Lost in the Electron Forest

It has now been 29 days since I last posted to this blog—the longest drought I've ever gone through since starting this publishing odyssey back in 2007. Uffda.

It is not for lack of things to say or the motivation to write. I just couldn't get into my damn blog until now. Here's what happened…

In the middle of July my laptop (a MacBook Air) battery suddenly stopped holding a charge. I could function when plugged into the grid, but the screen would go dark immediately if I pulled the electronic umbilicus. For someone on the go like me that's an incredible nuisance, so I took advantage of changing trains in Chicago July 17 to stop in at the Genius Bar at the Michigan Ave Apple Store in Chicago to see whether an hour in sick bay could make everything better.

The good news was that my laptop was still under Apple Care warranty (I am two-and-a-half years into my three years of coverage). The bad news is that when they looked up the serial number for my machine they couldn't find a record that I owned it—and they wouldn't touch my machine without proof of purchase. Oh boy. As this was the first time I had brought this laptop in to get serviced by Apple, I had no idea this problem existed.

Oh well, I figured, I would go home, root around in my files for a receipt, and then get my laptop attended to at an Apple Store in Minneapolis (after going down to Rochester July 30 for my annual post-stem cell check-up). As we don't have an Apple Store in Duluth, I have to get creative about getting my laptop serviced under warranty.

Unfortunately, I had no luck finding an Apple receipt at home. I got a lot of things filed and better organized (it was time to do that anyway), but no receipt. I even found the box that my machine was originally shipped in, but no paperwork. Frustrated, I contacted my friend Jeffrey Harris who works for Apple and through whom I bought my laptop back in February 2017. 

That turned out to be the smart move for two reasons. First, Jeffrey knew that there never was a paper receipt (so I could stop looking for one). Everything at Apple had been transferred to electronic records by then. No wonder I was having trouble with that.

Second, Jeffrey, bless his heart, had a record of the web order for my laptop, and through that Apple personnel were able to trace what had happened 29 months ago. Turns out someone on their end simply dropped the ball when it came to recording the sale, and the error didn't get discovered until now. Ha ha. I was only moderately amused.

In any event, I now—finally—had a clear pathway to getting service in Minneapolis. The folks there took a quick look at the situation and decided it would be prudent to send it to their tech all-stars in Houston—just in case there was more going on than simply a dead battery. Not knowing what they'd find, I was dutifully warned that it was possible that my hard drive would be wiped clean—did I have everything backed up? We did some backing up with iCould at the store and I left it in their hands.

I figured I could live without a machine for a few days (I was promised a quick turnaround, and it was; I left it with Apple on Wed and the repaired machine was delivered to me in Duluth two days later, Aug 2). As it turned out, however, my hard drive was wiped clean. Ugh. While I haven't lost anything (good), that doesn't mean everything is organized and accessible. 

After spending a couple days reinstalling programs and records from my backup external hard drive, I began facing the nightmare of reorganizing my email files. I have over 70,000 records and while all of that is backed up on gmail, it arrived in my laptop unsorted, excepting by date. That many unsorted records are not particularly useful, so I began the incredibly tedious task of reestablishing my filing system (I have over 200 categories). I have now devoted more than 30 hours to this task and I'm about half done. If this sounds like something akin to cleaning out the Augean Stables, then you're getting the right idea.

On top of everything else, I couldn't remember the password to my blog. After establishing the account when it was opened back in 2007, my machine simply remembered the password and I was signed in automatically whenever I visited the site (who needs to remember a password to a site I visit constantly?). Now, however, I had a stupid machine that required remedial attention.

Once again, a friend rescued me. This time it was Tony Sirna, who originally set up my blog account 12 years ago. He did a little noodling and figured out how I could get recognized as an author again, and not merely as a visitor. Whew.

Another few weeks and I'll just about be back to even. I'm looking forward to it.