Dublin Day 17: The Search for Power

Mercury Retrograde is in full swing and with it comes all the joys of electronic malfunction.

I came here with three pieces of technology: iPhone, Lumix and MacBook. And it didn’t take long to max out everything. As in no space available on on any one piece of hardware. But what can you do when you’re traveling to Emerald City and every bridge, street and building serves as creative inspiration that you must capture?

Today all this activity and my mistrust of cloud storage all catapulted as not only did everything hit max capacity, but, also, the wobbly middle surge prong on my computer’s power chord snapped off.  And then vanished. Replacing the MacBook power chord is pricey and frankly I have no idea where to get one around here. I’m no electrician, so I did what I usually do when I need an answer – I asked the question on Facebook. And quickly friends responded. Luckily, Art Pagsuyoin gave the right answer. (Thank you, Art!)

Mean time, the #DJIFF staged a previously scheduled program on special effects and it all took place right here, in Smithfield Square. While the temperature dipped to a windy and cold late afternoon, the crowd gathered to watch the weather machine produce rain and snow, trained stuntmen shoot at each other, a man set on fire and then a car blow up. I got to watch all this from the best possible view, excited to record the events.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, the phone stopped recording the video after 19 seconds and when I removed some older videos, accidentally deleted the one of the staged shooting and then when the car was being blown up, the thumb hit the wrong part of the screen and bottom line I got bubcus.

After all that wrapped up, put on the warmer jacket and headed downstairs to find an electronics store. A girl from earlier in the day said that there’s one just down the street, parallel to the river. As I walked west, didn’t see one, so stopped at a pharmacy, where the very nice pharmacist gave very specific directions to find three electronic stores. “Walk along the path of the tram train, pass Four Courts and on the second stop you’ll arrive at the Jervis Centre.”

I thanked the polite man and continued on my adventure to find my power tools.

It was rush hour and between all the pedestrian traffic, crammed trams, filled buses and zippy cars, I could feel the hustle of the city transitioning into the weekend. I could also feel the wind and the drizzle of the on and off rain.

After I thought I reached the right street, but couldn’t find a single electronics shop, asked a lady for directions and she pointed me towards the same place as the pharmacist. Turns out I was on track, but had one more block to go. And then I saw it: the mall! While these days I have no desire to partake in mall activity, back in the day, I spent nearly a decade working in plenty of them. And I still know how to navigate them, quickly.

Once inside the brightly lit and busy shopping metropolis, found the electronics store. Unfortunately, they didn’t have either thing that I was looking for. But the helpful employee suggested to go to another shoppe. “You need Maplin. Go left, then right and it’ll be on your left.”

At this point, the sun had completely set and the city transformed. Add the mist, the cobblestone and the lights of modern technology and suddenly, there was tremendous atmosphere.

I did find the store the previous gentleman suggested, but the lights were out. It closed at 6. And it was just after.

I saw a woman and her young son waiting. A store employee came forth and thought she was looking for a job application and slipped her one thru the cracks of the doors. “No, open up,” she demanded. Apparently she left something there earlier and had to pick it up. As the doors opened, I had a sense of hope. “Hi, I know you’re closed,” I pleaded, “but the surge prong on my power chord snapped and my computer’s all out of memory. Do you sell a surge adapter?”

The young man graciously let me in and showed me exactly what I needed. He had no idea how ecstatic I was. “Do you also sell jump drives? I need the one with the most memory you got.”

“We have one that’s 64 gigs. It’s our own brand.”

“Great! I’ll take it.”

His coworker rang me up and relieved I left the store. I then walked back the original mall and thanked the previous store employee for sending me into the right direction. At this point, I was tired and hungry, so headed to the food court for something to eat. All places, except for Kentucky Fried Chicken were, you guessed it, closed. Then taking the escalator down, saw a nice buffet joint where customers were eating quiche and salad. As I approached the counter, the floor-sweeping employee proclaimed, “For take away only.” This is how they say “to go” or “carry out” here.

Back to Smithfield, I headed. The pubs along the way weren’t being too inviting and, so, in the light rain, reached the grocery store by my building, bought a sandwich, tuna pasta salad, a snack bag of Doritos and a pint of Haagen Dazs Secret Sensations. My computer wasn’t the only thing out of juice.

As I finally made it back to the flat and unlocked the door, walked straight upstairs and dropped the coat and bags on the bed. I sensed some level of relief, realizing that the real test of today was still ahead. So I ripped open the jump drive package and finding a pair of scissors cut open the plastic case protecting the adapter. The sleek, black, round adapter looks like something out of the future and it has a surge protector and can be used in the US, UK and Europe. The jump drive? Well, it’s a thing of beauty. 64 gigs! That’s massive.

Both items did the trick. The world reached its equilibrium. I have the storage and the power to keep going. Well, tonight, at least my computer does.