I got dropped off at the house today by a friend. There on the front porch was a box.

Now, I need to pause for a moment here. I was painting with the music up very loud three days ago, and barely managed to hear the knocking on the door. Luckily I heard it just as the delivery guy was walking away with my printer. So he took the note off the door and I was able to sign for it. The 99$ printer.

My Powerbook G4 was sitting on the front porch. In downriver Detroit. No signature required.

Now, given that I have it in my possession now and didn’t have to wait another second, I’m not exactly complaining. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m wondering the exact logic of the situation.

Not much though.

It’s sooooo sexy.

Anyways… I’m going to go play now.

I just received the email shipping confirmation. It’s three or four days earlier than expected. AHHH! I’m so excited!

My parents have been setting aside a little bit of money for me every month since I was very small. They opened up a savings account at the same credit union where they had their own. The idea was to have a little something saved for me for “a security deposit on an apartment or a down payment on a car.” It was up to 1000$ my senior year in high school. My dad invested half of it in some sort of internet related stock and doubled it. So it ended at 1500$ total.

Enter Music Technology at Wayne State University. I can’t recall the exact circumstances that made me decide suddenly that I need to purchase a Mac. The fact is though, going into the field that I’m planning on going in to, a Macintosh computer is a necessary item to have. Somewhere in the next week or so, my parents and I were out to dinner and I dropped what I figured would be the bomb. “So you know the money of mine that you have? I was figuring I could buy a Macintosh computer…” “That sounds alright.” …… Not exactly what I was expecting, but definitely the perfect response.

At the point at which the purchase decision was finalised, I had to then figure out what type of Mac to buy. After some research (yes I consider asking a lot of questions to the people I met in the depeartment who owned Macs research), I came to my conclusion. I would soon be the proud owner of a 12″ Powerbook G4. In the midst of this, a friend of mine’s roommate told him to tell me to wait to order, that they would be releasing the new Powerbooks in the next week or so. My experts informed me that Apple had been talking about that for a year or so. The only thing that stopped me from ordering was that I had to get to my parents house to get the credit card so I could place the order. The necessity for that held ordering off just long enough for Apple to release the new Powerbooks. My experts were pissed. I was ecstatic.

Apple customer service ranks up with some of the best I’ve ever dealt with (and I’ve dealt with some pretty phenomenal customer service). At 5:35pm today, I received the order confirmation on my new 12″ Powerbook G4 with the new 1GHz processor, and my new HP Deskjet printer (free after rebate!). The CSR told me that the new 12″ aren’t available for shipping yet, but that it should only be a week.

I am sooooooooooooooooooooo excited.

Well, she’s home. And the sweetest little puppy ever. When she got inside, she immediately grabbed one of her toys and started chewing on it. Not entirely sure what to make of it, but she got many pets and hugs and treats for that. She doesn’t make much noise. I got her a kennel to stay in when we’re not home, it’s really very large compared to her, but that was the plan. Plenty of room for her in it. I can’t feed her until tomorrow morning because of the surgery. They said she might still be somewhat sedated from the anesthetics. I’m hoping she doesn’t come out of it and turn out to be a rampaging psycho. At the moment, she wants nothing more than to be near me in some way. As long as she’s next to me and I’m petting her, she couldn’t be happier. It seems like she’s going to fit in just fine. She even came when I whistled to her. She’s definitely not rottweiler/german shepard. She has lab in her. And most likely greyhound. Like I said, she’s too sleek for either of the first two really. She’s very pretty though. Kinda goofy looking sometimes.

Her name is Aislin Cliodhna. (That’s ash-lynn klee-oo-na for the non-Gaelic speaking folks out there.) Aislin for short. It fits her perfectly.

It was decided that the new pet of the house was to be a dog. The Michigan Humane Society actually had a pretty well put together site with photos and descriptions, but I had no way of knowing how up to date it was, as well as the fact that the site is for the whole state, and there’s three or four shelters in all. I went to the main shelter in Detroit.

Apparently I’ve been spoiled until now in terms of animal shelters. My parents and I have rescued a few cats, and the shelter near my parents house is really nice. The whole thing is very open and very clean. The area with the animal cages has skylights. They have a bunch of rooms down a couple of hallways where you can take your animal to see how you get along with it. Detroit shelter… Not so much.

There were about 20 people and a few animals crammed into the lobby area. People were either dropping off animals or picking them up. One woman spent the whole time justifying to everyone who even glanced in her direction why she was dropping her cats off at the shelter. Getting the attention of any of the people working there was pretty much impossible. Someone finally said to go look at the dogs.

I had already decided that I wasn’t going to get a puppy. It’d be way too much work, and I’m in school right now. On top of that, puppies are twice the price of dogs over 4 months, because people always want puppies more than older dogs. So it worked out both ways in this instance. There weren’t very many dogs in there in the first place, and I already knew I couldn’t get a huge dog, so that eliminated a few right off the top. It was quickly narrowed down to three; a sandy coloured terrier mix, a lab/huskie mix and a rottweiler/german shepard mix. The latter of the three was entirely too sleek to be either of the two that they listed. She had been out for a walk when I’d first gotten there. I opened her cage to say hello, and she slowly pushed herself into my lap until her whole body was twisted sideways on top of my legs. She had the sweetest face. I was taken. I filled out the app and went through all the paperwork and such. I paid to have her microchipped… They do it for really cheap in an effort to keep animals with their owners.

She hasn’t yet been sterilised, so I can’t pick her up until next Tuesday morning. I went to the pet store and spent a ton of money on new puppy things. I haven’t picked out a name yet. Three days. Should be long enough. I’m super excited. I’m going to take the day off Tuesday so I can spend it with her.