Jarbidge or Bust - "Overlanding" Nevada 2015

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After a brief wait, Associate #1 comes to help. I re-tell the story of what happened and why I am here and what I am looking for as an Apple customer.

I get the exact same body language from her - she totally gets why I am there, knows how to solve my problem easily and has the knowledge and hardware to do it quickly and singlehandedly.

She begins by collecting my phone information and AT&T account information. I am part of a family plan, of which I am NOT the account holder or an authorized user (have never needed to be before).

I'm thinking that this might be a good time to get a new version of the iPhone if they have some sort of deal for me. But, most importantly, I really need to back up my phone and leave with one that works.

She looks through the account and says that I am due for an upgrade in July (no idea why, because I'm not really eligible until December). I play along, thinking I can get a new phone, maybe they can prorate the fees since I am so close. However, they cannot do that.

She proceeds to give me the price of the latest and greatest phone - it is astronomical. I ask for the price of the same one I have, a 5-something with 32 GB of storage. Those are $600.

I ask about the super secret bro-deal phones that they have in the back for people in my situation (the ones that Pasquale told me about). She says that those are $269. "SOLD", I say.

I ask about backing the phone up to the new one so we can get this show on the road.

"Do you have it backed up to iCloud?"

No, because I've tried that and iCloud didn't have enough storage. Not to mention that when I use iCloud, all of my wife's and kids' sh!t ends up on my phone and I spend a week cleaning it back out.

"You can buy additional storage, and separate the accounts so that doesn't happen."

"I wish. I already have three, no four different iCloud accounts but they still merge as one."

She then asks if I have a back up in iTunes. I tell her that my computer is at home, and I rarely back it up for the same reasons as the iCloud thing.

I ask if they have a computer that can do that. She says no, the store computers blah, blah, blah something. No. But if I had a friend with me who had iTunes, he could back my phone up and install it on the new one.

YES!!! Alex has a MacBook 9000 with all the bells and whistles. It is not a PC, but an honest-to-goodness Apple, and we are docked in the Mothership herself, the Apple Store. YES!!! This lady is a GENIUS! This will be so easy!!!

We are going to out of here in no time!

(to be continued)
 
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Elsewhere the California duo arrives at the meet up spot and starts drinking beer....
 
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Alex, who has been patiently passing the time by keeping a running tally of the unbelievably high number of flatbillers, runs out to the truck and brings back his computer, an Apple product btw, and proceeds to fire up iTunes.

We are both a little apprehensive that I can plug my iPhone into his iTunes for a back up despite being linked to a different account. Surely one of will walk away with the other's settings on our device.

An indication of the emotional roller coaster of fun we are about to experience, his computer blacks out. "That has never happened before..." he says ominously. He reboots and fires up iTunes. Like trying to boil water or grow grass, watching iTunes load does not speed up the process.

Finally the moment of reckoning has arrived. iTunes is loaded, Andy & Tom are sending pictures of beer to Alex, the meeting is fast approaching....

We plug in my phone and (my memory is a little fuzzy), iTunes asked something about wanting to do something - Yes! Do it! Whatever you're asking, Yes! iSync, iBackup, iStuff, whatever, that's what we want to do. Let's iTunes this puppy! Associate #1 is a MF'n GENIUS! I want to hug her right now!

The little thinking bar appears and then a message pops up to verify something on the phone. We look at the phone with silent nervous excitement.

Then the phone says...

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(to be continued)
 
Now your phone is a slave to that computer. Nice job!
 
We instinctively press "Trust" and, in the biggest letdown of the century, remember that the screen doesn't work. The phone rubs it in by doing nothing.

WAIT! Siri still works! We take turns speaking to Siri in caveman gibberish, trying to get Siri to push "Trust" from the backside of the screen. Siri, in no uncertain terms tells us " I cannot do that".

We spend the next twenty minutes trying to navigate the settings menu with Siri, hoping to stroke her electrons just right enough to grant us access.

Siri is not having it.

Meanwhile Associate #1 has handed us off to Tech Support #1 and tries to walk away to find easier prey. We try and hold on to her. We know that she is our lifeline to a new phone and that we will have to start the whole process over if she leaves us.

She stays for a moment and then, like Houdini, vanishes right before our eyes.

TS#1 has to be told the same traveling/dead phone/new phone story. I am tired of telling it. I thought the blue haired girl typed all this in to your big brother database?

TS#1 tries his own special tricks, which do not work. He reboots the phone by holding down the two buttons, because sometimes "that's all it is".... thats not all it is this time.

I ask if they have a master computer here that can be "trusted"... after all, this is the homeland Mecca of all Apple products, THE Apple MF'n Store, and if you can't trust the computer behind the counter at the Mothership, then who the hell can you trust? Blank stares.

WTF?? This is a seriously flawed system if you can't get your data off an otherwise working piece of hardware by plugging into a diagnostic computer at the Apple Store, with a certified Apple Genius behind the keyboard. They are basically telling me that they themselves can't be "Trusted".

My heart sinks. My spirit has been broken.

By now, Associate #2 has come to the rescue. She has that same body language that tells me she can help and totally understands my problem. After telling my story one MORE time, she summons over TS#2, who also needs to hear the story.

TS#2, without saying a word, takes the phone and holds down the home button for a special kind of reboot.

This time it's lights out. It powers off and cannot be turned back on. We wait a minute or so and nothing happens. He has sucked what little life force is left out of the phone.

TS#2 pulls a Houdini, as does TS#1. We all grab Associate #2. We are not letting her out of our sights.

She radios a manager or another associate or something. We have to brief yet another person on the situation.

I decide that recovering the data this morning is a lost cause. I will take it home, have the screen replaced at a bootleg phone shop, "Trust" the computer, back it up, at home. But I still need a phone.

I ask about the bro deal for $269. The Bro-Deal phone is a new phone, but comes with no box, charger or ears buds. Hell yeah. Let's do this.

The catch is that I have to hand over my old phone, which I'm not willing to do.

The Bro-Deal is off the table. I can buy a new one for $600, a new iPhone 6 for five figures OR , since I am an AT&T customer, I can do the NEXT plan and pay for the phone for $30 over 24 months.

Not wanting to be tied for something for 24 months when they say I am due for a phone upgrade this year, I start doing a cost benefit analysis in my head.

Just then, the Apple logo appears on the screen of my phone. Then the home screen pops back up. Like Lazarus, back from the dead. The screen still didn't respond to touch though.

Then she says "you can return any apple product within 14 days" if you can get your old one to work after you get home".

This requires running another cost benefit analysis with this new information.

Still not believing that I can't extract the data from my phone, I agree to the NEXT plan. I also spring for the Apple Care for $99 in case this phone decides to go swimming. I have to return it in 14 days after all.

(hang in there, there is still another twist to the story. To be continued...)
 
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Associate #2 brings out my shiny new iPhone 5 and whips out her tablet thing where I enter the last four digits of the primary account holder's SS# and HIS phone number. This is to breach the AT&T firewall to get my new phone set up.

She does a bunch of typing and other stuff and then hands me the tablet and instructs me to enter the same information one more time.

We are setting up the phone and miraculously I do have one ancient iCloud update, which preloads at least some of my contacts.

We get to the part where you select which of the phone #'s and iCloud accounts you can use to send & receive.

I start unchecking all but mine when I notice that I can't uncheck my dad's phone number.

I mention this to Associate #2, who says "That's the number that this phone has been activated to"

WHAT??? "So my Dad's phone, as of one minute ago, has been de-activated from the AT&T network?"

"Yeah"

:bang::bang::bang::bang::bang::bang:

"Is your Dad near an AT&T store where he can go get it turned back on"?

At that very moment, my parents are halfway across the state of Tennessee, driving on the interstate, who knows where, on their way to Asheville, NC to see my brother.

I relay this information and confirm that my dad, who was just minding his own business, driving down the road, has now had his phone disconnected. Yep.

:bang::bang::bang::bang::bang::bang::bang::bang:

I ask Alex, who by now is probably regretting calling to meet in Colorado, if I can borrow his phone to call my mom and try and explain the situation.

I call her but get no response. Great. It's probably off or on silent or buried in her purse.

Figuring she just doesn't recognize the number, I call her back via FaceTime on Andrews iPod. She answers this time. We are in two different worlds right now, mine being the Twilight Zone. I just want to bring them up to speed on the situation, and she, not knowing any of this, is asking about our trip and how it is going.

I apologize for all this, thinking she understands what's going on now, explain that I can't chit chat and then hang up.

Ok, Ms. Associate #2, lets just disconnect his number and put in my number, the one that should be right there in your big brother tablet along with my physical description and the description of my problem that I have to keep repeating.

"It's not that easy. First, we have to return that phone, issue you a refund, and then start over with an entirely new phone."

:bang::bang::bang::bang::bang::bang::bang:

$&@%#?€£¥!!!!

I was so close! I had a new phone in my hand! We were almost able to leave the Mothership Apple and get on with our life!

So, we start over. This time she is more specific in her instruction about when to enter my dad's phone number and when to enter mine.

Finally. FINALLY. Finally we have a phone and can leave. Well, almost. We still need to get my Dad's phone reconnected.

She calls AT&T and I have, what I'm sure is very confusing for the both of us, a conversation with the AT&T lady to sort through which phone is which and whose is connected and disconnected and I think we finally have it wrapped up.

I call my mom back and tell her that it should be fixed soon, and to expect a call from AT&T on HER phone with further instruction, blah blah blah.

We get the hell out of there as fast as we can and race to Whole Foods as we have now missed the cutoff for meeting up at noon.
 
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wngrog said:
You are why I don't caravan.....hell, you are why I hate people at this point.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I effed up the ride home too.

I try not to be "that" guy, but it was my turn, I guess.
 
pmccraney said:
BTW: It's crazy how much your son looks like you...

Related: How long do you think it will be before he admits that he dunked your phone in the water?
Click to expand...

I definitely wear the genes in this household. I'm not sure my wife contributed any DNA.

Only the phone knows who knocked it off the dash, and it's not talking. It's gone back to be with Mother-Apple anyway.

I took it by two different bootleg phone repair shops - the had real Asian and Indian kids working on them, not hipsters like the Apple Store.

One even went out of his way to try and clean the corrosion, but no dice.

Luckily, I had texted a few pics of the ride out or posted in the pic of the day thread. Still, I lost a lot of awesome pics. I was probably most bummed about that.
 
We dash into the madness that is Whole Foods on a Saturday morning. I pick up some ethically tortured sausage and some organic this and gluten-free that. I also pick up another six gallons of water.

We get outside to find that it is raining. Bleh. I also find that Alex has had enough of caravaning with me and split to meet up with everyone else (I'm bad luck at this point).

I'm putting away the groceries, re-organizing my fridge and kitchen box and getting soaked in the process. I'm putting away a 2.5 gal jug of water when it slips from my hands, hits the ground and busts open.

Great. We are going to die now. Instant desert death because we are only going to have 8-1/2 gallons of water now instead of the 10+.

I top off my Sceptor with what didn't spill out, jump in the truck, and race back to Sparks (we are 15 mins away in Reno).

I plug in the restaurant to Google Maps and take off. Except the map never loads. I still have lots of phone setup to do before it is a useful device again. Ugh.

I get that working, get my bearings, and peel out.

We get to the Great Basin Brewing Company and wash away the Apple Store with a tasty local craft brew. We slam some food and roll out.

After a few stops in town, we make our way to the trail, which starts just past Pyramid Lake, which is HUGE. Like Lake Tahoe huge. Who even knew this was here?

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Somewhere beside the lake, pavement gives way to gravel and we blast off toward Gerlach where we are going to meet up with spressomon.

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We stop briefly at Planet X Pottery in Gerlach to see Dan, who was bartending at their Memorial Day Weekend party.

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This place is a cool little oasis in the middle of the desert.

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Alex has given Andrew a job - to take as many pictures and videos as he can with the GoPro and Andrew is working overtime.

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