Sneaky Bastard

Last weekend I rode the Wildflower Century in northeast San Luis Obispo County. It was hot and windy at times, but quite beautiful. There weren’t any shenanigans played by local residents, like hiding the road markers are tipping over the porta-potties. At registration I bought a jersey for my collection. The woman at the counter insisted that I try it on first. I assured her that the size was just fine. “Everybody else has been trying them on,” she explained. The situation devolved into a scene that reminded me of trying on new school clothes at a department store while my mother waited outside the dressing room.

I went to the Apple Store in Santa Monica a few years ago to buy a PowerMac G5 Dual 2.7 GHz. I still use it as my main desktop machine, although I do development work on a very fast PC running Ubuntu Linux. I mention that I still use my three-year-old PowerMac G5 (as well as my five-year-old PowerBook G4 Titanium 1 GHz) to highlight the longevity of Apple hardware. I’d love to buy a new Mac Pro and MacBook Air, and that’s what the rest of this blog is about — controlling my overwhelming desire to buy the hottest new Apple gear.

When I bought my PowerMac, I opened an Apple Credit account, operated by Juniper Bank (Barclays PLC). They offered a 6-month interest-free period, and at the time I convinced myself that I’d pay it off before paying their outrageous interest rate. Fast forward three years, while reconciling some accounts and cleaning up Quicken. During the life of that loan, I paid a silly amount of interest and made many late payments by neglecting to create reminders. The cost to finance a $4500 purchase was nearly $2000. Stupid. Of course, I was the dream customer for credit card companies. I now use an electronic bill pay service, and prevent these financial mistakes. It gives me enormous satisfaction to cancel that account.