Kathleen and I had wanted an iPad for a long time.  I hadn’t purchased one at Christmas because I knew that the original iPad was late in its product life.

When the iPad 2 release was imminent, I was on a business trip to Western Canada. This was the first business trip I had taken for my full-time job since before Jimmy was born, so Kathleen and I did what we could to keep the family in touch with each other with daily Skype and FaceTime calls.

On a red-eye flight from Seattle the night before the iPad 2 was released, I considered what would happen if I bought an iPad and took it with me on another overnight business trip. Jimmy would be heartbroken and would want me to leave the iPad at home. At that point I knew that I would have to buy two iPads so that one would always be home no matter where I was.

Having two iPads feels extravagant to me, but the total cost of purchasing two iPads is less than what I would spend on a notebook computer for my business use. The value proposition of this version of the iPad made the decision to buy two a fairly easy one for me to make.