I like to learn new things. I like discovering. I love knowledge. I welcome a challenge. I admire accomplishments. I worship at the altar of being the best. I don't necessarily mean the concept of me being the best, because I am frankly not the best at most of what I do. It is that aspect of being that resides within the few and leads them to being the best that I find to be so remarkable.

I also like using the best tools. The best equipment. The best operating system. I knew there was a Mac connection here somewhere...

The Mac has long been the best OS in my mind. It's not the best OS for all things, by any means, but it is certainly the best for what I do and for what the vast majority of computer users do. It doesn't do all the things that an operating system is supposed to the best, but from the user standpoint, working with it is the best. The Mac OS helps me get things done. It gets out of my way and lets me do my work, my play. It leaves me alone to be creative.

I have been happy using the Mac OS for years now. From my early Mac days of using a Mac IIci at Kinkos in 1990 to the G4 PowerMac with which I am writing this now, the Mac OS has always made sense. It has always been intuitive. It has always been there for me. Tomorrow, though, I will leave it behind. Mostly. Tomorrow I will be installing Mac OS X 10.0 (or 1.0, or whatever it is to be called) and embarking on a new journey with my Mac.

As much as I like the original Mac, I love Mac OS X all that much more. I love working with it. I love looking at it. I love the new step that it represents. I love the fact that it is still the Mac. It is the Mac taken into a new age. It has the ease of use that I demand, the good looks that I expect, and the stability and power that I crave.

I have used various builds of Mac OS X as I could get them, and installing each one was like breathing new life into my Mac. The anticipation that built up as we got closer and closer to the final release was palpable. I could see it in our forums, I could read it in the letters sent to me, and I could hear it in the voices of the Mac users with whom I spoke. We were all about to enter a new age in computing.

Rodney spoke about bragging rights, Ricky talked about spring-cleaning, and Eolake is looking for reliability. I understand all these things, and each is also important to me. The most important thing about OS X to me, however, is the chance to learn something new, the opportunity to use an even more powerful tool, and the fact that I will be lucky enough to be using the very best operating system in the world. To borrow Apple's slogan from the mid-90's, several years before the return of Steve Jobs, Mac OS X is the power to be my best. That is what OS X means to me.