It’s 7:00pm CST on Wednesday, October 5th and I just came down to catch up on some work.  I pulled up Twitter and saw a posting asking people to post memories of of Apple and Steve Jobs.  At first I thought it was something to share with Steve, something to give him some inspiration.  Then it dawned on me, he passed away.  I started to scroll back in the timeline and saw the tweets rolling in.  It felt like someone punched me in the gut.

First let me say that anyone that is with someone close who is fighting cancer can understand this.  Every time you hear of someone passing away from cancer you immediately think about the person close to you.  It is an awful reminder of the reality of the situation.  You always fill your heart and mind with hope, but we live in real world and not everyone has a good outcome.

When I was in 4th grade I had my parents sign me up for a computer programming class.  This class taught Basic on Apple II’s and it was my first introduction to the Apple line.  I fell in love and knew that in some way shape or form that I would work in the computer industry.  When the class was over I used to walk over 2 miles to our library and get there when it first opened so I could use their Apple II machines.  I was that hooked.

Zoom forward to college days, I was a convert and PC user.  I remember going to one of my floor mates rooms and he had a Mac Plus.  I was amazed and hooked on playing Shufflepuck Cafe and Strategic Conquest.  What killed me was that this little box had such great games and it simple worked.  But I was a PC person and at the moment was stuck with DOS.  Windows and a mouse were nice, but it wasn’t a Mac.

During college I started working for CompUSA, back when it was a real computer store.  I was a computer salesman and spent the days selling machines to people and businesses.  CompUSA was an authorized Apple dealer but it really was just one or two aisles of machines.  None of us really paid attention to it because we were busy selling PCs.  At some point, a year or two after working there, I started to hang out in that lonely aisle and with the help of a few other people, started to learn and sell the Mac.

There was a one Sunday where the store GM was trying to drum up sales and I asked him a question.  There was a Mac Classic on the shelf that was pretty much dead inventory.  I asked him if I sold a certain number of systems could I have it.  He looked at me and said if you can sell 5 complete systems on that shortened day (10-5pm) than I could have it.  I was the last salesman on that day sending out the last customer with my 5th system sale.  I was a happy person bringing home my first Mac.

I’ve been toying around with the idea of writing some iOS apps as of late.  Thank you Steve, even in death you are inspiring me to get off my duff and do what I want to do.  On 10/5/2012 I will have released at least one app, not to make money, but to honor you and what you have done for the world.

CR