Apple Comes To The Rescue

I don’t know if this is a “Apple” thing, or just a human thing.  But I can’t imagine being in a “Microsoft” store and having the same thing happen.

The day after Christmas I went to the Apple Store.  I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket, and wanted to use it.  I took my 6 year old son with me, and he headed straight to the little table in front of the Genius Bar where Apple had set up a couple of iMacs with games.   Sean seemed happy, so I started looking over the software and other low end items I could afford with the card.

It should be said that the place was fairly packed with people spending their Christmas money on iPods, iPhones and accessories.  I couldn’t find any must have item on the software wall, and was moving to the iPhone accessories…  but my son wasn’t at the computer.  I looked around the best I could and he wasn’t in the store.  I’m about to freak out, when I go up to the Genius Bar and had them page him.

No luck.  Now I’m pretty upset, and I head out front where it was a bit quieter and called the wife to get her to come down to the store and help.  As soon as I’m out front, a group of about 10-15 people joined me.  All had their iPhones out.  ”Send me a picture,” the first one said.  ”I’ll help you look.”

You read that right.  10-15 people I did not know stepped outside, all wanting me to text or mail or bluetooth them a picture of my son, and they were all ready to go looking for my son around the outdoor mall.  I pulled up a recent photo and was getting numbers to text the picture too, when one of the women asked “Is that him?” and pointed down the way.

There was my son returning from the other end of the mall.  He saw me and ran and grabbed me.

Seems he couldn’t find me and thought I’d left.  He knew his mom was down on the other end, and thought I’d gone down there to her.  But he couldn’t find the store she was in, and was coming back to the Apple store to try and me.

These strangers and their iPhones were ready to come to my aid and find my missing son.  I was moved beyond words.  I’m sure they think that I’m an ungrateful git for not saying more, but the relief was overwhelming.  Needless to say I had a long talk with my son explaining that I would never leave a store without him, and that instead of leaving himself he should have gotten help in the store.  He understands that now.  (In fact, he’s done that in the past, but I think the loud crowd scared him and he felt “safer” out of the store.)

So while I was EXTREMELY nervous for a while, it all turned out great and I saw just how wonderful iPhone users can be.

I do want to stress something, though.  At no time did I think my son had been “taken.”  I didn’t feel the need to rush and grab a cop, or call them, at that time.  I was worried, more worried that he’d fallen in the lake at the mall or stepped into traffic, than that he had been abducted.  For one thing, he’d scream bloody murder, and for another that just so rarely happens.  My fear was finding him before he got so scared or worried that he got hurt.

In fact, he was nicely calm, and taking care of himself.  While he made a “bad” decision, I’m ever so happy he made a decision and acted on it, instead of being unsure of what to do.  Yes, it meant he wandered the length of an outdoor mall all by himself, but he acted.  He made a plan and went with it.  Find Mom.  Can’t find Mom, go back to where Dad was.  Overall, not a bad plan.  Just not the best.

And I got the chance to see how many people still give a damn.  And that was worth the worry.

The “New” Mac

Well, for those who hadn’t heard…  A friend accidently spilled hot tea on my Mac.  Killed it dead.  But they sent it off for repair and it came back.  Here’s the skinny.

It got sent off on Friday.  It came back today.  Only a look at the timeline didn’t make sense.  It arrived into the repair facility on Monday at 8pm or so.  It left the repair facility, which is in Memphis, at 10pm.  That’s two hours from check in to packaged and shipped out.

I found it hard to believe that in two hours they managed to completely gut my MacBook Pro and replace everything inside, including cloning the hard drive.  According to the repair form, everything was to be replaced.  Everything.  Logic Board, Drives, Display, memory, fan, speaker, everything.

I got a call this morning and was told the new machine should be delivered today.  So I started tracking it.  When I found out how little time was spent at the repair facility, I figured something was wrong.  Don’t get me wrong, a talented tech could get it done pretty darn quick.  But two hours from check in to check out?  Come on.  That’s insane.

So I left my Father-in-law to sign for the delivery as I ran errands.  But I downloaded the FedEx app to my iPhone to track it.  At 3:45 I noticed that the package had not been delivered, but returned to the distribution facility because no one answered the door.  Don’t know if my father-in-law fell asleep or what, but there is no way the driver rang the bell and he didn’t hear it.  So I imagine the driver knocked, waited a split second, and hurried on with all his other deliveries.

So I called and found out where I could pick it up.  I rushed out there (If you’re wondering, it’s out in Madison) during rush hour traffic to get the thing.  I have SOOOO missed my Mac.  I needed it back.

I picked up the box, rushed back to the car and opened it straight away.  And the first thing I noticed is there was no way it was my Mac.  Dread filled me.  It was NOT my Macintosh.  How’d I know?

Two things.  My son dropped a flashlight on the top.  Small dent, little scratch, but no damage to the insides.  The dent wasn’t there.  Okay, they did say they were replacing the screen, maybe they just replaced the whole thing, cover and all.  Makes sense.  So I flipped it over to where the serial number was etched onto the bottom.  My mac had a 6 inch scratch, a serious deep one, across the bottom where I slid it someplace once.  I hated it, but hey, it didn’t effect the operation at all so what do you do.

The scratch is gone.

So there is no way that this is my mac.  They shipped me the wrong unit.

But wait…  the serial number matches.  That’s right, my Mac’s serial number is on this Mac’s case.  Missing scratches and dents and all.

So I check the battery meter, and it’s got a full charge.  So I open it up and fire it up.  Bong.  That lovely Mac sound.  Then up pops MY user log in screen.  Mine.  With the two accounts set up on it.  So I log into my account, and presto.  There’s all my stuff.

All of it.

Just like it was prior to the “Tea Incident of 2009.”

Except the screen is pristine.  The keyboard is immaculate.  There is still tape on the footies.  THIS IS A BRAND SPANKING NEW MAC.  Wow!

So It’s like the day I bought it.  Beautiful.  Pristine.  A Mac.  Oh how lovely!  It’s perfect… only with ALL MY STUFF ALREADY ON IT.

I’m happy.

Here’s what I figure happened.  They ripped the old hard drive out and sent the rest to recycle.  They grabbed a blank MacBook Pro, and they cloned my drive onto it.  They knew my configuration, they already had it.  So pulling in a new blank MacBook was easy.  Clone my drive, power it down, box it up and ship it back.  Probably took the tech longer to pull the old drive out than to clone the new drive.  Heck, maybe they put the old drive in.  Doesn’t matter.

Apple tends to know how to treat customers.  I’m happy, heck I’m blogging about it ain’t I?

Now, about the “dark days” between Friday and now, when I got back on my Mac.

I kind friend (Thanks Russ!) lent me a laptop he wasn’t using.  It was a top of the line Lenovo ThinkPad.  Really sweet machine.  Loaded with bells and whistles.  And Windows Vista.

Now this isn’t an anti-windows post.  Windows is fine, really.  Vista even was stable and usable.  But it just wasn’t my Mac.  I had to think to much to accomplish anything.  But I have to say, for a PC laptop, this one was well thought out.

First, the keyboard was awesome.  Had I not spent months getting used to this silly mac keyboard, with the miles of space between each key and the very short throw each key has, I’d have fallen in love with that keyboard.  It was like an old IBM keyboard, with nice clicks and full sized keys.  I loved that keyboard.  Except…

It wasn’t backlit like my Mac.  Didn’t realize how much I used that.  Now it did have an interesting feature to make up for it.  It had a little light right next to the camera at the top of the screen that was angled to shine right on the keys.  It was okay, as far as it went.  In a truly dark setting, like I tend to compute in, instead of helping the shadows from your hands obscured the keys.  Now I’m a touch typist usually, but I do glance down more than occasionally to check my fingers.  That bothered me.  I really began to miss my Mac Keyboard, with all it’s other shortcomings.

And the applications on that thing.  Even with installing firefox (I’m happy to say I never once fired up IE) all it did was make me miss my Safari.  Yea, I could have installed Safari on it, but somehow I don’t think it would have been the same.  I just missed the feel of my Mac.  I’m sure it is a comfort thing, as I’m sure that I could have gotten used to and even learned to enjoy the PC.

Even with the larger screen (The Lenovo was a 15 inch, I’m happily on my 13 inch now) I just missed my Mac.  It’s the perfect size.  Small enough to be really truly portable, large enough to be comfortable.  And the trackpad!  So large and useful, and with the finger gestures built in.  Not to mention iLife, my apps, and my videos…

So yea, I guess I’m sold on Macs.  It would be almost impossible to send me back to the PC world.  Not impossible, since I happen to know there is a 10.1″ netbook under the tree with Windows 7 on it I’ll be taking care of, but while my wife will be happy on her netbook, I’ll stick to my Mac.

To each his (or her) own, I say.  If you love your PC, and it does what you want…  more power to you.  Me, I’m so much more productive with my Mac.

Online Shopping Follow Up

Alright…  If you read my earlier post on my online shopping experience this Christmas, great.  If not, here’s a quick recap and update on the situation.

I ordered three items from a website I’d not tried before.  At the time  I ordered them, everything was in stock.

Item 1 shipped on Dec. 4th
Item 2 shipped on Dec. 9th
Item 3 went on backorder Dec. 5th.

Item 2 arrived Dec. 14th.
Item 1 arrived Dec. 15th.
Item 3 shipped Dec. 15th.  Estimated arrival is Dec. 24th-29th.

Why three items that were all “in stock” shipped on such wildly different dates is beyond me.  I’m greatly disappointed in the way it is turning out, but what do I really expect using a “deep discount” place to do my shopping?

I imagine that this is a place that has warehouse space in different parts of the country, and ships from those places.  So getting three shipments for three vastly different kinds of merchandise shouldn’t be surprising.   But to get them so oddly spread out, in both shipping and arrival, makes me uneasy.  I’m not sure I’ll use this company again, even though the prices were really very very good.  And the shipping was free.  But the headache and wait hasn’t been worth it.  Not when I could use a big online retailer, like Amazon, and know I’ll be getting my product when I was told, and shipped within hours not days of my order.

That sinking feeling…

So we ordered a bunch of stuff from a new online retailer.  We’d heard good things and they had good prices, but we had no experience with them.  So we ordered early, giving them plenty of time to ship our product prior to christmas.  We changed or order to make sure that everything was listed as IN STOCK.  We got exactly what the recipient wanted.

We immediatly got an email saying thanks for the order, it would be shipping shortly.  I then got an email saying that one of the items was shipped.  Then another email saying the same item had been shipped.  Then an email saying an item was backordered.  Then an email that a third item shipped.

So I’m already a little upset.  I got two emails saying one item was shipped, which is worrisome.  I got an item backordered, but no panic yet.  And I got the last item shipped.

So a box was on my doorstep today.  Yea!

It was the third item.  No sign of the first.  And the other… still back order… even though the site says it’s in stock, just like it said when we ordered.

So I send them an email.  And notice a number.  Which I call.  And after a hold time of forever, I get a human.  The human says that the first item (which was shipped before the third item) isn’t “late” until Wednesday.  If we don’t get it wednesday, they will upgrade and reship two day to get it to us before Christmas.  The second item is allegedly boxed and already sent to the shipper.  Which we “MAY” get before Christmas, but probably a “day or two” after.

I’m not really happy.  If I get an email tomorrow saying the backordered one is shipped, I’ll consider it fair.  If I don’t have both an email saying item two is shipped and the actual product of item one (confused yet?  I am) I’ll be calling back and won’t be nearly as friendly this time.

I’ll not share WHO this is, just yet.  If they come through, I’ll use their name and be positive about them.  If they don’t, you better believe I’ll post their name and be really negative.

But what about you?  How’s your online holiday shopping going?  Stick with a well known entity?  What’s your shopping strategy online?

The Princess and the Frog, a Review

I’ve been to see Disney’s Princess and the Frog.  I have a four year old daughter, so what do you expect.  Her review is it was the most awesome awesomeness EVAH!  Me, not so much.

Look, I grew up on Disney.  I don’t want to bad mouth the mouse.  I’m a fanboy.  I love the Pixar stuff.  I love the old school Disney animations.

I’m not a big fan of the whole “Disney Princess” concept, but I get the marketing behind it.  With the aforementioned 4 year old girl, the Disney Princess concept isn’t exactly promoting the most healthy of body images.  But I get it.  Little girls want to be princesses.  Little boys want to be…  not princesses.

So, in no particular order, here are the things I had trouble with:

• Tiana was another in the long line of impossible female images that my daughter will look up to and attempt to emulate.  Thankfully there wasn’t a “specific” dress this time that seemed to be associated with “Princess” Tiana.
• The Shadow Man seemed a little stereotypical to me.
• The story seemed a bit forced.  It wasn’t as flowing as other princess stories.  Cinderella for instance.
• I didn’t walk away humming a tune.

Now this isn’t to say I didn’t like parts of it.  Overall, it wasn’t awful.  So since I did the bad, here’s the good.

• There isn’t any really negative stereotype of women.  Okay, the one friend is a little vapid, but in the end, she turns out pretty damn good.
• The Shadow Man’s “friends on the other side” were creepy.  Delightfully creepy.  LOVED THEM!
• For some reason I liked the goofy alligator.  And the firefly.  And his girlfriend.
• The candle was in the window.  Which is code, for it has the expected happy ending.  Disney movies should always have the happy ended.  It’s a rule.

My son liked the movie too.  I think he liked Planet 51 more.  But he did enjoy this new Disney movie.

Schooling and Such

I’m supposed to be signing up for school, but I haven’t been told if I have the money for it yet.  That’s frustrating.  I want to go back to school, but if I don’t have the money, what’s the point?  I’d just be dropping out when I couldn’t pay.  And that would suck.

I’m not 100% sure what I want to do back at school, but it won’t have anything to do with video.  I can’t afford video freelancing anymore.  I don’t have HD equipment and no one wants SD stuff anymore.  My thousands of dollars in SD equipment is now worth nothing.  How frustrating.  It’s even getting harder and harder to find software for SD. Everything is HD.

Sure, I could get a cheap HD camera, but it won’t do for the kinds of things I want to do.  I may get one anyway, just to play with but my video career seems over.  Time to move on to something else.  And for that, school.

So I’m looking for an answer here in the next couple of days.  Decisions must be made.  Classes signed up for.  Things moving forward.  Soon.

A Learning Experience

I had a learning experience last night.  It wasn’t comfortable, but true learning experiences often are.  I learned something about myself and I’m not sure how I feel about it. How I feel is pretty irrelevant, because it is true.  True enough to be squirmy in my gut.

Here’s the story.  Last night the very sweet and wonderful people at Fantasy Playhouse asked me to videotape the dress rehearsal of their annual production of A Christmas Carol.  Their normal person was booked, and they heard about my employment problem so I jumped at the chance.  I didn’t think anything of it.  I’ve been in the play, and I’ve directed the play…  the story is one of my favorites.  The script is pretty darn good, and I’ve loved watching it in the past.  I even auditioned this year, but it didn’t work out.

So, I was videotaping and I couldn’t help it.  This little voice in my head wouldn’t keep quiet, and it just over and over again told me all about how the things going on the stage was wrong.  It drove me batty.

I directed the play in 2006.  I had a great cast.  I had a fabulous tech crew.  The show was marvelous.  I can honestly say it was a proud moment in my life.

Now this year’s show is directed by friends.  I even interviewed them for my podcast.  I love them dearly and have completely enjoyed other shows that they have directed.  I respect both of them as directors, actors and people.  So while anyone can have a bad show, I don’t think that’s what made me feel the way I did.

In fact, the audience was amazingly appreciative.  They laughed, cried and shouted at all the right moments.  Prior to seeing it, having interviewed them, I understood the directors intentions.  They had decided to go “back to the roots.”  The idea, with this being the 20th Anniversary, they would return as much as possible to the original show.  Directors over the years have added some things and taken away others, so they wanted to get it back to the original.

So the directors are solid, the show is solid and the concept is solid.  So why was I all upset with what I saw?  I think the problem wasn’t the show… it was me.

We now come to the thing I learned.  I clearly can’t watch a play I’ve directed.  It felt like someone had stolen and ruined what I’d managed to accomplish.

It’s not like I’ve had many opportunities to learn this.  Is not like that many shows get repeated year after year, so the odds of seeing a play I directed again is pretty slim.  And I’m a little disappointed in myself.  I was completely and totally biased against the play before I’d even seen it and I didn’t even know it.

Now I’m going to be spending lots of time with the play, editing four hours of video from last night’s shoot.  I hope after realizing that I’m the one with the problem, I can look at it differently.  It’s almost a second chance, and you don’t get those very often.

A Stately Summons

I’ve heard from the State of Alabama, and they want to help me get a job!  Isn’t that great?  I got this really nice letter from the kind and caring people at the Department of Industrial Relations, and they want me to come in and talk to them about jobs.  The letter said that they felt they could help me find one.

Of course, they didn’t forget to tell me that if I don’t want their help, then I’d lose my benefits.  If I don’t have a list of the jobs I’ve been looking for I may lose my benefits.  If I don’t show up on time, I may lose my benefits.  In short, if I don’t do exactly what they “ask” then I lose my benefits.

Part of me is all “Hell YEAH!” over the letter.  I mean, basically the state is paying me to look for a job.  Good for them checking up and making sure I’m doing my job!  But at the same time, I have to wonder how many people actually get this letter.  I know several people have been on unemployment longer than I have who have yet to get such a demand to “put up or shut up.”  Sorry, not a demand… a request to “help.”

I suspect that since my claim is on the high end, they’d very much like to get me off the rolls as rapidly as possible.  From what I understand, my claim and benefits are on the high range, significantly higher than the average claim.  Then again, I was gainfully and well employed for years, why wouldn’t I be higher?

I suspect this is pure economics.  I’m on the high end, absorbing nearly twice as much money as other claimants, so I’m getting extra scrutiny.  But isn’t that discrimination?  If I show up next Wednesday to a lobby full of former white collar workers, I’m going to be pretty upset.  If the state is going to be all “GET A JOB” on me, they better be getting all job-centric on everyone.  If they are, I’ll gladly put up with their headache of an “interview” that I have no doubt will do nothing to help me find gainful employment and everything to make sure I’m doing it on my own.

But maybe I’m just feeling a bit of the victimhood that’s put us in this position.  That, by god, I’ve put money into the system for 15 years or more, and have never once prior to this made a claim.  And the first time I do, I’m called out on the carpet for it.  It’s a bit hard not to feel the victim of something sinister.

But whatever.  I’ll have my list of the places I applied.  And I’ll go from there.

Interesting Times

Wow.

Remember the curse, “I hope you live in interesting times?”  Well it bit me yesterday.  I got a part time gig as a driver for a lawyer.  Not that big a deal, just drive down to an out-of-town hearing and be her “gopher” for the day, then drive back.

But the things you see and hear in court.  This was, at least for now, a municipal case.  I can’t talk about what happened in that case, but I can talk about the other cases I heard in the courtroom!  It was “warrant court” so most of the cases where situations where one citizen had sworn out a warrant against another citizen.  Generally the police were not involved.

So we’re talking peeping toms, noisy neighbors, and generally any complaint you can think of between two neighbors.  Often nasty, very “Jerry Springer.”  I also learned that cities can be jerks, and pull dirty tricks too.  It was impressive to see their dirty tricks backfire, but none-the-less disappointing to see cities use such tactics against honest businesses.

After court, I went to look at the old fraternity house, which is now a massive new apartment complex.  I also drove over to the new house, and one of the young men there gave me a tour.  The brother was exceptionally nice, and the new house is amazing.  I was impressed.

Then a drive home.  Which included taking the lawyer by another client to look over merchandise for a new store.  We went to a warehouse so the lawyer could render and opinion on any legal problems with the new merchandise.  The warehouse was mostly stocked with what polite people call “marital aides.”  Others might call them sex toys.  I decided to call them part of the job, and stood around as the lawyer passed judgement on various products.

It was also difficult.  No rude comments were made, everyone was nice and friendly and very respectful.   I had a million snarky one line comments running through my head, but I’m actually a little ashamed of that.  The people there were all so forthright and honest and respectful that I felt guilty for thinking what I was thinking.

But if YOU are honest with yourself, and were standing by a shelf filled with autographed lifelike reproductions of male adult film star’s money making attributes, you’d probably have a snarky comment or two floating around your head too.  Admit it, even if just to yourself.

Just a job…  Get back in the car and drive some more.  Keep driving.  Talk with a guy about a web job.  Met some other people interested in having me turn some of their writings into iPhone apps.  Nothing I can “take to the bank” but at least something heading toward bringing in some money.

Yea money.  It is an evil and cruel mistress.

ROAD TRIP!

So I’ve been unemployed for two months.  Got the unemployment all sorted out, and am getting bucks that way, but lord its less than working for real.

Got two freelance jobs this week though.  I’m currently on a road trip in Montgomery playing driver for a lawyer who’s in the backseat working on a brief on the way down to our final destination in Auburn.  She’s fighting a first amendment fight to keep Auburn City Government out of the bedrooms of college students.  I happen to like the first amendment, and so should you.  So I’m 100% in support of the action.

So I’ll be tweeting from the road with updates.  I’ve also managed a job interview, so hopes on this trip are high.  Details on twitter…