Well, a lot has happened over the past 10 years or so.

Digital camera...check. Flash Drive...check. WiFi...check(ish). Ipod...that plays music, right?

I gotta stop there...because there are things out now that I either haven't heard of, or haven't realized I needed yet. So since I spent the past 7 years basically pregnant, I am now going backwards to learn about things I missed.

Here's my latest learn. Thanks to a tech at protonic.com I learned about this new little gadget...apparently not so new though.

A few months ago a power surge zapped the mother board in my Sony Vaio laptop. I was seriously crushed. CRUSHED. While I had backed up all of my design projects literally days before, I merely thought I had backed up all of my genealogical data. Not the case. Any genealogist knows that losing your gedcom is tragic. TRAGIC.

Okay, good news, the data is still on my Vaio hard drive. I just need a new motherboard....at a hefty price tag of $500-$700. I love you old girl, but not THAT much. You just cradle my files until mama thinks of something to make it ALL better.

I digress. I go to protonic.com and whine to them "The Geek Squad wants to charge me $100 to get the data from my hard drive!!" and my friendly tech responds with an answer that seems just too easy.

A hard drive disc enclosure. Brand new they cost about $30. Ebay....$10 -- that's 50¢ + $9.50 s/h, of course. But it's a far cry from a new motherboard!

So in my overzealousness I bid, won & paid in 15 minute's time and am eagerly awaiting the gadget. Apparently I just pull out the HD from my Vaio, plug it in this little enclosure, and it connects to my PC via USB cable. Here I am in absolute AWE that this exists about 5 years too late...the little orange-light-blinking flash drive I see out of the corner of my eye is screaming for recognition, "I'm better! I'm newer! PICK ME! PICK ME!"

...and I do! But not before I retrieve my gedcom...and then only until the next cool thing comes along. Like a scan-bar for my wrist which contains every memory I've ever had. Sniff...sniff...I smell the mark of the beast.

Sorry, but apparently my loyalty lies in what's to come.