First, the temporary charge that Mac Mall put through – after I had cancelled the order, after I’d bought a new one elsewhere — stayed on my credit card for almost two weeks. It finally dropped off on Thursday or Friday. It’s possible that I should be upset with my credit card company about that, but… Mac Mall should never have put through the charge in the first place. I’m sure they had some more “system problems” or at least would claim that if I contacted them. It doesn’t matter, water under the bridge, sands through the hourglass, days of our lives, etc. etc.

Today was the first real chance I had to take the old, dead Mac Book in to begin the long and (so I assumed) ultimately fruitless process of getting Apple to do something about it. We’d originally planned to go the the Annapolis Apple store. I changed my reservation to the Columbia, MD store at the last minute as there were some other stores in that area (and not in Annapolis) that I needed to do some shopping at. Due to today’s weather I never actually made it to those other stores, but it turned out to be a good move anyway.

A quick rehash of the history of the Mac Book might be in order. I bought it in October 2008. In February it stopped recognizing the hard drive. That was replaced under warranty, but didn’t solve the problem. Two weeks after the hard drive replacement they replaced the entire main logic board. That time the problem stayed fixed until the machine was just out of warranty (and just at the beginning of NaNoWriMo) then died. I was able to resuscitate it; it lasted until the first night of my vacation.

Due to the weather I was five minutes late for my Genius Bar appointment today. Luckily everyone else was having difficulty as well, but I still had to wait ten minutes or so for the next available Genius. I had all my paperwork from my previous trips as well as my (very detailed) notes on everything that ever went wrong. The guy who helped me was named Jason and he actually lived up to the Genius moniker. He popped out the hard drive and was then able to boot my dead machine from an external drive. He told me that he had the part in stock, and, even better, that he wouldn’t charge me for it (even though the machine was out of warranty) because the machine had obviously had some problems. That might have had something to do with my wife reading off the list of all the other Apple products we have. It’s not a short list.

So, I wandered around the store for about ten minutes waiting for the new hard drive. He brought my old machine out and I could tell from the look on his face that something was wrong. He told me that he’d installed the new hard drive — and that the machine then wouldn’t boot from anything. Hard drive in: no boot; hard drive out: boot. I steeled myself for the inevitable, the “we’re going to have to send it away and it’s going to cost you a gazillion dollars” pronouncement.

It never came.

Instead, the replaced the dead Mac Book with a brand new Late 2009 Mac Book, the 13″ polycarbonate unibody model. I was shocked, flabbergasted even. It was possibly the best customer service I’ve ever gotten. Apple lives or dies on the enthusiasm of their customers, and they know it. Even given that, this was above and beyond anything I could have possibly expected. They even told me that I could get Apple Care for the new machine and you can bet that not getting it never crossed my mind.

Translation: my thirteen month old MacBook died. Again. I had the main logic board replaced about eight months ago while it was still under warranty. After that it was rock solid. So solid, in fact, that I was lulled into a false sense of security and tricked into making a big mistake: I didn’t buy the Apple Care extended warranty on it. Why would I? What were the odds that the main logic board (aka motherboard) would fail a second time? What else could possibly go wrong?

Word to the wise: if you buy a Mac, get Apple Care. Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it feels like a scam. Yes, it smells like extortion. But here’s the thing: if something does fail, out of warranty? Good luck getting parts to fix it yourself or to pay someone other than Apple to fix it. (The reason it feels like a scam is, well, it sort of is.) With a PC I can’t imagine any parts being so impossible to get or swap out that I wouldn’t do it myself if I had to. (I’d hesitate to do it on a laptop unless the warranty was already expired, like this one.)

So there I was: five hours from home, heading to Myrtle Beach for a week of relaxation and writing. (I’m doing NaNoWriMo, as posted earlier.) The nearest Apple store was an hour in the wrong direction and didn’t have any “Genius Bar” appointments until afternoon. That meant that, even if they could do something about it (extremely unlikely) there was no way I’d be leaving the store until 2pm at the earliest. That would make it 3pm before I got back to where I’d started and still three hours from the beach. (Or, I could have driven to the beach, then done a five hour round trip to the Apple store in Charleston.)

I’d been thinking of upgrading the machine anyway and moving to a MacBook Pro. I almost pulled the trigger on it a couple of times but decided to wait. (Of course, I was counting on being able to get a couple of hundred berries — sorry, dollars — out of the old one to help defray the cost of the new machine. This latest fiasco put the nix on that.) I stayed up most of the night, repeatedly trying to reboot the machine in hopes that something would change. No divine intervention was forthcoming; it eventually stopped even recognizing the DVD drive or the external FireWire drive that I use for backup and emergencies. I finally decided that I would have to just suck it up and buy the new one. I’d try to get the old one fixed (and sell it) later.

But that’s not what I came to talk to you about. I came to talk about Mac Mall.

All the Apple stores were too far and I couldn’t find any other Apple retailers in the area. I read Mac World so I’m used to seeing the big Mac Mall ads every month. I logged on (using another computer) to see if they had the model I wanted in stock. Not only did they have it but it was on sale — $150 off. To make the deal even sweeter their website assured me that I could have it by Monday if I ordered in the next hours and chose standard overnight shipping. Saved! We called and ordered it over the phone because we didn’t want to take any chances with online forms. When something is important it’s best to talk to a person.

The sales rep we talked to was named Cherry. She was extremely polite and helpful. She offered us $50 off of Apple Care if we bought it with the machine. “Of course!” we said, having learned that lesson. We made sure that she understood how important it was that the computer arrive on Monday. “No problem,” she said. And said, and said, and said. You can never be too sure. Since we were shipping the computer to a new address, Cherry suggested that we call our credit card company and make sure that they knew to approve this transaction. “We will!” we said. And we did.

The only glitch was that she never sent us the email she promised to send to tell us that the credit card had been approved. Not a huge deal; people forget that sometimes. Still, to be sure, we called back on Sunday. This time our call was handled by Jason. Jason told us that not only had the order not shipped, but there was no way it could have shipped as Mac Mall doesn’t process or ship orders on Saturdays. We’d get our computer on Tuesday for sure. “Not acceptable,” we told him and asked to speak to a manager. There were no managers available. Normally I wouldn’t believe that, but it was only about 6am on the west coast where Mac Mall’s secret lair, I mean office, is located. Jason promised to have his manager call back as soon as he got in which would be at 9am PST.

So we waited. And waited. And called to speak to the manager, Mitch. He confirmed that the laptop had not shipped and would not, could not until Monday. He said that Jason was wrong and that they do ship on Saturday. Due to “system problems” my laptop had not yet shipped. He’d gladly refund my shipping. He was very polite and super apologetic. When pressed he even offered a $40 store credit to make it up to me. “Not good enough,” we told him. He said that there was nothing more that he personally could do and that we could, if we liked, wait until Monday and talk to his boss. That would most likely result in the computer not shipping until Tuesday. After some thought we told him to cancel the order. I still don’t know if he actually did or not — the charge showed up on my statement on Monday.

Side note: as a professional programmer it annoys me when people try to blame their process problems on their computer systems. That crap flew fifteen years ago; not today. “System Problems” is just shorthand for “We screwed up and don’t want to take responsibility for it.”

Luckily, the local Best Buy had the model I wanted in stock. It was, even, $150 off — same as Mac Mall. The only drawback is that I had to pay sales tax that worked out to $125 more than the shipping. (Plus, I’ll end up paying full price for the Apple Care which I will buy this time.)

So, I’m angry. I’m angry at myself for not buying Apple Care on the original machine. I’m angry at Apple for their parts policies and for selling me a lemon in the first place. (Sorry: if it destroys 2 MLBs in 13 months it’s a lemon.) I’m a little annoyed at Myrtle Beach for having 9% sales tax. What do you think this is, Manhattan?

Mostly, I’m absolutely furious at Mac Mall for screwing up my order and then not being willing to make it right. $40 in store credit on a $2000 purchase — are you kidding me? If that’s all that Mitch is empowered to do then Mitch needs to get on the phone and find someone who’s an authorized deal maker in the Mac Mall establishment.

I understand that very few companies actually give a rat’s ass about their customers. It’s short-sighted but that’s how they roll. That’s fine, just don’t expect to get my money. Mac Mall won’t get my business, ever. I’d suggest that you think twice before giving them yours.

I’d first heard about NaNoWriMo a couple years ago from one of my friends who has done it a couple times.  I considered doing it last year but a couple things stopped me. First, one of the “rules” is that you can’t bring any text into the month. In other words, you can’t add 50,000 words to your existing novel. I thought that was odd. One of the things that I was hoping to accomplish was to actually work on one of my various half-started novels. The other thing that stopped me was that the focus seemed to be on word count. It didn’t matter what you wrote — as long as you churned out 50k words in the month.

Both of these things struck me as wrong, somehow. Shouldn’t you care about what you’re writing? Isn’t it better to write 50,000 good words that mean something to you? This year I decided to take the plunge and find out. Well, that’s halfway true. This year I thought about taking the plunge and finding out. I also told my wife; she in turn told some of my friends. So I was stuck. Write or die.

Four or five years ago I had this idea about a vampire who’s a private detective, but not cast in the “Angel” mold. In fact, he’s a little defensive about it. So I dusted it off, stirred in a few ideas stolen from Hitchcock and other places, and found myself with the beginnings of a plot.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that it was, in fact, not better to care about what you were writing. Not for this sort of exercise. Caring leads to careful writing. It also leads to revision (which is also frowned on), trying to find just the right word, and other types of general fiddling about. All of these things will serve to make a hard task even harder. The trick is to just get in there and fling some words around and see what happens. That’s not to say that you need to write crap — you just need to write something.

A funny thing happened a couple days in. It all started to make sense. Everything clicked. Sure, my lead fell in love with the wrong heroine. Yes, my plot went in a completely different direction from where I told it to go. If I’d been writing something that I “cared” about (and I do care about this, now) I don’t think I ever would have gotten this far. I certainly never have before.

I’d started novels before but never managed to finish one for a couple reasons. First, I have difficulty laying out and entire story from start to finish. I get too caught up in the “what ifs” of the situation. What if this happens? What if that happens? What is something doesn’t happen? I try to resolve all those issues, get bogged down, get bored, and drop the whole thing. I’ve done it time and time again. The second problem that I’ve had is that it seems like every idea that I come up with looks — from the starting line — like it’s going to fall way short of novel length.

This exercise has given me some insight into both of those problems. It’s way, way better (for me anyway — everyone’s process is different) for me to not try to resolve all the questions ahead of time. I think the best solution for me will be a two-stage process of outlining: first, a very loose outline of the overall plot; then — as I get to each section (however that works out) a smaller, more detailed outline of that bit. I think that will allow me to better adjust to things like the lead falling in love with the character who was supposed to be a one-line toss-off in a single scene. I’ve also picked up a few ideas on how to introduce subplots and complications to turn a very short — and totally linear — story into something more substantial and satisying.

Finally, I’ve learned that I can write on a deadline. (Though I have to admit that I’m a bit behind right now due to travel, vacation, and a dead laptop.) Whether I can write anything worth reading remains to be seen.

I recall only a little more about the sequel. The lead had been transferred (I guess he was a police rather than private detective) and was now working in the most exotic place my feverish little mind could come up with: the Florida Keys. (“Not the locks, the Keys,” I wrote in my best imitation of noir.) I’m not sure where I’d learned to imitate that style or where I’d even heard the language. The bulk of the story, I suspect, was heavily influenced by a peculiar mish-mash of  early ’70s detective TV and Hardy Boys books. You are what you eat, I guess.

Not much later I wrote my first play. It was a tale of gothic horror mixed with English folklore which is a roundabout way of saying that it was called “Dracula vs Robin Hood.” I scrawled it in a tiny little 3×5 appointment book that I kept hidden in my desk. I have no idea where I got the book, nor why I thought it was a good idea to mix vampires and noble outlaws. There were also werewolves, of course, though there was some sort of problem with territory rights. In the end the vampires won the day or at least the night. (Duh!)

My next literary effort was a play commissioned by my fourth grade teacher. I have to believe that she was simply trying to channel my creative urges and to get me to pay attention in class. This one was written directly on mimeo sheets so that the entire cramped manuscript could be reproduced — typos and all — for the entire class. This was the first wide reading of one of my works. The play was about two (or possibly three) families involved in a Hatfield-McCoy style feud. The families again had unlikely and unpronounceable names. (I won’t take all the blame for that. One of my friends suggested at least one of the goofy names. I’m not going to list it here, even though I remember it, because as sure as I do it will be someone’s actual name.) The plot involved a great deal of shooting. The turning point came when one of the women, bringing food to the men-folk so that they could keep on shooting at the other men-folk, was grazed by a bullet. The families immediately called for a cease-fire and, realizing that life is fleeting, stopped their hostilities and learned to live together. This one actually made it to rehearsals but, unless I’ve repressed the terrible memory, was never actually produced. Just as well; it could have used a rewrite.

Next up was bad poetry. Enough said.

In my early teens I did some work that would probably be classified as “fan fiction” today. No need for details (especially re: the unintentional Luke/Leia incest thing — how was I to know they were related?) but it was easily my longest work to date. I recall that the phrase “they started walking” was used quite often. The action scene at its very finest.

From there I moved on to “Close Encounters for the Second Time.” I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader what that was a sequel to. As an adult I’m just glad that Hollywood didn’t feel like I did, that a sequel needed to be made. We dodged a bullet there for sure.

After the sci-fi explosion of my early teens I didn’t do much writing (or have successfully blocked the memories) until my late teens when I took up with bad poetry again. She is a seductive mistress, Bad Poetry. She tells you just what you want to hear and won’t let on when people start to point and smirk. “They’re laughing with you,” she’ll say, but she’s a liar and a harlot. They’re not laughing with you. They’re not even laughing at you, they just think you’re weird. If they do anything it’ll be to beat you up. I have to give her this: her love is constant. She stayed with me all through college, though there were times when they really were laughing with me, I think. (There are a few things from those days that survive; a small fraction of them do not make me wish to change my name.)

I’ve started several novels since then, dozens of short stories. They always start with a bang: I wrote the first scene of a science fiction detective tale on a sheet of butcher paper on break from my dead-end restaurant job. They just as frequently end with a whimper: twenty-two years later the butcher paper is long gone, but I still have a version of that opening. It’s just waiting for me to hear where it wants to go.

This is all my long winded way of saying (providing proof, I hope) that I’ve always wanted to be a writer, that I’ve always had something to say even if I didn’t know how to say it. It’s been thirty-seven years since that first detective and that first antagonist with an unlikely name. I’m still trying to figure out how to say it.