So I had to take the old Mac in on Sunday due to the power supply issues I described on Friday.  I made my appointment at the Genius Bar via the web and then headed off for a bike ride.  With Sunday’s wind, the first leg of my ride was great.  The return trip, however, sucked.  Unfortunately, by the time I got back to my car and started making my way to the Plaza Apple Store, I had already blew past my appointment time.  I also smelled like I had just biked 20 miles.

The store at 1:30pm on a Sunday was a madhouse.  When I toted my computer in and grabbed a floor gal, she gave me the forlorn “oh, you missed you’re appointment, that sucks…you may be screwed today” look.  When I explained that I had a good idea what was going on and that a Genius Bar discussion was going to be pretty much useless since they’d have to likely replace hardware, she grabbed the serial off my computer and then walked me over to a laptop to register for a “quick drop.”  There I tapped in all the relevant info and quickly found my roving friend again. She was multi-tasking like a mofo and doing a damn fine job of it: checking someone out with one hand, conferring with another across the bar about their iPhone and printing out my work order all at the same time.  And no one felt slighted in the least!

This morning, I got the call from the Genius Bar.  Definitely needs a new power supply, the computer is out of warranty and the bill would be around $150 to $180, which is what I was expecting after doing my online research about the issue.  Two to three days to fix.  C’est la vie.  But kudos to my local Apple Store for giving me the fast track experience, though, with nary a douchebag in sight.

In the meantime, I’m listening to a live audio stream from WWDC and plotting my next move for a possible hardware upgrade.  Oh Apple…I just can’t quit you!