Brain Surgery

Last night before heading out for a Cranium match with friends, my lovely little MacBook decided to freeze. And then it displayed a light blue screen of death while it made whimpering beep noises of despair. In an attempt to resuscitate (reboot in safe mode), it slipped away into a technological coma of unresponsiveness.

This morning I took it to the Apple Genius Bar and the news was bleak. (Um, where is the Apple version of Dr. House when you need him?) My hard drive had failed. Completely. It was exactly one month past the extended warranty. I got emotional.

Thankfully, the Apple Store is amazing with customer service and replaced the hard drive free of charge despite the warranty end date. But I was still depressed---everything was gone. Or so I thought. For one reason or another, I had some common sense back in January and backed up the majority of my important files on an external drive.

I share this cautionary tale so that you go---right now!---and back up all of your .jpegs, .docs, and .mp3s. Someday your computer might need brain surgery too, and it is absolutely not worth risking thousands of irreplaceable pictures just because you didn't check in on things once in a while. 

Thank you Apple Genius medical team---you have saved a life. This computer will just have to die another day. (And believe me, I'll be completely prepared next time.)