So I'm busy working on my computer at the office (Well, actually, it's after lunch and I'm reading some online comics before my lunch hour is up), and my computer starts to hitch.

It's like there's some process running somewhere that's all bogged down. Every move of the mouse or action in a window causes everything to stall for like ten seconds. Complete freeze. No keyboard, no mouse. Even trying to access the Task Manager causes things to slow down even more.

Frustrated, I do a hard boot -- that'll kill all the nasty processes dead.

And then the restart takes forever. The very boot up causes the computer to freeze up.

I try it again. And I get a message I've never even heard of. "SMART Hard Drive detects imminent failure!" Basically my hard drive was warning me it was planning to morph from storage device to bear trap, chewing up all my data before transforming one last time into its final form -- solid-state doorstop.

I was able to get all the local data off before complete collapse, and the desktop support guys here tell me they might be able to fire a new drive into it sometime Tuesday. I'm using the computer of the guy on our team who's on vacation (thus the slowdown in entries around here) and may be relegated to a laptop next week until my machine gets rebuilt.

Sigh.

It serves as a strong reminder that absolutely nothing I do at work can be done without a computer. Seriously. My entire career is wrapped around a bunch of electrons whipped into line by my Cowboy Computer. I write, edit, design, fix, create, and manage all online. My files are stored somewhere in the network and I can (for the most part) access them from any terminal in the building.

I am virtual. Nothing I do is real.

What does this mean for my legacy? Seriously, what am I creating that has any long term impact on the future? I build no bridges to cross, no buildings to dwell in, no monuments for pigeons to poop on. Every piece of work I have created in the last ten years could be wiped away with a strong magnet.

Damn, I have got to get something published in an actual book or magazine.

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