Thank you, Mr. Jobs

I want to take a pause from talking about Spain and providing guiri words of advice and pay respect to a man who has had an impact on so many lives.

Sometimes it's easy to get out of the American loop in small, southern Murcia.  I was a day later than my  compatriots in finding out, but this morning I read to some unfortunate news.  After waking up to my iPhone alarm and getting ready while listening to iTunes, I sat down to my MacBook to regrettably learn that former Apple CEO Steve Jobs died yesterday after battling pancreatic cancer.

When I read the news, I literally gasped out loud and put my hand to my mouth.  I knew that he was fighting cancer and had stepped down as CEO, but I guess you could it was a form of denial.  I quickly logged on to the fastest, up-to-date news network, Facebook, to read others' thoughts.  It's safe to say that 90% of the people in my News Feed expressed regret and sympathy for a man they didn't even know.

It's funny how so many people can feel such a connection with a man they have never even met.  But when I think about the Apple technology and how it has literally changed and simplified my daily life, I can see how one man's innovation can be so influential.  I know it sounds corny to say that technology has changed my life, but it has.  It's changed human civilization as a whole.  Thanks to Apple technology I can navigate and translate my way through foreign cities.  Thanks to Mr. Jobs I can take a picture of an isolated, serene Spanish beach and share it with my family.  Thanks to him I'm able to easily create videos of my experiences here, post them, and document my entire time in Spain in way that words and pictures can't always capture.  And thanks to Mr. Jobs I'm able to keep this blog, easily changing its design to maintain its visual appeal.  (I'm not sure I would have the patience to continue this blog with any other type of machine.)  These are all artifacts that I'll use to reminisce about some of the best years of my life.  And that's just one person's life his products have affected.

So thank you Steve Jobs.  We'll remember your tennis shoes, jeans, and turtle neck, which said something about your humility and non-assuming character despite your outrageous success.  And we won't forget your landmark contributions to technology, marketing, and daily lives.