Parislog 86
December 18, 2006

There is nothing at all that moves fast in France. I swear. About a month ago, I went to burn CD’s of my latest photographs only to find that the burner wasn’t working. I searched the internet for solutions that I myself might be able to do. You know things like resetting configurations etc. Computers all seem to have these moments of needing a little fine-tuning. Well, I tried all options that I could locate to no avail. I then accessed the discussion forum at Apple store to see if anyone could tell me what was wrong. By now I have spent a week on this. I can’t get help from Apple unless I want to pay a horrible amount of money and there are no Genius Bars here.Fortunately the nice folks on the support forum tell me that after everything that I have tried that it sounds like my laser CD reader has gone kaput and the only solution is replacement. I can either buy an external or replace the internal. This is something I can look into. The prices of any external that will work on the Mac are hideous and I finally track down an internal that will work, again thanks to the support forum.

Sounds like my troubles should be over but they have only just begun because finding the part here is not exactly like walking over to Fry’s. I search online to see where I can get it. I find one place but they have terrible customer service reports but they have their store out in a suburb of Paris. I get on the bus. I get there and they are closed for a 2-hour lunch. I walk. I take photos. I go back only to find out that it is not a product in the store but only online. I am not willing to take the risk so back to searching for another company.I then locate another European company that carries the part and just opened a brick and mortar here in Paris. I go there. Again they say that it is only available on line but at least these guys have a better reputation. I go home and the next day I go to order it and the stock is “exhausted” gone. AAAARgh.

I find a third company but this one is in Grenoble so no visit. But the stock is there and no bad customer reports. I order it immediately with the expectation of receiving it in 48 hours as stated on the site. And then I add another 48 hours on in my head because this is France. About the time that I should be receiving the part, I get an email asking me to mail, fax or otherwise send a copy of my electric bill to prove my address. I write them back saying WTF? You have my credit card number with the matching address and info to what I filled in on the forms. Another couple of days passes with no answer. I write again and finally after another couple of days received a response apologizing and that they are now expediting my order. The part then arrives 3 days later.
The box was terribly crushed and I wanted to open it in front of the delivery guy but he said I couldn’t because if there was any problem then they would accuse him of opening it. I had a choice to refuse delivery or take it and pray. You can imagine that the idea of going through an even longer process was not in my desires so I took it. I then photographer the box just in case the part turned out to be damaged.
Finally something went right. The part was fine although two of the air bags inside had been popped.

I went and got the required tools for the procedure at the BHV. I needed and small Phillip’s screwdriver sized 0 and a spatula. My computer is a Mac mini and doesn’t open like the rest of the world’s computers. I had located a video on line showing the process step by step so I felt I could handle it. I set everything out nice and neat and unplugged the computer and got ready. The spatula wouldn’t fit. I had bought the thinnest one at the hardware store but it was still to fat to slide into the cracks.

Okay, I think to myself. You have made it this far. You can go a little further. I go to the hardware store right beside me but the spatulas were still the same thickness. I need one that is made of spring steel but don’t have the words for that in French. It occurs to me that cake spatulas are made like this and that was finally what I asked for and got.

It worked like a charm. The final process of doing the actual exchange was easy. I now have a fully functional computer again. But from beginning to end, it took in the neighborhood of 2 months. Like I said, nothing moves quickly over here.