Recently I noticed that the Dell laptop I have from work is getting less and less use. Once I am home, I almost completely use my MacPro and MacBook Pro to perform any work — personal or professional. When did this happen? When did I become an Apple Fan Boy?

I found this timeline of the personal computer online and this post about being an Apple Fanboy, and decided to track my conversion into an Apple Fanboy:

1973 - My mom and I move from Fort Collins, CO to East Palo Alto, CA. Up the road at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), the Alto workstation was developed. Coincidence? I dont think so.

1977 - Radio Shack introduces the TRS-80 / Apple introduces the Apple II computer. My dad brings home a TRS-80. The diversion begins. I begin to learn to program in BASIC and LOGO.

1982 - Commodore introduces the Commodore 64. I never owned one, but my friends did. My dad brings home an Osborne I a year after its introduction. In the fifth and sixth grade, we have Apple IIc (I think that was the letter). We use them only for playing Oregon Trail and Lemonade Stand.

1985 - High School introduces girls and sports. My interest in computers wanes. I stop programming anything, and use my PC clone at home for BBSs, MUDs and other geekdom activities. Oh and home work. Pretty far away from becoming an Apple Fan Boy at this point.

1993 - I graduate college. Through out my time at University of California, Davis, I use a computer my dad built. Green screen, barely ran anything but WordStar, and it was used only to write papers and print them out on my dot matrix printer. Interesting note: I was the only person outside of the computer science department to get an email address at UC Davis.

1994 - 2000 - For the next ten years, I work either at a non-profit or an university as a fund raiser, using a PC and Outlook mostly. Interesting note: I was one of the first people in the country to use email to invite alumni to events. It was amazingly effective.

2000 - I leave higher education to join a small startup called Kozmo.com as a marketing manager in San Diego. We were in charge of making sure that Kozmo San Diego had a huge launch both through guerrilla marketing and business relationships. I was assigned a Thinkpad and a Nextel phone. Still no reason to become an Apple Fan Boy. We had more drop boxes (places to return delivered videos) in place than any other city prior to launch, and collected 5,000 email addresses by traveling to different areas of the city and asking folks for their email addresses. We had the largest launch of any city, and then Kozmo died.

mid 2000 - 2003 - I moved to Oakland and started working for a small startup called MyPersonal, it merged with another company near the middle of 2001 and was renamed Synacor. It recently had an IPO. I was laid off soon after the merger (they decided to move operations to Buffalo, NY). I went back to consulting with Current Wisdom, and had one real client, and a PC at home. Apple was still seen as a high end machine for graphic designers, so I didnt even consider becoming an Apple Fan Boy.

Once I lost that client, I decided to take a summer off and get to know my father back in Boulder, CO. So, I moved to Boulder in 2001, and applied to business schools. Didnt get into any. Didnt even use a computer for the summer. Got a job offer in Denver, so I took it. January 2002, I began with ServiceMagic focusing on business development and search engine marketing.
1999 - 2006 - Current Wisdom was a consultancy that I ran on and off for seven years until I sold it in the beginning of 2007.

2003 - 2006 - I left ServiceMagic to start Current Wisdom, a full service search engine marketing agency. Finally, making decent revenue, I decided to buy my first Apple product, a ibook. It was at that point I became an Apple Fanboy.

2007 - I now own a MacPro, a MacBook Pro, an iPhone, an iPod Nano, an iPod Classic, an iPod Touch, a Mac mini(currently broken) and an Apple TV.

I find myself hitting ALT instead of CTRL on my PC keyboards now. I am officially an Apple Fanboy. How did it happen? I just started using Macs, and found that they were much more enjoyable to use. When I use a PC, it feels like work. (And, to be honest, when I have to do a bunch of work in Excel or write a long document, I tend to still use my PC laptop.) So, call me an Apple Fanboy. I know you want to…

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Last Sunday, I headed to the airport to fly down to Dallas for work. I did all my normal prep work. Downloaded the requisite songs and videos to my iPhone, made sure to pack my Bose headset, threw an extra charger in my suitcase, put my ipod nano in my shoes for working out, charged my Macbook, and, of course, packed some clothes.

Deciding that I really didnt want to sit with my two coworkers, I checked to see if there was room in first class (I have a billion miles on United, and a bunch of upgrade certificates). I was in luck, first class was open.

We get on the plane, and I settle into my seat. I put on my Bose headphones (I like to sit on the right side of the plane, because the power switch on the Bose is on the right ear, and therefore, the flight attendants cant see if its on or off), attached it to my iPhone (turning on airplane mode), and stuck the iPhone in my pocket.

I always put it on the side where the headphones would plug into the console, so the flight attendants dont ask me to turn off my music. I cant stand airplane music.

About 1 hour and 15 minutes into the flight, I feel for my iPhone wanting to check out an episode of Mad Men, and as I reach down, I can feel the iPhone slipping between the seat and the center console. “Dammit!” I muttered to myself.

As I tried to pull the iPhone out by the headphone connector, suddenly the music in my ear disappeared. I knew it would take just one slip of the fingers and my iPhone would be lost. Gently, I wrestled with the iPhone; slowly it made its way out of the crevice of the seat, and just as I was about to declare victory (in my best Johnnie Chase impression), the iPhone slipped out of my fingers and into the center console.

At the conclusion of the flight, I asked for help from the flight attendant. She tried to reach into the console and reclaim my phone, but only succeeded in knocking it down further. “No worries,” she said chipperly, “give me your card and I will mail it to you when we get it out.”

Being trusting, I gave her my card, and went on my way to the hotel. And, fully expecting to have my iPhone mailed to me back in Denver, with 15 minutes to spare, I found an AT&T store, and bought a new iPhone.

Resyncing it was a breeze. In fact, this phone has worked 100 times better than my old iPhone. No crashes, no freezes. Pretty excited about that.

After three days, I returned to Denver. Wednesday, I sit down in my office and there is a package, with no return address, waiting for me on my desk. “C’mon,” I thought, “this cant be my iPhone.”

Quickly ripping open the package, there was an iPhone sized item wrapped in a protective sheet and a rubber band. With glee, I opened it to find, the first iPhone Flip Phone!

Yes, I am well aware that it is not an iPhone or even an iPhone Flip Phone. But, what amazes me is that there are only two explanations why I got the above, instead of:

Evil Theory: Some United employee decided that they liked my non-flip version of the iPhone better than their iPhone Flip Phone and decided to send me the Samsung POS.

Less Evil Theory: United found multiple phones in the console of the first class seat I was sitting in, and sent back the first phone they found to me.

My plan is to call United tomorrow and see what happens. In the worst case, I will try and contact the person who’s phone I now possess and get it back to him or her. (If you lost a Helio Samsung Fin on a United Flight shoot me an email).

Dear Larry (Thats what I decided to name my blog…LearntoDuck Larry):

About a month ago, I wrote a post listing the top 10 reasons I would not buy an iPhone. In fact, I wrote that post the day the iPhone came out. I was so proud, so happy that I was going to finally withstand the pull of the newest, coolest gadget. I spent the day doing other things, laughing at all the people who waiting in line for the shiny new status symbol.

Then my friends began to fall. First one got sucked into the iPhone Mafia, then another. Then people who I thought were above the iPhone frenzy were made by the Godfather, Steve Jobs. But, I was strong. I was resisting. I was reading my post to remind myself why I wasnt going to buy an iPhone. Why the iPhone mafia would just have to operate without me.

And Friday turned into Saturday. And I was still no iPhone hypocrite. I still had my dignity. I could still giggle at the lines and the shortcomings of the iPhone. But, peer pressure was whispering in my ear. “What will everyone think?” It slyly, seductively seduced me. “You ALWAYS have the latest gadget before everyone else.” Still, I resisted. “I dont need an iPhone. I cant be a hypocrite.” I swore. And Saturday passed with no iPhone.

I began to break down Saturday evening. I started reading reviews. Always a bad sign. I starting looking for hacks. REALLY bad sign. I started looking for accessories. I knew I was doomed. The iPhone Mafia was winning.

I woke up Sunday morning, and almost without thought, I clicked on my MacPro. As my screen came to life, I opened FireFox. “Stop,” I thought to myself. “Read your email first.” As Entourage took its sweet time loading, I switched back to FireFox and started reading more about the iPhone. It was really cool. As I continued to battle the iPhone Mafia, my resolve continued to weaken. “Its only $600,” I reasoned. “It’ll get your exchange email, no problem,” I justified.

“Fine! I will be a damn iPhone hypocrite! I will join the iPhone Mafia. After all, I need to be one of the cool guys at StartupWeekend. I will go at like 2pm. They will be all sold out in Cherry Creek.”

And so, my destiny as a member of the iPhone Mafia and as a certified iPhone hypocrite began. I went to Cherry Creek. “We have dozens in stock!” The ‘geniuses’ exclaimed. “4GB or 8GB?”

“8GB,” I muttered, hoping no one would see my strange mix of shame and excitement. With a swipe of my credit card, the deed was done.

“Hey, Coach! Buy that for me?” Floated up from the crowd behind me. One of the kids I coach in lacrosse was standing behind me with his parents. Clearly, the iPhone Mafia was laughing at me. “Bastards,” I grumbled. Feeling a little like Darth Vader, I said “Hi Luke [his real name], what are you doing here?” The rest of the conversation was a bit of blur. I just wanted to go home and play with my new iPrecious…I mean…iPhone.

It is now over a month since I have owned the iPhone. People have stopped coming up to me in coffee shops and stores to ask to touch and play with it. I have never got it to work with my corporate email, and will be getting a blackberry to handle that. But, I do really enjoy the phone. It does enough of what I need it to, and strangely enough, my inability to send corporate email (I can receive it), has actually made me less of an email junkie. Now I have to decide how important returning the email is because of the effort (phone call or finding a laptop) it takes.

So, I have completely joined the dark side, and now proudly proclaim my membership in the iPhone Mafia (La Costra iPhone Nostra) as the head iPhone hypocrite, and as Michael Corleone so eloquently said in Godfather Part III, “Every Time I Try to Get Out; Shiny Objects Suck Me Back In!” (maybe I’m paraphrasing.)