In the last few weeks a couple of happy MacBook Air users experienced frustration and actual physical injury while traveling with their luscious little laptops.  If you’re not familiar with the MacBook Air, it’s Apple’s new ultra-light, ultra-thin, ultra-cool, “world’s thinnest” notebook computer.

The first traveler, blogger Michael Nygard, was going through security at the airport, rushing to make a flight.  He placed his new MacBook Air on the conveyor belt to go through the x-ray machine, then walked through the metal detector.  On the other side he was taken aside to a partitioned cubicle, where his MacBook Air sat on a table.  As is the TSA practice, he couldn’t touch it or pick it up.

Behind him TSA agents discussed his MacBook Air.  “There’s no drive,” one said. “And no ports on the back.  It has a couple of lines where the drive should be,” she continued.  She was, of course, referring to the two 32 GB RAM cards that make up the MacBook Air’s optional solid-state hard drive – no moving parts.

To make a short story long, a younger, tech-savvy TSA employee tried to come to Mr. Nygard’s aid.  He examined the x-ray printout and explained to the other agents that the MacBook Air was a “real” laptop, not a “device”.  However, a skeptical supervisor intervened and required Mr. Nygard to open the “device” and run a program.  He did, and the supervisor reluctantly let him through the checkpoint.

Of course, by then Nygard’s flight had pushed back and left the gate without him.

Apparently, owning a MacBook Pro can also be hazardous to your health.  Viewers of PBS’s popular Charlie Rose Show on March 17^th were stunned to see Mr. Rose open his show with a bad black eye and a bandage on his forehead.  Mr. Rose didn’t explain on-the-air the source of his injuries.  However, when asked by reporters, the show’s producers announced that Mr. Rose sustained the injuries when he tripped in a pothole while walking on 59^th Street in Manhattan (and who hasn’t done that?).

He was carrying his brand-spanking-new MacBook Pro, and apparently decided to hit the pavement face first, rather than risk damaging his MacBook Air by cushioning his fall.  Ouch.  According to the show’s producers, “the MacBook Air is fine, he showed us the blood stains on it this morning”.