Transplant successful!

I got the laptop back yesterday. I must tell you that I’m highly impressed with the service I was given by Apple. The next business day after I called them about my laptop LCD, they shipped an empty box with shipping pre-paid. I shipped the laptop to them on Monday, it arrived at their center on Tuesdayor Wednesday, they fixed and shipped my laptop on the same day. I got it back with an entirely brand new LCD on Thursday afternoon. Way to go to both Apple and DHL.

I know in the past there were quality issues with manufacturing LCD’s and companies expected their LCD’s to have a half dozen or so dead pixels. The laptop was originally shipped with 4 dead pixels, I didn’t think it would be covered by hardware warranties so I just ignored the dead pixels. Well, I have yet to find a dead pixel on this new LCD, I’m impressed.

We just got a profit sharing bonus at work, and that will go towards the Applecare Warranty extension which will extend my hardware coverage out another 2 years.. it’s a great deal at $239 since I’m a ’student’, regular folk have to pay $299, which is still a most excellent value if you had to replace the LCD only once.

How is your butt today?

My tailbone seems to be gradually getting better, though yesterday wasn’t all that good. I’ve got an appointment scheduled for 12/14 to discuss my condition at that time and what to do.. I’m hoping that I will be feeling 100% and won’t need a shot, though it’s possible that I will need another. *fingers crossed* So it’s been a couple of days now with much less pain than prior to the shot, so that’s good news and I hope it continues to go that direction. So, how is your butt today?

Near death experience..

This morning I had a near death experience, not that I was near death, but that I experienced the near death of my laptop LCD. This morning, upon waking my Powerbook, it is now sporting a single-pixel wide vertical line of dead, pink pixels. I called AppleCare and the dude had me reset the power management module, and run some diagnostic tests to no avail. I’m going to backup all of my data and completely reinstall OSX to see if this has anything to do with the software on the system. If the reinstall doesn’t work, I can call up AppleCare and send them my laptop for repair (replace the LCD) for free. Since my system is still under warranty, Apple will send out a shipping box which I will use to send my laptop back to them. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to manage without my laptop for several days.. I’ll have to be strong, wish me luck!

I was informed that I have until Jan. 14 to buy-in to the AppleCare extension for $239, which will extend my hardware warranty for another 2 years. I’m definitely going to buy in, I consider this event as a close call and I’m lucky I am still under warranty, otherwise this repair would probably be in the $500 range.

*update* : It’s confirmed, the LCD is broken. Apple has sent me a postage paid shipping box, which should arrive tomorrow, to ship my poor laptop back to the factory for repair. *sob*

I got shot!

Yesterday afternoon, at 4p, I got shot. Well, it was a cortisone shot on my coccyx (tailbone). The procedure was called something like ’sacral cocxylgenal’ something or other. They had me get nearly naked with one of those cotton capes put on, and interviewed me to be sure there weren’t any problems with proceeding with the procedure. They wheeled me into the surgery room, hooked me up to an IV and monitors for my heart and blood pressure, pumped in two types of narcotics, and proceeded to inject the cortisone right on my tailbone (they call it in the middle of my ‘verticle flap’, I call it my ‘butt crack’). The procedure took less than 15 minutes and was actually quite pleasant considering the circumstances. All of the people were really nice, I gave them a hard time by pushing the ‘emergency’ button, which earned me a threat of an enima and colostomy (spelling?) bag. As you can tell, these people like to joke around. (I didn’t get either of the threats carried out, by the way)

So here I am the day after and my butt is sore, it feels like theres a golf ball sized knot on the end of my tailbone. I’m told that this will simmer down after a couple of days and with the best of luck I will be fixed. Even if it doesn’t work permanently, I’ll get some period of time without pain until I have to go in and get another shot.

The doctor diagnosed my particular issue to be arthritis on a joint in my tailbone.. I guess I’m going to have to start looking into vitamins and suppliments to help with my arthritis now, it sucks getting old. When you get to be my age, 25, your body starts to fall apart.. It’s just part of getting old. heh.

I’ll periodically post updates on the blog about my tailbone, but hopefully it will be feeling better for a long time to come.