If you live in Potsdam, NY, you don't live here for the shopping. After awhile, you get to know where you need to go when you need something more than a television or a new chainsaw. Probably the best civilized retail store in the county is the St. Lawrence University Book Store -- where one can definitely purchase important items other than books -- like art supplies for instance. However, if you need a new suit you have to drive to Syracuse or Albany. If you desire something other than a Ford Truck or a Prius, you must head everywhere else but north. Heck, I even use travel and vacations to purchase new underwear and shoes.
You can imagine the angst, even in a two college town, when the SUNY Potsdam Book Store lost its Apple franchise a year ago or so because they didn't sell enough machines. Aside from the not altogether unique alternative of on-line recourse and/or the Apple Help Line, you are stuck.
Since before the holiday season, my wife's little I-Book 4 had been heating up. Often, Safari would quit in the middle of a surfing session or a bridge game. She knew it was time, but procrastinated until she was on the verge of a complete crash. Each day, I'd say: "Ready to go to Burlington? We'll be taking off for Hilton Head soon..."
Well Monday morning, upon awakening she decided that the time had come. I welcomed the opportunity to get out of Dodge, especially since I had just recovered from a severe head cold, had been forced to chainsaw down my favorite front yard white birch, which Friday drooped onto our electrical service to the street, and I had to spend much of Sunday morning shoveling and then checking out neighborhood houses for other kinds of damage (our neighborhood was in need of such services this past weekend).
We were on the road by 8:30 a.m. The Republic of Burlington is just under three hours distant. Aside from Fletcher Allen Hospital at the University of Vermont, I think the next best thing is Small Dog Electronics <http://www.smalldog.com/>. Even with a very windy ferry crossing of Lake Champlain (with six foot waves and our minivan's first participation in a rodeo) we arrived at Small Dog in South Burlington before noon.
It didn't take us long to ascertain that my wife's choice would be a new 13 inch MacBook 2.8 GHz dual core/Intel core i7, with 750 GB for my photos in South Carolina. A neat, fast, little package with resolution matching the big dogs. And it was hard to believe that our new rep in training was a new rep in training; she didn't even fit the typical Apple sales person under 25 techno-geek persona. This mature woman quickly established rapport and didn't hesitate to ask her youthful cohorts whenever she had a question she herself couldn't answer -- and those were limited to cash register protocol. She then marched us to the service department where we were promised that all of the old files would be copied over and the new machine would be ready by noon today. No muss, no fuss and no charge.
As I sit here now writing up today's blog, my wife is already sitting on our couch at home going through today's news; nope I think she's now playing bridge. So here are my three hip, hip, hip hoorays for Small Dog Electronics, the best Apple store in New England. Yes they even have friendly dogs wandering around the store, but the dogs don't seem to answer very many questions. They're just kind of hanging out there to make you feel at home I think. Soon it will be my turn to make a hardware purchase there. It's going to be tough.
At any rate, we didn't drive home and then drive back again today. We stayed for dinner and then took in The Descendants, which the night before at the Golden Globes had just won Best Motion Picture Drama and netted George Clooney Best Actor. As beautiful as Hawaii is, it still gives me the creeps, and if you watch this movie you may just end up feeling like I do. That said, Clooney and the rest of the cast are terrific. Who says that the descendants of kings and queens aren't just ordinary schleps like the rest of us, and that paradise is just as **cked up as the rest of the USA? Go see it and decide for yourself. Clooney genuinely redeems his character. My wife compares him to Paul Newman. She might just be right.
Carry on,
Paul in Potsdam
<http://www2.potsdam.edu/loucksap>
<http://loucksap.smugmug.com>
<http://madstop68.blogspot.com>
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