I’ve been places. Yeah, I’ve been lots of places. I’ve been places I’ve been before and I’ve even been to places I’ve never been yet.

And believe me, THAT wasn’t easy.

When you’re on the go as much as I go, you want your data going with you. When you have a Titanium PowerBook like I do, you want to make sure it survives looking just as good as it’s owner. AND, whatever you choose to protect your ‘Book (Mac or Power)... well, if it looks good, price isn’t an object!

Now, I’m not rough with my gadgets. In fact, I take pretty good care of what I have. BUT, as the saying goes, it’s not ME I’m worried about. I’m worried about the many people out there that seem to have an interest in visiting nicks, scrapes, and dents upon my property. And it seems that their number are legion! They will stop at nothing in their quest to lower my laptop’s resale value (ok, so I’ll never sell it, that’s not the point). For this reason, my case has to be durable, no soft-sides need apply. I’ll also need to move quickly, so weight and size is also an issue. In fact, I’d prefer it if it was just slightly larger than the laptop itself, why waste space?

Some years ago, I was in a Staples. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, I just like office supplies because they remind me of school supplies which reminds me of new clothes for the first day of school....ah yes, those days of yore! Anyway, I was strolling down the briefcase aisle as I am wont to do on such occasions when a silver case caught my eye. Of course, if you’ve BEEN in a Staples cases aisle, you soon realize that black is the beige of cases, so something silver? Maybe not so hard to catch the eye, but my eye WAS caught. I’d seen cases like this from Vanguard before, but they were practically CAVERNOUS inside and my laptop would surely bounce around no matter how tightly I pulled that velcro strap. Others that weren’t quite as large always had a TiBook unfriendly hinge which would be sure to strip the paint off the right hand side. I guess when your laptop is enclosed in plastic, it doesn’t matter as much.

This case was small though, smaller than any other case I’d seen. Could it be too small? I came back later with my laptop, placed it into one of them and closed slowly waiting for the resistance letting me know that this case wasn’t going to close with ANY laptop in it. It closed completely and the little “tap” of metal touching metal almost sounded happy to hold my TiBook. Checking the internals, I saw a padded bottom and padded sides, just good enough for a decent degree of shock absorption. The top didn’t have any TiBook unfriendly metal clasps to hold in disks, pens, etc, it was all cloth. The really nice part was that it included a separator that could hold my laptop to the left keeping it far from that reprehensible hinge; the added benefit of which means I could take small peripherals (iPod PocketDock, USB flash drive, Sonic Screwdriver, etc.).

I couldn’t see a price sticker nearby and I was thinking,”If you have to ask how much it is, you don’t want to know!” It certainly looked better than the other cases there, was hard-sided AND included a strap. It had a durable look that was MADE for my TiBook, so I was figuring around $99 up. As I took it to the counter, I steeled myself in case it was more, I was prepared to not blink when it rang up, I was NOT; however, prepared for $49.99.

I blinked.

I made the purchase and it became my main means of conveyance for my laptop. When I’d take a flight with my carry-on in tow, they’d ask if it contained my laptop instead of the thin silver case on my shoulder. When I’d visit an Apple Store, I’d be asked where I bought it. I even demonstrated for someone how they could fit their 12-inch PowerBook inside and have room for an iPod AND the power adaptor. I’d been telling people they could get it from Staples so imagine my surprise when, in another school-age nostalgia moment, strolling down the cases aisle, I found they didn’t carry them anymore! I thought of all the people I’d told about the case and where they could get it and how much it cost and could see them trying to describe the case to Staples employees nationwide, all responding with a blank stare and a furtive point to “Customer Service”.

THIS, I decided, would NOT do. I had to find out if Vanguard offered the case, but without a model number, it was a difficult search (not very difficult, but it helps the story to use “difficult”... I was, at the time, knowledgeable about Google). After many months (read, minutes) of searching, I was lead to a dead end, they HAD it, but it was discontinued. A few weeks (seconds) later, and I found the NEW name for it. And this I share with you now...

VANGUARD DESIGNER 81!!

I’m not going to point to a particular site for it, there are lots of them out there (and I’d rather link to iTunes Music anyway, like this and this!) but I will say if you’re paying much more than, say $40.00 for it, you’re paying too much.

Enjoy your case!