RIP MacBook (17 July 2007 - 13 April 2008)

Well, as English rock band Queen so elequently put it in their 1980 hit, "Another One Bites The Dust", "another one bites the dust". My MacBook started making funny noises this weekend - it sounded a bit like a wrench in a blender. She held on as long as she could, but her little hard drive went "kaputt" shortly before one o'clock this afternoon. I found the German number for Apple Care and they sent me to the nearest authorized Apple retailer in Frankfurt. We tried to start it up again to no avail so the guy working behind the counter took it upstairs to the technician. When he came back he said, "Der Techniker sagt dass deine Festplatte 'totally wasted' ist." Translation: "The technician said that your hard drive is totally wasted."

Last July, my laptop was stolen - along with two years of Seminary work - so I've been through this heartache before. But you'd think I'd have learned. Well, my external hard drive had already fried back home, so once again, I'm "that guy" - that guy who didn't back his stuff up. Fortunately, I didn't have much essential data on it - but except for those photos from Germany that I've posted here, I stand to lose almost 2,000 photos and probably a bunch of music, too.

So now I'm sitting in our library checking email. My frustration compounded by trying to use a German keyboard (most keys, except for the regular letters, are in different places, plus keys for the letters with umlauts - but the most annoying is that for some reason the 'y' and 'z' are reversed, which constantly vexes me; though they probably have some research to prove why that's the proper placement for the letter 'y'). Plus, I've grown quite fond of all the little desktop tricks and shortcuts on my MacBook, so it's a bit of a shock to the system trying to relearn how to use a PC.

Oh yeah, and I managed to bring my Apple Care CD and my Office for Mac CD to Germany, but not my System CD. So when I get my MacBook back from repair later this week, I'll probably have to wait until my System CD comes in the mail. But the good news in all of this is that it won't cost me anything because I did have Apple Care (unless I have to replace music).

So, the moral of the story is twofold: get the insurance and back your stuff up.

Peace to zou.