Dan's Blog

In continuing to recover from my unlucky week in Mammoth, I went to the Apple Store to find out how much it would cost to fix my cracked iPodTouch screen.  I setup an appointment at the Old Town Pasadena Apple Store.

I met with the Apple Genius James, and he looked at my iPod for a few seconds.  He then proceeded to type a few things into the store computer.  He then looked up at me and said, “We can fix the screen, but it’s going to cost about $220”  I thought about it for a few seconds before declining.  He mentioned that there may be some non-Apple dealers online who would fix the screen for less.

After looking around the internet, it doesn’t seem like it will be possible to fix it for much less than $200.  The screen itself costs $150 from Apple, and that doesn’t include labor, warranty, etc.

So, my choice is to pay $200+ for a fixed screen.  I’m leaning towards buying a new one.  A brand new 16G iPodTouch is $299.  The new iPodTouches have a faster processor, a brand new battery and a speaker.  Plus, the Macworld Expo is next week.  Maybe Apple will add a full Bluetooth stack to the iPodTouch.  Maybe they’ll release a 64GB version and lower the cost of the 32GB version.  Now that I have my iPodNano, I’m not in a hurry to buy something new!

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas!  I certainly did!  My brother Dave picked me up at my house at around 12:30PM on the 24th of December.  We braved a bit a traffic on our way to our parents house in La Crescenta.

We arrived after Sally & Roger did, so Dave & I needed to take a few breaks before secretly wrapping our gifts without the little girls finding out what they have received!

We enjoyed a tasty dinner of burritos and tamales, but not before stuffing ourselves full of cookies 🙂  After dinner, we unwrapped presents.  Leila made me an aluminum robot.  It’s pretty cool.  I’ve placed it in my room.  We had a standard gift exchange, and Jenny‘s boyfriend, Gavin, bought me an iTunes gift card, which is always very useful!

We also had a joke-gift white elephant exchange.  I scored with a handheld 100 vs one electronic handheld game.  The best present was brought by Sally, and it was a football which held snacks.  Each time the football was opened, it played an NFL-themed song.  Leila was happiest with her gift of a 5 pound chocolate Easter Bunny.  She wouldn’t let anyone get near it.  Keana was able to open up more presents than anyone else!

I bought a few books for Keana and Leila, and I also bought them some Remote Controlled Helicopters.  I thought that they would really like them, but they both weren’t too excited about that gift when they opened them.  Sally was amazed, and she was pretty stoked, so hopefully they enjoy those presents!

On Christmas Morning I woke up and opened up our stockings.  We were given the standard stuff (toothpaste, shampoo, etc).  I also found out my parents gave me some new lock cores for my Yakima rack, and some random binoculars.  (4×30)

Later, we opened presents.  My parents also bought me an iPod Nano (to give me something to ski/run with) and a really cool Coleman Fishing Pen.  My brother also bought me an iPod Nano (4G), but I took it back to Fry’s and bought an Airport Extreme Base Station instead.

I bought Dave some Tahitian beer and a bottle of Scotch.  Dave & I pooled our money together to get some ceiling speakers for my parents.  They weren’t really sure what they wanted, so we owe them a rain-check.

Needless to say, I’m lucky to have a great family!