Saturday morning the iPad was not finished. Casey had not seen the third and last Hobbit movie (The Battle of the Five Armies) and I hadn’t seen it either, so we went to the 3:05 pm movie. It is clearly coming to the end of its first run as the movie was in one of the small theaters that seats maybe 65 people. The movie was two-thirds full, so people are still going.

I thought the movie was just OK. Some of the “tension” between the elves and dwarves as a bit contrived and the battle scenes themselves a bit anti-climatic, particularly thinking back to “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King” and those epic battles. However, I enjoyed the movie and am very happy I was able to see it on the Big Screen.

On the way back to Jaelene’s, I called the fixit store and the iPad was finished. I picked it up, the price was as quoted, and dropped off my MacBook. It is supposed to be done not later than Wednesday. It’ll be very nice to have both machines back in good working order.

Meanwhile, Casey has figured out what was the matter with Nina’s iPhone. She had no room left, even after deleting just about everything. In the storage management area the iPhone reported that she had about 12gb of photos. The Photo app reported no photos. Something was wrong. One of Casey’s friends suggested downloading an app to look into the iPhone’s file system (which Apple hides and makes very difficult to access). After trying a couple of apps, Casey found one that worked and located a folder with several hundred photos and videos that accounted for most of the unavailable space. He’s now downloading those items to her desktop where we’ll probably find these are photos that were already imported into iPhoto, where iPhoto thinks they’ve been deleted, but weren’t. I’m pretty sure the Apple Genius person would not have checked it out and just told her to wipe the phone and start completely over.

So, good Apple things are happening around here. Nina gets her iPhone back in good working order. My iPad now has a clear, uncracked screen, and my MacBook is being fixed as well.

Life is very good!

I uploaded a short video from the U-Pick orchard on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/9qAqqyf6Bkc

We had a fun time.

Saturday mornings the Farm at Agritopia has a u-pick event where one can buy a seven-pound seven dollar bag or a five-pound five dollar bag, pick the fruit from the trees in the orchard, and fill it with whatever is in season. Currently oranges, lemons, and grapefruit are available to be picked right from the tree.

We arrived at 9 am and the place was pretty busy. I learned upon arrival that they also had breakfast available! Maybe next time….

Both Nina and Jaelene got five-pound five-dollar bags and it didn’t take very long to fill them. It was a beautiful, sunny, cool morning. Madeline really enjoyed being out among the oranges.

The farm is part of a larger “Agritopia” planned community that includes places for residents to have garden plots, plenty of outdoor venus and events, and cozy housing. The project is being built on a former large farm.

Yesterday was the day I was supposed to be able to pick up my repaired iPad. The glass  was broken and needed to be replaced. I could either have the glass (which is called the “digitizer”) replaced at a store that does that kind of thing for $149 or I could go to the Apple Store and get a refurbished iPad for $249. I chose to have the glass replaced. However, it isn’t done. Sometime today, said the rather unhelpful guy who answered the phone. The implication was that by talking to him on the phone I was delaying the completion of the repair.

The problem is, my Macbook also has cracked glass. I didn’t want to turn them both in for repair at the same time and be completely without a computer. But, we’re leaving in a week and I don’t want to put our departure at risk of waiting for the Macbook to be completed. We also have an issue with the passenger side front tire on the motor home. It is significantly worn on the inside edge. It needs an alignment at minimum. This is the same tire that needed a new bushing, discovered when we had the flat tire in Peoria, Illinois.

I’m concerned that there may be more going on than just the need for an alignment. They did an alignment in Peoria, we had it checked again while we were in Connecticut where they said all was well. There needs to be a reason that it now has an alignment problem.

So, I’ll take it in someplace on Thursday and have it checked out. That way there’s a little room in case they have to wait for parts to come in. We’d really like to be on our way on Monday, February 16th!

Nina and Jaelene put together last night a kind of a schedule for the rest of the visit. We’ll be pretty busy next week! Meanwhile, a few more pictures:

I’ve no idea what kind of trees these are, except they probably aren’t citrus and most likely aren’t cherry trees. I’m guessing some kind of apple tree. The blossoms are pretty, though.

This is what fits into a five-pound five-dollar bag. Definitely could not get this much fruit for this price and at this freshness at the store.

A new donut shop opened up near Jaelene’s house and Friday was the first day of their grand opening. They’re looking for employees as well. So I suggested to Colten that he take me over there, I’d buy some donuts, and he could fill out an application. I bought a half-dozen very tasty donuts for $4.21.

Colten diligently filled out and turned in the application. Meanwhile, he does have an interview at an IHop nearby. Where would I rather work … IHop or a Donut Shop?