Death and Rebirth of a Computer

Isn't amazing what the death of a home computer can cause? We don't realize how much we depend and rely on our computers until they crash. This happened to us Thursday afternoon. Our computer flat lined and we flew into panic mode.

First, denial. We both continued to restart the computer, turn it off manually, even unplugging it in hopes that by some strange power-off-power-on miracle we could bring the computer back to life.

Anger. Yelling at the computer may not help, but letting loose a few expletives at least made me feel better. It didn't bring our home page up or suddenly bring the router to life, but it was better than tossing the whole pc and monitor out of the window, which was where I was headed.

Grief. The complete devastion when suddenly you realize that your entire life, well, at lease since 1999, is on the computer. The pictures, videos, manuscripts, recipes, scanned drawings, business portfolios, my thesis...Depression sets in. All is lost. Might as well begin to drink heavily to erase one's mind of all history as well.

Hope. There has to be some Geek-God out there that can fix it, bring it all back to life. There is. There was. The Ram Guy was outstanding. He not only rid our computer of its plague ( a Norton security glitch of all things), but gave it a good detox and a little make over. I barely recognized it when it came home. It was sleeker, faster, with new little gadgets and programs.

Relief. All is saved. Now, we buy an external drive and a whole lot of backup flashdrives. I'm backing up everything at least three times in three ways. One to have at the desk, one to put in the firebox, and one to keep in my purse.

Whew.