Hi all. Well, yes. it’s Tuesday. I committed a cardinal sin: I missed my deadline. In my mind, former editors, bosses, and professors have formed a chorus to chastise me.
But I have a note from Beth, who was present at the disaster. On Saturday morning, we headed out for coffee with our laptops in tow, looking to have breakfast while catching up on stuff.
I opened up and powered on, and I noticed that I had only 5% power remaining. That was odd, given that I’m certain it had been left plugged in overnight. I hadn’t brought my charger, so I closed up and settled for doing the Times Saturday crossword (the hardest of the week, no contest) while Beth pecked away.
Eventually we packed up, and at home I plugged back in. Power was down to 1 percent. It didn’t shut off, but even while plugged in, it didn’t increase the charge level. I looked up various remedies that didn’t work, and then decided on the age-old remedy: Restart.
Mistake. It hasn’t powered up since that fateful decision. On to the sleek new Apple store on Michigan Avenue. It took a couple of hours (I was a walk-in) to learn that it’d be $750 and they’d have to send it out for three days. Somehow, some gunk had gotten into the power port. I have no idea how or when. But they showed me and yes, there’s gunk in there.
It was ugly.
I call Beth, we do the math, and I settle on a new MacBook Pro. I used to get excited when I got a new computer. I used to enjoy driving, too.
That was just the beginning. Luckily, I had a fairly recent backup and things went swimmingly, until they didn’t. A bunch of stuff simply didn’t make the trip from the old to the new computer. So, for about 48 hours I was wrestling and cajoling and entering settings until I have gotten this machine and my life mostly whole.
I had another topic in mind for yesterday, but it’ll wait til next Monday.
In the meantime, I’m wholly salved: Pitchers and catchers report to spring training camp, and it’s Mardi Gras.
Laissez les bons temps rouler!
Ahhh, pure frustration. I just had to give up a online course because my desk top is too old and now I am between ‘the old and the new’…. ugh!
My three month old MacBook Pro quit working, and the repair guy at DCL told me the keys were stuck due to “dust and particles”. OK, I don’t keep the keyboard as tidy as I might, and I have been known to eat a meal at my desk. But honestly, I’ve only had the machine for three months and I’ve tried to be careful. Turns out there is not much play in the new “butterfly keys”, and they are easily clogged. So, using the old laptop for some things. It’s so dirty, the keyboard looks like a buffet, but it still works. May have to schedule regular laptop cleaning,
like trips to the dentist.
That’s good to know–about the new style keyboard, that is. I’ll practice better keyboard hygiene.
Mike, it sounds like what happened to my Microsoft computer last year. I’d had a “MY PASSPORT” plugged into it, but had one point removed it to take my computer out of the house and had forgotten to reattach it. My computer crashed a couple months later, never to be able to retrieve input. I lost everything that I had input after removing the “MY PASSPORT”. Heartbreaking. I had a 28 verse epic poem…….lost. Memoir essays….lost. Other poetry…..lost. Now I make sure that I reattach “MY PASSPORT” on the new Microsoft computer that I lost. Learned the hard way. 🙁
Ouch. Yeah, backup!
I just saw my guy, Dan the Computer Guy here in Ft Myers, FLA. While in FLA, I constantly worry about my computer being stolen in the various lodging where we stay. I hide it under the pillow when we go out. No one would think of looking for it there. I’m currently working on the Dearborn Express and if the computer went missing, I’d miss my deadline big time. I did back it up on the cloud, just in case. I feel your pain.
Say hi to Dan, he was a big help a few years ago under similar circumstances.
Your computer gunk-up comes under the category of “shit happens” but I’m sorry it happened to you.
Ok Mike, is it ok to laugh?? Ya kinda did too good a job writing your experience up. What a comedy of errors, if you will. But I AM sorry about the expense.
Sue
Of course you can laugh. And great to hear from you!
Glad you’re back up and running. I knew something about my Monday was off. Thanks for getting that taken care of.
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