My mini

Guess what showed up today (well, yesterday actually)?

Here’s how it played out:

I came home last night to the normal chorus of “Daddy’s Home” after walking in the door. Glad to see everyone, and everyone glad to see me (I love that about coming home). Hugs and kisses all around---the Lemur leaping off the back of the couch onto my back. And just like normal I’m hearing everyone’s day as I walk over to the dining room table where the mail gets placed. Its kind of a mess because the kids also put their notices from school there as well as artwork and graded assignments that we need to see. So stuff gets kind of buried and I have to fish through it to be sure no bills get lost or overlooked.

As I’m assembling the days mail, I spy it. Just a corner of a box sticking out from underneath the Schoolastic book order forms. I give a little squawk and snatch it up, suddenly oblivious of what’s being said around me. With my outburst everyone falls silent trying to figure out what’s up with dad. As I’m peering at the tiny print of the return address just to be sure this is what I think it is, Robo asks,

“Dad? Is that. . .?”

I look up at him knowingly and smile a sly smile, “It is.”

The room explodes. Robo starts running towards the basement stairs to get his sister screaming, “DAD’S IPOD IS HERE. DAD’S IPOD IS HERE!”

Lemur realizes what is happening and so, not to be outdone by his brother, runs after him, screaming the same. Little Bear doesn’t have any idea what everyone is going off about, but he knows that it’s very exciting, so he gets excited too and goes running after them. All around the house this little iPod parade goes running, announcing to the world the wonderful little addition to our family and demanding that Kitten come up from her room because dad won’t open it until the whole family is there. My wife looks on chuckling in astonished amusement at the hubbub that this little box has created.

Finally we are all assembled and the wife has grabbed the camera. It may seem kind of silly but I have always assembled the kids around for the opening of any Apple product that I’ve gotten. You have to understand that it is kind of an event. Not only don’t we get cool electronics into our house very often, but Apple builds such a wonderful sense of presentation into their packaging that it just makes it so fun. For almost every other piece of electronics that we have every purchased, the packaging seems to have been viewed more as armor by the manufacturer. Once you got down to opening the box, from the largest to the smallest piece of gadget, no matter, it was always a wrestling match to get whatever it was out into the world.

But not so with Apple. Everything has an aesthetic. Everything. Even when they have to use Styrofoam for packing, it’s sleek with rounded edges and holes where you want them so the packing can be removed like a serving bell from over a gourmet meal . It’s is more like opening jewelry than a computer. No undignified wrestling with plastic theft-proofing or crazy twist ties.

With a gentle cut of the seam tape the iPod box slides out this way, then slides out that way, each step having a little message or logo. Until finally it opens, the iPod there in the center, displayed like a diamond ring. Even the instructions don’t just slide out as a mass of paper into your hand. The are encased in their own little shuttle that slides out and unfolds from the four sides to present you with your documentation, a CD and some Apple stickers as though it were an award.

It’s at this point that I get a little nervous though, because with all the excitement and jockeying for position to get a look at the new thing, there is an ever increasing risk that it will get knocked to the floor. So now I have to stand up and establish the “look, don’t touch, hands at your side” regimen.

Later, after putting everyone to bed, my kind, patient wife let me disappear into my new toy without even a word---and she only sighed the “can this be over now” sigh a couple of times. We were still sitting at the table together, she was reading a book, I was surrounded by gizmos. I was madly making playlists and dragging songs over to try and fill up my 6 gigs manually, being sure to keep the Christmas music off (not that I have anything against Christmas music, just, you know, at Christmas---not in April).

Today I listened to it on the way to work through the FM transmitter that I have had for a while and it’s wonderful. I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been looking toward having an iPod in my life for years (since they first came out and I was watching on the product announcement web simulcast, to be exact). And even after all that, it’s living up to all my expectations.

Every guy has to have a little hobby obsession---I think it’s just in the wiring. I’m glad mine’s Apple. They just do things so goooood.