>>I just had a big unexpected windfall....and am thinking about buying a Mac....never though I'd say that.
Didn't you go Apple phone years back? Movement to Macbook might be seen as a logical progression. As you know, people who went LAMP often much preferred Mac and migrated many years ago, and now with very quick Apple processors and apparently decent Windows VM, traditional Wintel is losing its shine. Especially when the likes of HP charge $$$$$$$$$ for high spec workstations so that the expected Macbook price premium is no more. The only reason I'm hesitating is in case I go Mac and then discover VM performance I could match on a low power PC costing a few hundred bucks.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
