Master Dilettante

I’m thinking about it. Thinking about it hard. And I don’t know that I’ll have the strength to resist my consumer impulse.

I’ve loved my BlackBerry Pearl and its predecessors over the past few years. I love the synchronization with my work Outlook; I use email and text messaging constantly, the phone, notes, the to-do list, the camera, Google maps, a stopwatch/timer application, the alarm, the calculator, even the slow browser. The usability is great. I love the SureType input system. I love the size and the weight. It’s wonderfully functional.

Last year, I switched from PC to Mac for the first time in my life. I was already an iPod user and an iTunes Store buyer. With PCs, I was becoming fatigued with degrading performance over time and mysterious program crashes. Apple’s advertising campaigns slowly and surely were winning me over — a case where TV advertising worked. While I’ve always appreciated the apparent relative simplicity Apple offers, truly, it’s the coolness factor that tipped me towards Apple.

After a year with my iMac, I’m still puzzled by its inexplicable slowness in Web browsing at times, frustrated with how iPhoto handles file organization and at a loss whenever a program hangs. But, on balance, I’m happy with the switch.

Should I adopt the iPhone, too? What’s been holding me back and might continue to give me pause:

• The keyboard sucks! I’ve talked to numerous iPhone users who all assure me that I’ll “get used to it,” that “it learns” and that they love it. But I’ve used it half a dozen times now, and I miss letters more than I hit them. For me, a BlackBerry user, the keyboard falls far, far short of my expectations. With Palm’s handwritten entry system, I recall becoming very proficient in it in less than a day. I’m skeptical about my ability to adapt to the iPhone keyboard, and I do enough inputting on my handhelds to need an efficient mechanism.
• Equivalently slow Web access. With the first generation iPhone, I didn’t think the Web access would be appreciably faster than on my BlackBerry over the EDGE network. With 3G, this new iPhone promises much more speed.
• I use Outlook notes and an add-on to-do list extensively and rely on the synchronization between my BlackBerry and my desktop. My understanding is that even with the new iPhone, the real-time synchronization will be lacking. If I switch, I’ll be banking on the development of applications with better synchronization with the new Microsoft Exhange integration.
• That Exchange integration is key. I depend on email getting pushed to my handheld and wouldn’t consider adopting the iPhone if it were still pulling email. I also rely on my calendar being manageable from either handheld or desktop. With the Exchange integration, however, these, my most significant concerns, are eliminated.

The new iPhone is now the shinier, newer object, and I hear it calling to me. We’re counting down to the release date on July 11, and I’m betting I’ll have a new iPhone soon after that!

My sister-in-law recently alerted me to a New York Times blog post on why lawyers leave the profession. The post profiles Taisha Rucker, also a recovering lawyer, who writes JDSnub Blog “[t]o inform and inspire law students and lawyers seeking alternative careers.”

Taisha is fielding a cool survey to gather stories on lawyers who have left or plan to leave the profession. Of course, I completed it. And I’ve been trading emails with Taisha who let me know this morning that my responses are posted on her blog today.

Nice to meet you, and best of luck, Taisha!

Since rejoining the Lakers bandwagon earlier this year, I’ve said that a championship in 2008 would be gravy. Next year, with a full season of Gasol and a returning Bynum, is the one I’m really excited to watch.

The Lakers’ run through the playoffs this year was definitely exciting. I couldn’t have imagined that they would come together so well to get through Denver, Utah & San Antonio relatively efficiently. Yes, the loss to the Celtics was disappointing, in several ways:

• Well, first, the Lakers lost.
• It really seemed that Phil Jackson was out-coached. I expected him to make multiple adjustment within and between games. He did make a number of adjustments, but none soon enough or that worked consistently on either the offensive or defensive end. Surely, he relies on the team to execute, but, also surely, I have to imagine psychological preparedness of the team is a coaching responsibility. It was also interesting the contrasting coaching styles. We saw Doc Rivers much more inspirational and Jackson much more clinical.
• Boston’s defense was awesome. Kobe didn’t really even have an opportunity to force shots. And the triangle offense can appear so fragile when practiced by a team not yet fluent in it and under stress.
• Pau Gasol is soft, relative to the physical inside game of the NBA. In post-season interviews, he defensively asserted that a soft team would not have been able to make it through the Western Conference. As quick as he is for a man his size, he seemed dreadfully slow in rebounding under the basket. His normally good hands didn’t seem to be able to catch the ball. His post-up moves were too slow to evolve. He abandoned his mid-range outside shot. I would have preferred to hear him talk about what he would work on this summer than to claim, essentially, that everything was fine.
• Vladimir Radmanovic is just awful. He can’t dribble, his passes are sloppy, his defense is horrific. Only his three-point shot is good. It sounds like with his contract size the Lakers won’t be able to unload him. Unfortunate.
• I’m not sure what’s going on with Luke Walton. I still love his court awareness and passing ability, especially in the triangle, but he really struggled to contribute this year and in the post-season.
• Odom has great dexterity, size, speed, strength. Yet he struggles to contribute consistently. The story of his career.
• Kobe took solid steps this year to extend his intangible control over games. He’s still got work to do and the hope is that he continues his development.

Next year, it’ll be very interesting to see who the Lakers keep and, if they keep Bynum, Gasol and Odom, how Jackson will integrate them into the offense. It’ll also be interesting to see if the Lakers can step up their defense.