Macbook Pro won't boot up - i have tried a few steps and still no luck

I have MCP late 2011 - running the latest Mountain Lion. I just had it at the apple store a few weeks ago for a routine checkup. Everything was fine.
I was using it last night and it locked up. I did a hard restart, got the startup chime, then the gear spinning, then shortly after the pointer appears. It turns to the pinwheel and sits forever. the white screen dims to a 'dirty white/brown' color and it will just stay like this.
I restart and enter safe boot. During the startup - I see the progress bar and it gets about 1/3 complete then the screen changes and the safe boot login page appears. I am the only user, along with the guest option. If I select my profile and password the gear will just spin forever and the pinwheel returns again. Nothing happens. If I select guest-- it will work.
Using guest - I used the disk utility. I repaired the disk - and it says everything is ok. I also repaired the disk permissions. It found a lot of problems with itunes and extensions from that. It states all have been repaired, however if I restart and then rerun the disk utility: it catches the same permission errors... like it never was repaired.
I also tried the FSCK after the command S startup ... it says it all was good but no change.
So - is it a problem with my profile? What am I missing? Is it the HDD? Is it the OSX? I travel extensively and I used my timemachine before I departed. I keep that at home as a safe copy... but now I am on the other side of the world!! AGHH!
This machine is still covered under applecare... until march. Help!?
Thanks - JC

Hello Jaycakes
The next thing to try is to reinstall OS X Mountain Lion, check out the articles below for further troubleshooting.
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
OS X Mountain Lion: Reinstall OS X
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10763
Regards,
-Norm G.

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http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1388
https://www.apple.com/support/osx/
https://www.apple.com/support/quickassist/
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/help/
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/tour/
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https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
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