Welcome Back Mac

Two months ago, my little iBook G4 went away. I never (publicly) went into the details of what led to it's "malfunction," because up until now it had been too painful, but now that I have it safely back in Belize I can make my confession.

I am an irresponsible computer owner.

It's true, I was responsible for the "hardware problem" that crippled my computer, taking with it my ability to regularly write.  In making this confession and clearing my conscience, I can only hope that Apple employees responsible for honoring the AppleCare Extended Warranty are not reading this, and if they are, will respect my honesty.  Anyways, I often travel(ed) around Belize with my computer in search of free wireless internet. This was the case when, shortly after returning to Belize from my vacation in the states, I met a good friend and RPCV from Nicaragua in Placencia for a couple of days.  Placencia has free internet, great beaches, decent food, and at least one place to indulge in fruity over-rum'ed drinks.  And that is exactly how the day went, in that order.  After the fruity rum drinks, myself, my visiting friend, and another Belize PCV returned to our hostel to continue the rum-drink trend. My Mac and portable speakers provided us with the tunes, and after a little bit we started socializing with a group of traveling Austrians in the common room. We forgot all about the still music-playing computer that was sitting on the dresser, next to the window in our room.  

Then, as in all great tragedies, a storm blew in, soaking everything in our room: beds, pillows, bags, towels, and of course, my ibook.  I didn't realize this at the time, because I was enjoying my conversations with friends and fellow vagabonds in the still-dry kitchen of the hostel. When we saw how soaked our room had got, I put my computer to sleep, found a drier room, and slept off the head-splitting after-effects of Belize and Nicaragua's finest rums.  

The next day, sometime in the mid-morning, I returned to our original room to pack up and change.  I went to start up my computer in order to write some emails and the unthinkable happen.  The spinning color wheel of purgatory (this is something akin to the blue screen of death for PC users). That wheel just kept on spinning, leaving me hanging in the no-mans-land between an off-computer and an on-computer.  I tried to reboot in safe mode, but this pushed the ibook into the great white light, from whence it did not return. I packed up the computer, sure that once it dried out it would again greet me with the happy "Ahhh'nnn" sound that ibooks make when they wake up. It didn't.

The story ends well, as you may deduce from the fact that I write this from the same computer that experienced an untimely death at the hands of its rum-soaked owner. I had purchased the extended 3-year warranty before leaving the USA, and had backed up all music, pics, and docs on the external hard-drive I got for Christmas from my Dad. My Country Director, Eileen, helped me out with getting the computer to the states, my Mom did the leg work getting it to Apple, and the US Embassy did it's part by unknowingly sending and receiving the computer through APO (shhh..this is a secret).  Long story short: a happy mac is made sad by water, so keep your mac a happy mac and keep it a dry mac.