I left my computer unattended for several days around Christmas. This was the real deal “off”. Meaning off-line, unpowered, disks spun down, etc… Nor was it just a hardware thing. I have multiple ways to access my blog (tablets and such) but I deliberately used them sparingly. (In a world of smart phone clutching monkeys I’m not sure if modern people truly understand the word “off”. Doubt me? If you can get a modern person far enough into the hinterland that their phone loses signal, watch them. It’s comic that they’re almost physical tied to the ‘net and the severing of such is not without consequences. They’ll check their completely dead phone on 15 minute cycles; like a lifelong smoker reaching for the next cancer stick. Even if you think you’re immune, you should test it to see. It’s worth periodically getting off the treadmill just to make sure you can still do it. As for me, I chuckle that my cell phone battery died while I sat by the fire sipping bourbon. I didn’t miss it but boy was the phone pissed off!)
The unfortunate truth is our machines are no longer “machines”. Our electronic lives are used to (and to some extent demand) constant cultivation. While I was carefully limiting my exposure to digital misery (it is simply a truth that most digital media is designed to foment unease in the viewer) all sorts of minor mayhem went down behind the scenes. Some updates happened that might have been a problem. One post vanished (don’t worry, it wasn’t a big deal). I think I lost e-mail for a while. Hosting may have been interrupted (or not). In part this is because I refuse to let software have the keys to my bank account so some “auto renew” stuff did not auto renew. (Self inflicted hassle or an abundance of caution? Embrace the use of “and”.)
Anyway, I’m back and I think I’ve got the engines on-line again. This little corner of what was once called cyberspace should be as stable as ever (now that I think about it, it has a pretty good track record for limited downtime considering how little I attend to basic maintenance).
If I was gone, or bounced an e-mail, or didn’t acknowledge something… sorry. Shit happens.