Oh Lord, I do not ever want another evening like I've just had. Towards the end of our rehearsals, which went very well, I came back to the computer to check on e-mails. On my computer screen was a message: You must shut down your computer now. Hold the button down, then press the button again to restart." It was written in several languages. That was frightening, but I did as asked. Then it got really frightening. I powered it off, waited a few seconds, then pushed the button to start it up again. And the computer began to emit three beeps over and over again and would not start. I tried several times and kept getting the beeping. I unplugged the computer, plugged it back in and the same thing. Visions of losing everything began dancing in my head, even though I knew it would all be backed up on the Time Machine. Of course, this happened at exactly 6:01 so the Apple Care people were gone. I called the Apple Store immediately and got some guy on the phone. I explained the problem - he didn't seem to care and said I'd have to make an appointment at the Genius Bar. I told him to do so.
He told me there were none until tomorrow. I told him this was an emergency and to get me a supervisor. I got some woman who also didn't seem to care. I said the computer was barely two weeks old and I was not having this. She finally put a tech on who knew something. I explained what had happened. He asked if I'd installed extra memory, and I said yes, they'd installed extra memory. He said he suspected that chip had jostled loose and was the culprit. I told him it was really an emergency and that I had documents I had to work on. He told me to come in and that they'd put me in the emergency line but that it might be a two-hour wait.
I went to the store, lugged that heavy machine up there and a nice person had me put it down, got me a stool, and let the guy know I was there. The nice person came back and said my guy was busy with someone but would get to me as soon as he could. Then the fellow who'd sold me the computer saw me - I told him what had happened and he said he'd talk to the guy who was going to help me. Whatever he did worked, and ten minutes later my guy came out and took the computer in the back. Ten minutes later he waved me to the counter and said it was exactly what he thought and that everything was fine. He'd re-seated the chip, and then he fired up the computer and all my documents and stuff came right up. He then shut it back down but it kept asking him if we wanted to save things that had already been saved. To be on the safe side I had him click "save."
I lugged the thing back to my car and came home, hooked it back up, and powered it on. None of the documents opened as they automatically should so I launched Word and then suddenly everything appeared but there were double copies of things with the wrong file names, and I suspect that whatever it was asking us to save did that. I closed the ones that had the wrong file names and checked out the correct ones, which seemed to be fine save for one tiny little formatting thing that may have been wrong in the first place. I fixed that. Talk about something destroying one's concentration and focus. I tried writing and did write a page, but I think I need to take a break for an hour and then think about doing another couple of pages after I've calmed down and my head is back where it should be.
