Little Square Piece of Blue Plastic

My first Mac external optical drive (called a Superdrive by Apple) was unusable because the internal arm, which holds the disk inside while the disk is being played, was stuck in its extended position. No disk could be inserted. I tried looking for a fix on the Apple and Mac-related fora, but could find nothing.

I really wanted to get the drive repaired, so I drove to the Apple Store in the Keystone Mall in northeastern Indianapolis. I have eaten at TGI Fridays there with the Whoosier Network, but have never been inside the mall itself. Reaching the Apple Store was tough: Nagivating the maze of highways that is northeast Indianapolis; and then trying to find a parking place close to the entrance, then giving up and parking at the diagonal end of the lot. The kiosk map showed me that the Apple Store was in the far end of the C section, a long walk up and down a set of escalators.

Observations on my walk there

• For some reason, the Monday after XMas was very crowded. I had to dodge couples and large groups of people, and the slow in general.
• I smelled grilled meat on the up escalator. The stairs led me to a mezzanine over a food court, one of whose shops (Chipotle Mexican Grill) was the source of the smell.
• I passed one of those Microsoft stores. There were people in there, but it was mostly empty space.

The Apple Store, by contrast, was packed with people, intersped with red-shirted store staff. The Genius Bar, where I could have gotten my drive examined and maybe fixed, was at the far end of the store, through a morass of humanity. At this point, I gave up. After trying out an iPhone 5c, I left the Store and back-traced my route out of the mall and back to my car.

In the end, I drove to Ball State and bought a new drive at the Technology Store in the library.

At home, I took apart the damaged drive, examined the inner mechanism, and discovered why the arm was damaged: It was caught on a 4mm-square piece of clear blue plastic. I do not know what that plastic was doing in there, but it is evident that the piece had irreparably damaged the drive.

Final Observations

• Walking through the Keystone Mall was a slightly creepy experience. All the stores were nice and shiny and sold goods that were equally nice and shiny and way beyond my affordance. You would think the people who shop there would be nice and shiny, too. Nope: Even the kids look worn and tired. I wanted to go into the Apple Store and out of that mall as fast as I could.
• Borders had a really rocking store on 86th Street near Allisonville Road. At least it was rocking when I first visited the store. Then the store started cutting back on its services and selection of books. Unable to compete with Barnes & Noble on the physical store side, and with Amazon on the Internet, Borders simply folded a couple of years ago. The store I used to visit is now a restaurant.