Several years ago the fetching Mrs. Z started a wonderful Thanksgiving tradition in our home. As our family gathers around the table to bless our feast, we all share something we are thankful for. I know I should be thankful all the time, and for everything, the good and the bad. I am, but this time of year it all comes more into focus.

I do have so much to be thankful for: my wife Jackie, who puts up with me (and has for over 23 years); my two children, Peter and Jenniva, who are pursuing careers on the Left Coast but are home for this week; my family in Colorado; my family of friends here in Bath; and, of course, you all (that’s y’all, for those of you in southern Maine). Thank you for your continued interest in my writing, and for your many emails of encouragement and support.

Although small in comparison to the bigger issues of family and life in general, we as Mac computer users (and technology users in general) have much to be thankful for as well.

I’m thankful that the people, whomever they are, who compose and distribute computer viruses, Trojans, adware, spyware, and all other forms of “malware”, don’t spend their time composing and distributing their wares for the Macintosh operating system. I know if they wanted to, they probably could. Whatever keeps them away – the smaller numbers of Macs out there to infect and affect, the increased resistance to tampering of the Mac OS X system itself - whatever. I’m just thankful I don’t have to deal with that stuff, or the software to search for and destroy it. I’m thankful I can instead concentrate on using my Mac to be productive.

I’m thankful for email, despite the fact that I get too much of it that I don’t want or need. I communicate with friends and family on a much more regular basis than I did when I had to write, fold, lick and stamp. I’m thankful for the people who thought up spam filtering. I’m especially thankful for the person who came up with the idea of embedding clickable email links inside the body of the email, so I don’t have to type in (or copy and paste) all the URLs all the time. Sometimes it’s the little things, you know.

© 2004 Peter F. Zimowski