Hey there, Tech Tails readers!

This week marks one year since I took the position of service & repair technician here in Waitsfield, VT. I began my journey as a Small Dogger in our Rutland location as a part-time retail associate just before the decision to close the store was made. I then accepted a full-time position as a Junior Macintosh Repair Technician in our South Burlington store, and after learning the tools of the trade, (quite literally) I migrated over to our Waitsfield store and corporate office nestled in the beautiful Mad River Valley. While I’ve explored much of the Small Dog ecosystem, I have yet to make a visit to our Key West store, (Don, just say the word!).

I remember unwrapping my first Macbook (all-white, a true classic) on my 16th birthday; a gift from my mother, and when I asked where she got it she replied “the Small Dogs” in South Burlington. I’d grown up around Macintosh computers, as my mother was, who remains to this day a top-tier graphic designer. I’d never had my own personal Mac computer until that moment. And with it my mother could breathe a sigh of relief knowing I would no longer be taking the screwdriver to her MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo to “take a peek inside.” The hours I spent messing around with Garageband, taking those classic Photobooth photos with friends and family, spending hours fine tuning and itemizing my iTunes library- it may sound silly, but those early days I spent learning the lay-of-the-land of the Apple computer architecture with my trusty white Macbook are truly fond memories. Ha, and perhaps in a moment of prophecy, I remember my mother sternly telling me upon opening the clamshell for the first time, “Don’t mess around with the hardware in that thing or you’re grounded.”

I didn’t listen.

Now here I am a whopping 10 years later, working as an Apple Certified Macintosh Technician at the place that indirectly helped shape my interest and curiosity in the world of the Apple computers. It seems everything comes full circle eventually!

We have some great articles for you this week and if there’s something you’d like to see in a future edition of Tech Tails, don’t hesitate to reach out to one of us with a suggestion!

Enjoy, readers!
Connor “I can’t hang out guys, I’m grounded” McGinnis
connormcginnis@smalldog.com