The great iMac (and MacBook) adventure

I'd estimated that we'd head for Belfast around noon, and we met that target. It was a perfect driving day, the smoothness of the journey only marred by a section of the A1 road in the North being in the process of upgrading and delaying us just a bit. Still, we got to our first Belfast stop around 2.00 pm (well done, Google Maps, for getting us there without hassle -- who needs sat-nav?). Another G-map directed us to the Apple Store, where SeaWeasel proved very helpful (and not just to me). As well as needing a new iMac, I also brought along my MacBook (only acquired last November), which has recently been misbehaving itself on re-start (triple beeps and a blank screen instead of the normal startup chime). The problem came to head last night when I was installing the OS X 10.6.1 upgrade and had to restart and shut down six or seven times before the machine behaved itself.

Having a defective machine checked out would normally require booking a Genius slot in advance, but SeaWeasel worked his magic and slipped me in between prior bookings. Naturally, the MacBook started up first time in the Mac Store rather than display the problem, but Gavin the Genius told me to come back in an hour or so, after the engineers had checked it out and run their tests and so on. In the mean time I'd already parted with a sizeable amount of hard-earned cash for a 24" iMac and a new wireless mighty mouse and a firewire800-to-firewire400 cable (for running Migration Assistant between the new and old iMacs).

Fitting in with my iMac need, Carl decided to use the trip as an excuse to get a Freesat Plus box from Richer Sounds, so we took advantage of the hour's wait to make our way over there and sort that out. Back at the Apple Store I asked about my MacBook and waited in some trepidation for word to come back. After a bit of a wait, Gavin warned me the news was 'not good'. The machine had passed its first hardware test, but things got bad after that, the engineers had been unable to get it to restart since, it had failed other tests, at one stage it had sounded not just the triple warning beep which I'd been experiencing, but and unheard-of nine beeps in succession. The expert opinion was that the logic board was defective and would have to be replaced. Rather than leave it with them and have to travel back and forth, they recommended that I contact Apple and get them to pick it up and carry out the necessary repairs.

So, this has not been a good year for me and my relationship with pooters: first the HD failure on my swan-neck iMac, then the graphics card failure on my 2006 iMac which would involve a costly replacement of the motherboard, and now a logic board failure on my MacBook. NOT GOOD! I desperately needed a calming drink after this bad news, and hunger was becoming a bit of a problem anyway, so off we went in search of satisfaction. Purely by chance we stumbled on (the rather outlandish) Café Vaudeville, where we had an excellent, and very reasonably priced, bite to eat. The card park we were in was due to close at 7.30, and we finished in Café Vaudeville at 7.00, so perfect timing to pick up the car and head for home.

I'd decided on the way up that the trip back would be an ideal opportunity for a bit of a special and significant moment -- my return to driving after some four months. I drove from Dundalk to the end of the M1 at Whitehall. That was all plain sailing, since it was open road and not especially demanding, but I got into difficulty when I turned off into the roads near home, with their sharp corners and the necessity of weaving in and out of traffic, so I handed the wheel back to Carl.

Back home, I set up the new iMac, connected it to the old one, and ran the setup procedure and Migration Assistant. Estimated time to completion was some six hours, so it was obvious that the original plan of having Carl box up the old one and put it away for me wasn't going to be practical if he were also to get of to his place tonight. Carl was also being called on to shift furniture and do some hoovering (heavy work in general which I still can't manage) in preparation for my hosting of the Music Group tomorrow. So Carl stayed over, which gave us a chance to watch a bit of telly and have a few sociable drinks.

Quite an eventful day, all in all.

p.s. The blip shows the Dome in Victoria Square shopping centre in Belfast, where the Apple Retail Store is located.