Just call me Gadget Girl!

In my circle of friends, I am know as the gadget girl.  If some new electronic device comes out, you can bet I am going to be the first person in our group to get one.  I am not sure that this will impress you too much when I say that until last month, one of my friends could not send or receive texts via her phone.  Rest assured, while I may not be bleeding edge, I am leading edge.  I had the first Palm Pilot.  OK, so maybe it was the ONLY Palm Pilot, but I was planning my calendar in the digital age when a blackberry was only something that went into cobbler and jam.  I learned the "graffiti" so I could quickly write on the screen using the stylus.  Of course, I had to be super cool and get a keyboard for my Palm Pilot, thanks to the Federal Trade Commission "Truth in Advertising" law that allowed me to buy the $99 keyboard for $19.99 when Office Depot incorrectly printed their ad.  Fast forward to 2003 and I have upgraded to the Palm V Smart phone.  This phone was only slightly smaller than the Zack Morris brick phone he housed in his locker on Saved by the Bell.  Still using graffiti, I made notes, added people to my address book and downloaded one of the first "apps" - Vindago.  Vindago was founded in 1999 to provide cityguides for Palm.  Think UrbanSpoon without the "I feel lucky" option.  Actually, now that I think about it, I had Vindago on my non-phone Palm Pilot - because it was awesome to use when I came to the city.  Some co-workers and I also found software to sync our email, calendar, address book, etc to our palm devices, something that CP only began offering months ago for iPhone users.  And it is not true "sync" because I cannot get my work contacts, and anything I add on my iPhone calendar does not hit my Lotus Notes calendar.  ANYWAY, moving toward 2006ish, I upgrade to the Palm Treo 650.  It has COLOR! And is slightly smaller than the Palm V.  My tiny fake Coach and LV bags are in rotation again, as long as I only carry 1 lip gloss and one credit card and put my house keys in my coat pocket.  I had the first MP3 player - ARCHOS Jukebox.  I was anti-Apple.  It all goes back to a temp job I had one summer.  An advertising agency I was working for in downtown Little Rock for the afternoon was closed.  All I had to do was answer the phone and take messages on a Mac.  I was Macintosh Retarded.  I deleted, mis-filed, mis-sent, mis-everything. The company wanted me to come back for the next week to fill in for their receptionist on vacation but I declined due to my inability to operate the Mac on a day when the office was supposedly closed.  Or maybe I turned down the job because it felt just a little like Melrose Place and I was an unemployed frump dump 24 year old MBA that would have been their receptionist.  Anyway, I was anti-Apple, so I purchased an Archos Jukebox based off my extensive consumer reports research (a must have subscription for all gadget gals).  It was the size of a box of animal crackers.  I had to use the elliptical at the gym because trying to use it outside was a workout in itself.  I don't think the arm things were invented yet, but it weighted about twice as much as a walkman.  How did we carry the walkman?  I think I bought some Velcro baby snuggie type thing to cary the jukebox, I mean MP3player around in.  2008 rolls around, my mom dies and I go full on midlife crisis.  In the span of 3 weeks I buy a laptop computer, a digital SLR camera and - gasp - an iPhone.  The folks at Apple are marketing geniuses (of course we know that).  They had a 20 minute video on their website featuring the iPhone.  Within 5 minutes, I had to have it.  There is an AT&T store 1 block from my office.  I did show some restraint and watch the entire 20 minute video.  Thank God!  Because everything I know about my iPhone, I learned in that video.  Since my first iPhone, I have upgraded to the iPhone 4, received a shuffle and an Apple TV as gifts, and purchased the mac daddy of all iPads, the 64gig, 3G+Wifi Gen 1.  When iPad II came out, I experienced great iPad envy.  The folks that waited got a sleeker, lighter, faster version.  I felt like I was carrying around a laptop.  In preparation of Apple announcing a new iPad in October (2011 - they didn't), I decided to sell my Gen1 while I could still get some money out of it.  I also received a kindle as a gift, used it several months, then sold it to, in anticipation of the new Kindle Fire.  I received my Kindle Fire (yes, I was on the waiting list) and I have to say, it's not an iPad.  It is great for reading a book, the video streaming is good quality, but there is just something about being able to say that you have an iPad.  I miss being a member of that club.  I am awaiting the new iPad announcement, at which time I will by the cheapest, most basic model so I can upgrade frequently and once again become a member of The IPAD CLUB.
I didn't realize how far back my gadget acquisition began until a discussion at dinner made me think about the car phone I had installed in my Nissan Stanza when i was a senior in college "in case there was an emergency".  Or, when I was a sales rep with Lever Brothers, the "bag phone" that I kept in my car.  I think the only useful thing I ever used that bag phone for was to buy Elton John and Billy Joel tickets.  Way back in 2005, when you didnt' buy things on the Internet, you had to que up at Ticket Master to get concert tickets.  This meant arriving at Food 4 Less in North Little Rock at 6am, to get tickets for my mom, grandmother and myself to see Elton John and Billy Joel at War Memorial Stadium.  I wanted to surprise them.  Long story short, the line didn't move and I was freaking out that I was not going to get tickets when I overheard a woman talking about calling Ticket Master in Chicago and getting tickets through them.  The bag phone saved the day.
I had the first CD disk changer - a super sweet JVC 6 disc magazine, and one disc single player that I hooked up through my $99 Sam's club "stereo" - turntable, dual cassette with fake equalizer bars on the front.  Then I got the bag CD player to go with the bag cell phone for my car.  When Lever Brothers relieved me of my position, I purchased a Mitubishi Montero and a 6 disc CD changer.
I honestly look back and I cannot say where this comes from, but it can be an expensive habit.  Exercise brings on a whole new bevy of gadgets - hear rate monitors, GPS, calorie burn devices. 
So what is my status now?  I own the iPhone 4 -I am not eligible to upgrade to the 4S until April 2012.  I have the Kindle Fire, I am awaiting the arrival of my Apple Nano (earned through raising money for the American Cancer Society), I have a Garmin 305 GPS / heart rate monitor for running.  It looks like a deck of cards strapped to my arm, but I WILL NOT allow myself to upgrade.  I don't run that much.  I have a Polar Heart Rate Monitor (precursor to the Garmin), and the BodyBug to measure calorie burn (I think the Polar might do that too). I did upgrade my laptop in January of 2010 and bought a Flip camera to film my niece that I subsequently gave to my dad since I see her 3 times a year and he sees her almost daily.  I also upgraded the from a Nikon D40 to a D90 and added a Canon elph pocket digital to my camera repertoire.  I still have my old shuffle from 2008 - it is practically an antique in "Apple Years".  I just received a shuffle as a gift at a meeting, but I traded it in for an iTunes gift card.  I can show some restraint and common sense.
Now, if only Apple would announce that new iPad . . .