I think the universe is telling me something...

So there I was last weekend, trying to be a good computer citizen and attempting to back up my data before hitting the road for six months. My dad was kind enough to be concerned about my lack of external backup capacity and showed up with a harddrive enclosure and a used but definitely still functional 20GB harddrive for my use. All well and good and I'd be meaning to reformat my Mac for ages (it's been slow like cold molasses of late). So I moved my data (photos, music, all my academic work for the three years I've owned the computer) over to the external drive so that I could reformat the Mac. And then the external drive died. Dead, beyond recovery, just plain finished. O-kaaay. Thanks for that! Then I thought it would be a good opportunity to retrieve my data from my *old* laptop, a task that I've been meaning to get to for years. All well and good. I managed to move my data off the main drive onto a (different) external drive. Then I reformatted the external one and moved my data back onto it once the computer verified that all was working appropriately. And then Windows decided that I really shouldn't be able to eject the newly reformatted drive, after all. So I powered down the computer, and removed the portable drive. Of course (and I'm *really* starting to believe at this point that O'Toole's commentary on Murphy was bang on ("Murphy was an optimist...")) the PC no longer loads windows. No, I have a "drive configuration hardware error." Riiight. Which leads me to the realisation that the universe is trying to tell me something. Namely, "worry about packing, getting on the road, and enjoying the trip that you've been planning for ages. Not computers. Not work for January. Just the Now."

Okay, okay! I surrender.