'Ri-Set-Uh-Luh'

Ri-set-uh-luh.  Shanghainese for “Hot-to-death.”  What is thirty-eight degrees in Fahrenheit?  Couldn’t tell you but I’m sure it’s up there past ninety degrees.  (It is, in fact, 100.2 degrees, which packs a different punch for me, than “thirty-eight.”)  It feels like it, though there is a breeze and on the balance I’m not doing much outside, except going from one air-conditioned environment to another.  In the back of a cab just now heading over to see if I can get my Mac fixed.  I have low expectations.  My Macbook Pro is way out of warranty.  Loyal readers know this isn’t my first such attempt.

But there is some critical information on that block of aluminum and my life has been a compromise without it.  Most importantly I can’t get a bunch of older blog posts and photos so my posting cadence is all screwed up.  I continue to write every day, but I can’t post until I can get the old entries and photos so as to keep all in order.  There is nothing wrong with the computer itself, from what I can tell.  Just the screen won’t fire up, which ends up being rather central, therein. 

I’ve been stumbling along with a loaned laptop from my wife who was generous enough to part with hers.  More fully evolved than me, her life is more properly governed by her smart phone. 

I made it to the Apple store on Huaihai Road and innocently waltzed up the Steve Jobs, translucent spiral staircase and asked the first kid in a blue tee shirt I could find who wasn’t talking to someone: “how long I’d need before I could see someone about my laptop?” “Don’t worry, we can speak English.” He replied to which I noted, in Chinese: “I’m sure we could.  So how much time’s it gonna take?”  “Two plus hours.” He confirmed, in Chinese.

He suggested I go to another store, which I assumed was an independent Mac distributor that could help me out.  He graciously pointed out where the store was, one subway stop up the #1 line.  And, even though it was 100.2 degrees and that any real immediate fix was unlikely, I decided to plod ahead. 

What I wound up in was another official Mac store.  Shanghai seems to be able to sport multiple such places, within one subway stop’s distance.  But fortunately, the line here is shorter and I am killing a mere thirty minutes, before they have a look at my poor Mac.  If they served drinks and snacks at this Genius Bar I might stay a while, whether they could fix anything or not.  It is some fairly remarkable people watching, and the tunes aren’t bad either.   The WiFi is a nuisance though as it auto-rejects my VPN, so were grounded on that score.  Six minutes to go . . .