A Daily Babble Production
It began as a supposedly minor problem that would take a few days to fix.
Those few days became more than that. The subject then returned, supposedly back at full strength. But it didn't take long for the trouble to recur, the ailment becoming more mysterious by the moment. The staff set a timetable for a return, then backed that timetable up by a day. After that, it turned out that said comeback would not be happening until further notice.
Sound familiar, Celtics fans?
It appears that my being is terminally consumed by the Celtics, which is far from as negative as it reads (in fact, I quite enjoy it). But like so many of my fellow fans of the green, it appears I can't escape the effects of Kevin Garnett's injury even in my personal life.
For the first 16 months of my tenure at CelticsBlog, each and every Daily Babble came to you straight from what I would have once called my trusty Macbook Pro. Be it at home on Long Island, transplanted out in the Midwest, sitting in a Boston hotel room at 5 a.m. after attending a Finals game or stretching out for four hours at a local Panera Bread during a power outage, the computer anchored my defense against laziness in writing.
On February 18, the Macbook did something it never had before: It shut down while fully charged and plugged in to AC power. Hoping it was a momentary blip, I tried to ignore the problem and press onward.
Over this past month, it became clear that this was far from a temporary issue. After the unit shut down four times over the course of a day and then four times over a 10-minute span the next day, I opted to bring it back to the store where I bought it nearly three years ago to let the experts (the computer version of a medical staff) have a look. In the meantime, to keep all my files backed up, I went out and splurged on an external hard drive, which has thankfully been more effective than analogous back-up purchase Mikki Moore.
The original prognosis was five to seven business days. That morphed into six to eight business days. A week and a half later, on business day eight, I received a phone call informing me that the computer was ready and had been fully repaired.
So began the metaphorical four-game comeback period. In Macbook Disaster Standard Time, that only meant five minutes. That's exactly how much personal use it took for me to figure out that the problem had not been solved. Two unplanned shutdowns in 10 minutes landed me back in the store this past Wednesday.
The med staffers declared that afternoon that the issue was definitively battery-related. They would know by the next day whether I would be receiving the battery free of charge or if my warranty would fail to cover it. No matter what, I would have it back and working for sure.
Didn't hear from anyone on Thursday. So much for playing against Philadelphia and Washington before the playoffs. But the problem would still be resolved shortly thereafter, it appeared. Just in time for the playoffs (or in my case, the weekend of Game 4).
Yesterday, I picked up the machine and was informed once again that I would have no more trouble thanks to my new battery and AC adapter. So I went back to my residence to watch it run, so to speak.
As far as how that went, let's go with the words of another speaker who watched an entity run recently:
"I just finished watching him run, and he's not gonna be ready."
Another shutdown, and the computer - like KG - has now been ruled out indefinitely.
Perhaps the people at the store will guess right on what part is causing the problem and fix it this time. Perhaps I will have to go directly to Apple to campaign for a whole new machine under warranty. In any event, the immediate future does not look good on that front.
But hope is not lost.
Over these last few weeks, I've come to feel a watered-down version of the challenge facing Doc Rivers. Instead of juggling lineups, playing some smallball and throwing Mikki Moore out there for pseudo-extended stretches every now and then, I'm slipping in and out of public labs all over this town to compose the Babble and occasionally respond to emails. I'm trying to find innovative ways to arrange my schedule so that I can write while computers are available (which doesn't quite match up with my long-standard "all hours of the night" routine).
The situation isn't optimal. I haven't been around on site as much as I'd like lately, and I occasionally fall behind on the front page and in the forums. The Celtics aren't defending anywhere near as well without KG as they do with him, and this team has looked terrifyingly mortal for certain stretches this spring.
But one way or another, likely thanks more to a few strokes of fortune than any persistence of mine, we've managed to keep the Babble coming to you each day (to your chagrin, perhaps?). One way or another, the Celtics have scrapped and found a way to head into tomorrow's Game 4 in Chicago with a two-games-to-one series lead and a promising chance to win the series.
So far, I'm making do. And far more importantly and impressively, so are the Celtics.