I’ve known him for more than five years (I guess it’s a him?) and he’s been a loyal companion. He puts up with constant use, he rarely complains and he goes with me everywhere. Despite being on the older end, he still looks pretty good. He’s my silver fox. Or at least, my aluminum fox.

He’s my 2005 PowerBook G4 laptop.

I bought him with my own money, along with my 5MP Canon point-and-click (which is also on notice), a first-generation iPod Photo and a printer. He got me through the end of my senior year of high school, three years at KU, a year in England and two (soon to be three) summer internships. I’ll always have happy memories of him.

But it’s about time to move on.

Before I leave for school in September, I plan on hitting the Apple store and picking up my aluminum fox’s great-great-great-grandson: a 15.4″, 2.66 GHz, 500GB HD, antiglare-screened MacBook Pro. And probably a 32GB iPod Touch, but only because that back-to-school promotion is on and my current iPod is going to be four years old at Christmas. I swear.

Getting a new computer for a new school year got me thinking about my relationship with my current computer. I have term papers, photos, music, website designs, page layouts, manuals and God only knows what else on here. It represents half a decade of accumulated digital “wealth.” I know I’ll miss his familiar keys, size and weight. It’s going to take time to get used to a newer model.

But he’s been gimpy lately. These newfangled websites slow him down, and he’s not as quick on his feet as he used to be. His keys show signs of wear, his top panel sticks up slightly (an oopsy in Indianapolis) and he’s getting harder to keep clean. Despite belonging to a “multimedia journalist,” he doesn’t have the juice to run most applications I’d use. So I think the humane thing to do is put him out to pasture — recycle him or pass him along to someone else. He’s still got a good life in him; I just don’t think it can or will be with me.

Oh, I’ll miss him.