use computers, long before they hit the mainstream. In the early 1980s we had two Atari PCs (and the game consoles. of course), complete with a cassette-tape drive for backup and one of the earliest personal modems on the market.

When I got to Duke in 1987 and saw lots of kids unpacking Macintosh computers, I sniffed, "Hmmph, toys," and went off to write fifty-page papers on a Brother typewriter that displayed SIX lines of type at a time—or to use the PCs in the computer lab at the library, wondering all the while why everyone else was on the Macs.

The joke was on me. In the mid-90s, as I edited copy on a PC, I noticed how incredibly fast and efficient my co-workers were on Macs. Their fingers flew, and they seemed at one with their computers, as if the Macs were an extension of their thoughts, a participant in the creative process.

I started taking an already obsolete Mac SE named Homer home with me each night—it was easy, because the SE was one big rectangular box with a handle—to learn the Mac OS and keyboard commands so I could work as quickly as those Mac users. Soon I switched to a Mac, a move that coincided with my introduction to the Web—and as cliched as it sounds, my world has never been the same.

Now, nearly fifteen years later, the iPhone. Just think: How old are your Quicksies? Baby A just turned three. She won't ever know a time when a phone didn't do all the iPhone does.

So now let's tie the phone into parenting and restaurants, since that's what I'm supposed to be talking about here. I remember about nine years ago, when QSR Magazine was still pretty new, a tiny handful of companies popped onto the restaurant scene, wanting to advertise their technology for pushing coupons to consumers' mobile phones. I scoffed at the idea, thought it would never take hold.

Again, the joke's on me. Have you seen the iPhone commercial where the guy homes in on neighborhoods in San Francisco, then looks up restaurants in that area? What if, at exactly that moment, a text message dropped in his inbox, with a coupon for that place or another one nearby? Now that Google Maps and GPS are seamless with the mobile phone experience, the whole notion makes a lot of sense.

Haven't had enough of the hype? Visit David Pogue's iPhone diary vlog. Or visit Seth Godin's blog to read about the guy at Verizon who turned down the iPhone deal. (Who's kicking himself now? And can I get in a kick, since TWH and I get Verizon phone accounts for cheap through his company?)

Got an iPhone story? Comment and share. C'mon, let me use your iPhone vicariously....

P.S.—Just read this on CNN: "In San Francisco, customers sang "Auld Lang Syne" following a countdown, as if heralding a new era in telecommunications." It's silly, but that gives me chills. Geek that I am.