Mr. MacGoog recounts his Genius Bar visit

You'll have to forgive ole Mr. MacGoog if he seems a bit cranky while you read this post. You see, he had typed all of this before, during his visit to the Genius Bar last night, using LifeCast when true to Apple Firmware 2.0 and the new apps, Blam! All that finger work was gone in a flash due to an application crash. Come on Uncle Steve, ya know Mr. MacGoog loves ya, but really...let's get this fixed! Now, on with the visit.



6:20pm: Mr. MacGoog arrives at the Apple Store about 10 minutes before his scheduled appointment and checks in. He also notices his name on a video board displaying how many other folks with broke Macs and iPhones are ahead of him. First time Mr. MacGoog has seen his name in lights, so to speak.



6:22pm: Mr. MacGoog is told his appointment will be a bit later than scheduled. Hmmmm. That doesn't bode well. The place is packed though and this store has just received a new shipment of iPhone 3Gs. 3G stands for Good Gosh it Crashes a lot. No wait...that doesn't work does it?



6:23pm: Mr. MacGoog decides to look around the store a bit to kill some time. Ohhh...Awww....Look at all the shiny new Mac stuff.



6:25pm: Mr. MacGoog decides to quit looking because he wants to purchase one of everything including a new iMac.



6:26pm: Mr. MacGoog closes his eyes and says to himself 100 times, “I will not buy anything.”



6:30pm: Time for his appointment...nope...not gonna happen, the board says there are four more folks before him. Mr. MacGoog looks around and see two people clutching their MacBooks against their chest. They're probably next.



6:31pm: Mr. MacGoog finds a seat and rests his weary bones. It's been a long day.



6:32pm: Mr. MacGoog uses his iPhone, connects to the free wifi, browses Google Reader (had to get a Google reference in there), checks his gmail, checks out the new apps in the apps store that can assist in crashing his iPhone every few minutes (which it does while he is browsing the app store) and makes a phone call.



6:50pm: The board shows that Mr. MacGoog is next!



6:51pm: An Apple Genius comes over to Mr. MacGoog, who is sitting at one of the training benches, and says, “so what's a matter with this one today?” Mr. MacGoog explains his problem while noticing that the Apple Genius, a young man named Zach, is wearing his Apple Shirt and some red flannel shorts that appear to be the same shorts he was wearing when he woke up in the back room just minutes ago! Heck, they are probably the same shorts he wore to bed in Middle School, last year. Mr. MacGoog is getting old he thinks.



6:52pm: Mr. MacGoog explains that “MacBook Pro broke...you fix?” Mr. MacGoog also explains that he has performed all the magic ninja keystrokes for resetting this and that. Zach laughs. Mr. MacGoog isn't sure if he is laughing at the joke or at Mr. MacGoog and thinking, “Silly old guy.”



6:57pm: Zach explains that he's seen this problem before and it will require an archive and reinstall of the operating system. Zach breaks out his handy dandy firewire drive, hooks it up and says, “do you have about 30 minutes to hang out with us?” Mr. MacGoog shakes his head in agreement.

Mr. MacGoog's computer gets an OS reinstall.

7:00pm: Zach tells Mr. MacGoog that's he's going to help some other customers while we wait.



7:01pm: Mr. MacGoog breaks out his iPhone, opens the LifeCast app and begins to create a blog post while waiting.



7:09pm: After about eight minutes of finger typing, Mr. MacGoog is ready to submit his account of the visit so far. He hits submit.



7:10pm: Mr. MacGoog considers hurling his iPhone at one of the Geniuses after LifeCast crashes and sends his entire finger typed post into iPhone 2.0 Firmware purgatory, never to be posted.



7:11pm: Mr. MacGoog breaks out his Kindle (which doesn't crash) and continues reading 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance by Gavin Menzies. Good read.



7:20pm: Mr. MacGoog looks at MacBook Pro screen and sees that the install is reporting less than a minute left. Yee Haw!



7:30pm: Still less than a minute left. Huh? Mr. MacGoog waves Zach down and Zach explains that it's normal. It's normal for a minute to last 10 minutes? Zach, maybe you should go back to bed in the back room and look for your pants.



7:35pm: The longest minute ever is over, computer reboots and MacBook Pro has been restored to version 10.5. That means Mr. MacGoog is due for some updates once he gets home. Looks like everything is working, now where is Zach?



7:40pm: Zach returns, shuts down the computer and says, “There ya go!” Mr. MacGoog considers knocking him down and stealing his firewire drive. Would be a very handy addition to his laptop travel bag. Mr. MacGoog decides against harming the Genius since he is very happy his Mac is operational again. Zach will live to assist another customer. Probably an iPhone customer.



7:43pm: Mr. MacGoog packs up and thanks Sir Zach the Genius in the Red Flannel Shorts.



7:48pm: Mr. MacGoog buys a new bluetooth speaker phone for his car...so much for repeating to himself 100 times, “I will not buy anything.”



8:45pm: Mr. MacGoog arrives home, starts up his computer and begins updating his OS.



9:45pm: After all the downloads have completed and are installed, Mr. MacGoog is too tired to make a blog post; however, his MacBook Pro is back in working condition and all is right with the world.



In conclusion, Mr. MacGoog can really make no grips about his visit. Zach was personable, friendly and helpful. As the Genius, he diagnosed the problem almost immediately and was able to get Mr. MacGoog out the door in around 40 minutes. Not bad when a reinstall of the OS was the solution. Yes, Mr. MacGoog is going to give a tip of the hat to Sir Zach the Genius in the Red Flannel Shorts and to his first ever Apple Store Genius Bar visit. Mr. MacGoog knew there was a reason he only purchased Macs.