You know how sometimes families will develop a reputation with other families in their community? Not even necessarily in a bad way, just in a “that family’s really outdoorsy” or “Oh, that’s just the family that practices cannibalism,” kind of way.

Well, for better or worse, my family and I have been branded as computer nerds. (I suspect that when we’re not around we’re also known as the ‘boring’ family, but that’s a whole different story.) Whether this is deserved or not I will leave for you to determine, but the fact is that our friends and acquaintances regularly come to us looking for technical advice/salvation, because it is an accepted fact that we Julians are “computer people.” This is partially because for much of my life we have had at least one computer per person in our household; but also because at any given moment the odds of finding us all sitting at our computers are… high.

It seems that my family’s affinity for computers began before either my brother or I were even conceived, because as my parents like to tell us, they spent long nights when they were newly married playing those new-fangled TEXT-BASED ADVENTURE GAMES! (Emphasis added to demonstrate their excitement.) I believe they were also some of the first people they knew to actually get a computer (An Apple, of course), but I wasn’t around so I may not have the details completely straight.

One thing I know for sure is that computers have been a gigantic part of my life for as long as I can remember. My earliest memory of computer-excitement is from that fateful night when my parents came home from shopping at Costco. Dad walked in the door with a big cardboard box in his arms, set it down on the table, carefully opened it up, and pulled out… a brand new computer! It was a Macintosh Performa 578, but in my six-year-old excitement, all I noticed was that it was COLOR! Our first color computer! I loved this computer, because it had Kid Pix (which rocked my world like you would not believe) and Mario Teaches Typing and Wacky Jacks.

This little computer served us faithfully for years, but pretty soon my family started switching to bigger, faster, (at that time) better PCs, and they gave me the Performa to keep in my room. So it became the first computer I was responsible for, as well as the machine I used for school reports and on which I designed my first website (The story of my introduction to the internet is worthy of its own post. Let’s just say my tagline is right: I grew up with the internet. ).

Finally, one of my family members upgraded their PC and gave me their old one. So my days as a Mac user were over, and I happily accepted my newer, faster (although still hopelessly outdated) PC. Since then I have upgraded to new PCs several times, but this post is growing unwieldy so I will spare you the details.

Except to mention that three years ago I bought a computer for the first time, which is the PC I still have, and let me tell you: I love it to death. It’s slightly outdated now, but has aged surprisingly well, and with my new monitor it is a thing of beauty. (I told you I’d post pictures of it someday!) So take that, Mac users, PC people can get attached to their computers too.

But anyway, back to how my family is made up of computer geeks… these are the computers that currently make up our household:

• Mine (see above)
• Mom’s (newest computer we have)
• Dad’s (newer than mine, older than Mom’s)
• An old Dell laptop that is rapidly growing decrepit
• The afore-mentioned Performa (Yes, we still have it! It probably hasn’t been turned on in a year, though.)
• An older-than-dirt “laptop” (affectionately known as the “luggable”) that probably doesn’t work anymore.

This is not including my brother’s TWO computers (soon to be three, including his Fiance’s laptop) since he doesn’t live here anymore; but he’s definitely still part of the family, and demonstrates the family computer geekiness.

Now, in a surprising development, this history of family computing may be about to come full circle! For the past six months or so, I have been researching Apple computers. It started because I wanted to upgrade my beloved PC, and the more I looked around the more attractive Macs were looking. I’ve gone back and forth so many times, talked with countless people through countless arguments about why one platform or the other is better. And, slowly but surely, my desire to own a Macintosh has been increasing. I have surreptitiously been reading The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and keeping up on Apple’s latest releases.

It is entirely possible that I will purchase a MacBook Pro later this year. This would be new territory for me in many ways: My first OSX Mac, my first laptop (…my first computer that costs almost as much as my car did =-o…). I want to wait till later this year to purchase one for a number of reasons: First and foremost, I need to save some more money. Secondly, I want to wait until some of the issues that I’ve read about have been worked out. (Computer whine, screen issues, etc.) I’m also kind of hoping that Apple will do a similar deal this year as the one they did last year, where they gave away an iPod with Powerbook purchases. But most of all… I’m just not sure yet. Is it really worth the expense and the hassle of incompatable software? Of not having Photoshop?? I don’t know. But it’s darn attractive. And it would seem particularly fitting, in view of my family’s reputation, to be a bi-platform computer user.

My parents probably never guessed, back when they were staunch Macintosh users, that they would one day be trying to convince their daughter that switching from Windows to a Mac would be too much of a pain. What silly problems and decisions computers have created in our lives… things that we never thought we’d have to think about. But here we are. And, for better or worse…. I am a computer geek. And proud.

Update: My brother tells me that the Performa was actually our third color computer. Oops. I guess that just goes to emphasize the technological-forwardness of my family; but as far as I’m concerned, it was our first one because it’s the first one I remember.

When Steven Spielberg’s kick-awesome movie Jurassic Park came out in 1993, I was five. This meant, as it did for every other good movie that came out around this era, that my parents and my brother got to go see it, and I got to stay home with a babysitter. Then I got to listen when my family came home and talked about how spectacular it was. But when I asked if I could see it, I got the standard, “Noooo, it’s too scary for you!”

Even though I protested loudly that it was not too scary for me because I was definitelygrown-up enough to handle it, some inside part of me stored away those words “IT’S TOO SCARY FOR YOU,” and totally believed them. So, over the next several years, as more of my friends saw the movie and loved it, I dutifully refused any opportunity to see it, because my parents said it was just. too. scary.

So by the time my parents decided that I was finally ready, the idea of watching Jurassic Park had become such a huge ordeal that my eight-year-old brain vacillated between excitement and sheer TERROR at the mere mention of its name. But I had also grown incredibly curious: I had to see this movie, with its scary dinosaurs and its detached human limbs, because I had to know what it was like! It was time!

So I saw it. And it scared the bejeebies out of me. And I LOVED IT. Jurassic Park instantly became my favorite movie. I loved the story, the characters, the dinosaurs (the velociraptors were my favorites, probably because the scared me the most; I used to stalk around the living room with my teeth sticking out and my hands curled like velociraptor claws.)–but most of all, I think I just liked the fact that I finally got to see it.

But then a curious thing happened: more than a year after I actually saw the movie, I started having Jurassic Park dreams. And by dreams, I actually mean nightmares. Every other night I was running through kitchens being chased by raptors, or I was trapped in a T-Rex paddock, or I was in a car driving madly away from some baddie dino running behind us. Suddenly, all the fun of being scared by the movie was gone. It wasn’t fun or adventurous anymore. It was just terrifying.

That was almost ten years ago… and I still have Jurassic Park dreams on a regular basis. I had one just two nights ago, which is what prompted me to write this post. Unlike most movies that I loved as much as I did that one, I have only seen Jurassic Park once. And I probably will never watch it again. Why? Because I honestly think it would scare me more now than it did when I was eight. Weird. I guess my parents were right: It was too scary.

Let me introduce you to my friend Natalie. She is one month and one day older than me, and we have known each other our entire lives. As children we played American Girls Dolls and “olden-days” together. She has always been incredibly sweet, fun, and stubborn. (Not to mention a bit loony: I vividly remember one day when we were sitting in her car waiting for her mom, who had just got out for some reason. We were parked on a steep hill, and Nata kept eyeing the emergency break saying, “Erin, what would you do if I just released that break right now? I don’t think I can stop myself from doing it!” … all the while sounding very distressed at herself for even thinking such thoughts.)

One of Nata’s many endearing qualities is the way she anthropomorphizes things. I think that every inanimate object she has come into contact with her entire life has some kind of name. Her cell phone is Stella, her car is Chloe, and her iPod is Lola, to name but a few.

Two nights ago, Natalie spent the night at my house. As the hour grew later, we became increasingly reduced to giggle fits on the couch about everything and nothing. (I’m sad to report that many chocolate-covered peppermint sticks sacrificed their lives for these festivities.) In a moment of particular exuberance, Natalie propelled her cell phone, which she had just been holding, across the room, where it landed in a rocking chair. But at the instant the phone left her hand, a look of terror at the horrible act she had just committed spread over Natalie’s face, and as the phone sailed through the air she suddenly screamed, “STELLA, DON’T JUMP!!”

That same night, Nata asked me how I think of things to write in my blog. I told her that I just try to find the interesting stories in everyday life. I didn’t mention that it also helps to have crazy friends.