Stranded here on planet Earth

".....its not much, but it could be worse."

My computer - which I built sophomore year, here at Drake - is non-operational. The processor fan is either burned out or burning out and so I can't really use it. I mean, it will run, but eventually the processor itself will die and the rest of the parts with it and... well...

Back in high school I helped - along with a few other students - build all the computers in the building. By the time I'd graduated, I'd probably put together more than three dozen computer towers. Way more than that. I knew how to do it and I was good at it.

But then I stopped doing it and then I got parts from my parents to put my own together and, well... There is a difference when you are putting a computer together for a school and putting a computer together for yourself. If you really mess up at school, the school will frown upon it, sure, but they need those computers and so they will buy another one. If you screw up with your own, well.... You have to hope you had warranties on the parts and you have to hope that you backed up your hard drive onto some other form of information holding device.

Regardless, I took a lot more care in the construction of my own computer, whose name is Amalgamar because he is combined from parts of about three computers, now. And anytime there is a flaw or a strange noise or something is slow... I always flash back to that evening in my dorm room in GK, first floor... Lying on the carpet in barely any clothes (static free environment!) and putting those things together, and wondering what I'd done wrong.

The answer is probably nothing. The fan could have simply run its course (I've basically had my computer on non-stop since I got it up and running, back in 2005) and I have already ordered a replacement part. So, everything will be back to normal.

But the worst part is I'm stuck, here, now. In the library on campus, cut off from the E-LEC-TRONIC world (no idea why I broke it up like that, don't ask). I struggle without a constant online presence.

It will be an interesting 3-7 days...