, Dad bought her a Mac Plus. iCan remember him setting up the computer for her.... it was so small! iCouldn't wait to get to college to have my own Apple someday...Our family went on to purchase such Macs as Mac IISi with printer, Mac Quadra, Power Mac G3, iMac in Blue for Ben for college, iTook the Power Mac G3 to UCI, Powermac 8500 for Tim at UCSB, my sleek Powerbook 2400c Laptop when I moved to Japan for the first time complete with a "critter cam", now Mom and Dad own a Mac Pro, Mac Mini, Apple TV, and two iPhone 4's.

My self-puchased mac history begins post-first-Japan-laptop with the first gen white iBook G3 followed by the G4 Aluminum, first and third gen white MacBook, and current Macbook Pro.....Plus First gen iPod Mini in pink, first gen iPod Nano in White, Video iPod in Black, iPod Nano ("fatty") in Pink, and Current iPod Nano (Clip-on) in Pink. Not to mention iPhone 3G, 3Gs, 4 and now 4s is on order and available for pickup tomorrow on its debut thanks to the timely cracking of my iPhone 4's screen.... hmmm? A message from above not to miss out on the latest Apple Gadget??? iSeriously cannot imagine my life without Apple....iAlso feel this innate allegiance to Apple and its products.... iCannot understand those who haven't caught on yet... iAlways thought that if iDidn't work where iDo, iWould want to work for Apple.

Apple has had the power to bring "home" a lot closer to Japan. When iFirst moved here, I had a set day where I would call home using a calling card... now, every morning, iCall home on Face Time and have coffee and a catch up with my Mom or with my friends who are sprinkled all over the globe. That, in and of itself, is priceless to me.

iCan only imagine what it must feel like to have the kind of brain that is capable of creating Apple products. We take for granted that these products will continue to show up on their debut day, and that they will continue to be better than the one before. It s rare that you actually take amoment to think about the people and brains behind these devices that have made our lives much easier and more convenient. Steve Jobs once said,

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Well, now looking back, Apple has been a huge network of dots that have connected my life, my creativity, and connected me to family and friends. Thank you Steve for having the courage to trust your gut, because the difference it has made in your own life, has made differences multiplied exponentially for the world. -M