So here’s the deal. I spent the weekend up in Toronto, covering the National Basketball League of Canada’s 2012 combine and draft. I saw a lot of my old friends there – owners and coaches and front office people. It was a great time, and I took some awesome photos of the draft party.
Tuesday morning, I had to get on the road early to return home. Apparently Highway 401 in Toronto also doubles as a parking lot, so if I didn’t get up with the crack of dawn, I’d probably still be in Toronto at sunset. And that wasn’t going to work out for me.
I packed all my gear – laptop, camera, clothing, some souvenirs – into Cardachrome, programmed the GPS to at least get me to the border, and Let’s Go, Cardachrome – next stop, home.
The drive was uneventful… crossed the border… Buffalo… Rochester… and then I decided to pit stop and take a driving break.
Grabbing my laptop bag, I went into the Thruway rest area. The Thruway offers free wi-fi, and I wanted to make absolutely sure everything the NBL-C needed from me, it received. Okay, there’s a booth. Unzip the bag, plug the power cord into the wall –
Power cord, power cord –
Where’s my laptop’s power cord?
And in a moment, I realized what happened.
During the draft, I had to relocate my equipment from my original setup point. Since there wasn’t an available plug at the new location, I simply unplugged my laptop and used its battery power to get through the night. But when I packed everything back into my laptop bag, I must have forgotten to grab the power cord from its old location.
Where it’s probably STILL PLUGGED IN.
This is my head banging against a wall.
I’m already in the United States and halfway home. Turning around and crossing the border just for a power cord isn’t financially feasible.
There’s one chance and one chance only.
Let’s Go, Cardachrome – next stop, get to the Capital District and find my local Computer Renaissance store.
See, I purchased this laptop last year from Computer Renaissance after my five-year-old Sony VAIO laptop eventually keeled over. Computer Renaissance has tons of computer parts and accessories. So I had to hope that Computer Renaissance might have a replacement power cord. If not…
Forget “if not.”
It’s 2:00 p.m., and I arrive at the Latham Computer Renaissance store. “Hi,” I said to the worker on duty. “I need to get a replacement power cord for my Toshiba laptop.”
She looked at my laptop, and then walked over to one of the display counters. There’s a loose plug. We test it out. Laptop powers up.
“That’ll be $20 and tax,” she smiled.
Fantastic. Computer Renaissance saved my bacon.
It’s definitely nice to know that there are companies I can count on in case something bad happens – car breaks down, call AAA. Camera needs a sensor cleaning, call Allen at CameraWorks in Latham.
That also extends to computer service and repair. Thank God that I had the foresight to go to Computer Renaissance for a replacement laptop power lug, and thank God that they had one available.
Sometimes you can make chicken salad out of chicken feathers.
Chuck The Writer 
I miss CompUSA at Latham Farms.
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I’m on a first-name basis with the folks at my local CR. I’ve purchased two refurbed machines from them in the past six years, gotten incredibly good advice from them (dumping the memory hog of Norton Utilities for one) and even had them get rid of nasty malware that got by my virus protection. Two thumbs-up for an excellent example of customer service.
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