It was quite annoying – and not app specific.

After a bit of time, things got worse — occasional crashes (without warning) and every once in a while the “Eject” symbol would come up on screen – sometimes accompanied by the *ejecting* sound… sometimes not.  It really seemed like an OS problem so I went ahead and re-installed, but it quickly became evident that things were still on the decline.

When the OS re-install didn’t work, my next thought was that maybe there was a keyboard problem – causing the machine to basically think that I was flooring the eject button all day (er something like that).  The guys at the Apple Store seemed to think that made a bit of sense as well and decided to replace the keyboard and top plate (or whatever it’s called) on the machine.

Of course, as with any machine that you have a warranty on, it was expired by 2 weeks… the difference was that where your car dealer normally laughs and says “that’ll be $2,300″ – the Apple guy laughs and says “close enough, we’ll cover it”.  I have no idea how much the repair would actually cost but I was really happy to hear that.  The machine was ready later that day and (knock on wood) appears to be fixed.  I’ve got things restored and have been cruising along without issues.

Actually, I do need to find out how much this repair would have cost.  The feel of the machine is completely different with the new keyboard – it literally feels like a brand new machine to me.  Especially since the OS is completely re-installed (I decided to start from scratch and only bring “old stuff” over to this machine when I realize that I really miss it… so far nothing).  If the cost is reasonable, I might actually consider having it replaced next time I’m feeling like the machine is getting a little stale!

And they all lived happily ever after.  The End.

Here’s what I’ve got (basically) so far.