I finally did it. I broke down and bought an iPod. I like it.

I remember when the first mp3 players came out, way back in 1999. I paid $250 for a 256mb Diamond Rio on Ebay. When that one crapped out I bought another one, this time a 512mb. Sometimes I wish I still had those Rios, they were kinda cool.

Anyway. Then I had POS portable CD player that also played mp3s off disks. That sucked… I found that I had to swap out CDs a lot.

And then the first iPods appeared, along with the Creative Zens. After trying iTunes and reading the specs on the iPod I chose my Zen, which served me well for a good 5 years (I still use it, although not for music).

And then I bought an iRiver Clix. The Clix was, and still is, a badass PMP. The only downfall is the small sizes: 2gb and 4gb. I still use that little sucker too, when I get a wild hair and decide to try one of those music rental sites, like the new Napster or Urge.

And then I saw the 80gb iPod video. I was sold on the capacity. I had to have one. I could put my entire music collection on it and still have 20gb left over for my podcasts and Internet TV shows. So last week I bought one.

I still hate the big fat bloated pig that is iTunes. And I’m not crazy about the iPod’s clicky scroll wheel. I love the simplicity of my Clix. When I want to transfer files onto my Clix all I have to do is drag and drop in Windows Explorer. And the Clix’ interface is superior to iPod’s. I love clicking on the edges of the screen. To me, it’s much more intuitive than Apple’s device.

So what’s next? I was thinking about a Creative Zen Vision-type media player. I like the big screen and multiple video outputs.

Geek out.

So we’re doing a little web surfing over coffee the other morning, and Miriam is showing me something cool.

And then she does something that leaves me a bit flabbergasted.

“Miriam,” I ask her, “did you just press CTRL +T to open a new tab in Firefox?”

“YEP,” she answers and goes back to showing off.

She knows what she is doing. She’s toying with me. Dammit, this woman knows I love her. She doesn’t have to play these little games.

I catch her using another keyboard shortcut, but I say nothing. The geek in me is slightly aroused.

“You are so fucking cool,” I tell her.

She just smiled.

It’s one of those nights, and I’ve been here many times before. I’m tired, I know I’m tired, and yet I’m not sleepy. Can’t sleep. Nope, not gonna happen.

Things are going well lately and I’m quite content. I’m doing well at work, although I’m bored to tears. My job is quite easy and I am not challenged. I’m not even trying and I’m doing better than some people who have been there for years. My supervisor calls me her “star pupil”. I get the feeling that some people at work feel threatened by me, perhaps they think that I’m after their job. Little do they know that they have nothing to worry about. In four months I’ll be transferring out of that call center. Anywhere is fine, as long as I’m not arguing with people about their bill.

And Miriam is awesome, and I can’t remember being this happy with anyone, ever. I suppose I should say more about this *Miriam* gal, eh?

We met at work, on our very first day at Comcast. She sat on the other side of the room, in the back row, and I took every opportunity to ever-so-slyly steal glances at her. Our New Employee Orientation was quite full with 40 something people, and we all had to stand up and say a few things about ourselves.

“My name is Miriam and I’m very interested in technology.”

Whoa! Hu.. wha?? What did she just say? My neck snapped around to make sure it was that cute girl in the back row, the one I had the hots for, that actually said what I thought I just heard.

So I spent the rest of the day trying to play it cool. I had to play this one perfectly. Nope, not gonna screw this one up. There is something special about this girl, and I want to know more about her. I gotta be cool.

And then on Monday morning I joined my class of 15 or so classmates for the first day of Repair CAE training. And lucky me! That girl is in my class! She walked in the classroom and my face lit up and the whole world could see how excited I was to find out she was in my class with me for the next five weeks! I hope she doesn’t notice me staring at her… way to play it cool, Tom.

And then Miriam says that she loves the outdoors.

Wait. Wait. So, she’s techie Miriam *AND* outdoors Miriam? Just like me? OH… MY… GOD.

And so we would spend our first month flirting and smiling and trying in vain to play it cool and talking and wishing we were in each other’s group and being shy and it was just like high school.

Remember high school? Remember what it was like to have a crush on someone? Remember how excited you were in the morning when you woke up and got ready to go to class because you knew you were going to see that special someone? Remember how your heart fluttered when you daydreamed about them? Remember how your heart pounded when they caught you looking at them and they smiled at you? That’s what it was like to be in training class together. I felt like I was a teenager in love.

And then one day Miriam followed me across the street, to the golf course where I usually spend my lunch hour, and asked me to join her for lunch.

And she hasn’t been able to shake me since.

I’ve taken her to Truckee and Chico and I’ve been showing her all those awesome places that I’ve found, alone, in my travels and swore that one day I’d return with someone special.

We are very much alike and we get along so well. Every day we have a moment that goes something like this… “wait, you like that too?” or “wow, you feel that about that too?” We have a lot in common, indeed.

So our training is over and we’re on the floor, taking live calls and on our own and taking tech support calls and fixin’ shit. We sit right next to each other. We send little love notes and text messages to each other the entire shift. Miriam picks up little Nerf baseballs and throws them at me when I’m on a call. We take our breaks together and sneak out to the parking lot to make out. Miriam smiles at me and my heart melts.

And when we go home after our shift we open all the blinds and drapes so the neighboors and hear us playing Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and singing to each other and see us dancing in the kitchen.

And when we go to dinner we sit right next to each other and feed little bites off our plate to each other and make everyone around us absolutely sick. It is sick, isn’t it?

And it feels just like when we were in high school…