Category: Uncategorized

Nature trail near Woodley between Burbank and Victory.

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

He was a kid, or no older than two decades, with blond, close cropped hair, baggy shorts. He was smoking a cigarette and drinking from an airplane sized bottle of tequila as I passed him around 10 am on the pedestrian bridge over the LA River in Studio City.

He said hello and I said hello back. He said he just came to LA that day and had never seen the LA River. He went on to tell me that he comes from Washington State and travels around the country with dozens of others, staying in local motels and then fanning out and selling magazine subscriptions.

These groups of young men will go from state to state, town to town, and knock on doors and ring bells and tell people that “we are raising money for your town’s soccer team”. Wouldn’t YOU like to buy a subscription to Sports Illustrated to support some needy local kids?

He said that what he does is lie, but that he actually fulfills the promise of subscribing the suckers. They get their magazines, but they buy them under false pretenses.

He was pretty proud of himself, and told me that he was the top salesman and that’s why he was here taking a minute to smoke a cigarette and drink alcohol mid-morning in Studio City. He said most people thought he was younger than his age (22) and his All-American looks got him lots of business.

He then threw his bottle into the river and said “so long” and he was off to find more business for his dishonest business.

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

So I have had an iMac for over two years now, and mostly it works just fine. I have had “Apple Care”, and thank God that I purchased this add-on because I call Apple technical about once a month and suggest it for anyone who buys a computer from them.

But about three months ago, the computer started slowing down considerably. It took about five minutes for iPhoto to shut down, and I use it a lot to store all my digital images.

I brought the iMac into Sherman Oaks and met with a “genius” who told me that he suspected that the logic board was to blame for the slowness. So I checked it in, and two days later it came back with the new hardware.

When I got home, however, the computer was just as slow. My friend Edwina, a student at UCLA, looked at the ram and was shocked to find that it was only 512. I don’t know what “512” meant, but her 2007 iBook has 1.5 ram. So I decided to try adding ram.

But something else was wrong. Since the computer arrived back from Apple, there was no audio. I again made an appointment to bring the computer into the genius bar. But I also purchased 1gig of ram from Frys Electronics ($60) and got someone to install it for $45.

Now I had 1.5 gig of memory with no audio. But the computer was lightning fast.

I brought it back to Apple. They checked it back in. They ordered the speaker hardware which took a few days. When the computer was ready to be picked up, they told me that not only had they replaced the speakers, but they had ALSO ADDED ANOTHER 1 Gig of memory. So now I would have 2 g, where only a week earlier I only had 512.

I brought the computer back home. I started surfing the net. Firefox froze. I restarted the computer. I went on Safari. Safari shut down. I turned the computer off. When it went back on, the screen was black and a weird low hum came from the machine.

I made another appointment with the “genius” at Sherman Oaks. I brought in the computer. The “genius” said the weird noise was an indicator of faulty ram. It has now been there for three days.

I called Sherman Oaks last night to see when it would be ready. A woman in India picked up the phone. I told her I wanted to know when my computer might be fixed. So the Indian woman in India called Sherman Oaks and told the customer in Van Nuys that “a part is on order”.

I’m still waiting. I still have no computer. I still love Apple!

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }