Two of my favorite institutions celebrated significant anniversaries today. Apple Computer turned 30 years old today and the USS Christa McAuliffe celebrated the 20th anniversary of it's founding.

I have been an Apple user since my college roommate brought an Apple IIe computer. Since that time I have owned seven Apples: and Apple IIGS, an six Macs: the LC, a Performa 630, a beige Power Mac G3, an eMac and two iBooks. I have also owned numerous other Apple products, ranging from Imagewriter, Stylewriter and Personal Laserwriter printers, a Quicktake 200 digital camera and the four iPods my family currently owns.

Why do I stick with Apple? It's because their products are unfailingly usable and elegant. I use Windows PCs at work every day, and it's a struggle to get it to do what I want as compared to using a Mac. I'm also not interested in dealing with the universe of viruses, spyware and other malware that infects the PC universe.

And the McAuliffe. How different would my life be if we hadn't started the club 20 years ago? Many of my best friends are people I met through the club. We really are a family, even though members of the family have moved away from the Boston area over the years. I'm truly looking forward to our 20th anniversary celebration at the Shore Leave convention later this year.