You see, yes, Wednesday (when I got it) I played with it for probably 4-5 hours. Some of that was environment setup (installing xCode, setting up my desktop the way I like it), and some of that was playing games - testing the speed, checking out the graphics card, etc. Now, Thursday was a holiday, so I played (games) on it for maybe an hour. Today I spent all day working on accounting stuff, and have barely touched the machine (I think I did go in and physically touch it, for some reason. But it hasn't gotten turned on.)

Yet everybody seems amazed that I'm not on that new machine 24x7.

This completely baffles me. While yes, I certainly don't mind my new machine, it's also a production machine. I have a few games installed, but I think legally I shouldn't. It's a work machine, and a business expense, and technically it probably should be on only Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM.

Since the last few days have been holiday days here, I haven't been on the machine much. Next week I won't be on it much either - working at a remote location next week, on my powerbook.

On the other hand, my powerbook is a business expense, but I've gotten so I use it a lot during non-business hours. I do feel mildly hypocritical about this. I've got 4 more years of depreciation left of this powerbook (yes, a long time, no, I really wanted there to only be 2 or 3 left when I had my taxes done last year, no I don't understand why it was done that way.), so technically shouldn't it be Business Only for that long?

Yet, I'm going to get rid of my personal machine (my iMac) fairly soon. I certainly don't need 4 machines in this apartment (my iMac, a beige G3 pizzabox I use as a QA machine, my powerbook, and my G5). Yet, the other three should be business machines, so where do I put (and work on) my personal checkbook? The documents I create relating to my (very few) hobbies?

Having said that, I personally can't afford a(nother) personal machine.

So I don't know. I know I get more paranoid about financial and legal stuff than everybody else. Financial is understandable - businessman, plus the concepts of stewardship that were drilled into my head during high school and my business classes. I'm legally paranoid I think mainly because I realize how much lawyers really cost, and how people can get in trouble that way. Yet, with all my preaching, I had to create a fairly important document the other day, concerning a fair bit of money, and I did not consult with a lawyer while writing this up.

I still have about a month before this document goes into effect, so I may be able to take time/spend money on a lawyer in that span. I probably should, yet there's a big chance that I won't.

Am I a hypocrite? Yes. Is that a word that has major psychological meaning to me (thanks to 13 years of Christian school)? You bettcha. Does this make me a Bad Man? Yes - aren't businessmen always supposed to do what they say and say what they do? I don't know. Ultimately, yes - in an ethics classroom, I'd probably be the Bad Man example.

I don't like that... but what can I do? I know there are people that read this blog that have their own business - how do you deal with the issue?