A Clean Slate - Man am I lucky.

Wow. I have just been afforded an opportunity of a lifetime that very few will experience. I have had everything I created, collected, designed, published, earned and shared completely wiped away. One day life was normal and the next day, different.
You see, I am in what you would call Information Technologies. I have been in this business for over twenty years. This led me to having a nice practice designing, developing, hosting, and marketing all sorts of solutions, both creative and technical, for myself and for my clients. These solutions evolved from early applications on Apple IIs and IBM PCs to fully scalable applications running major businesses. All of this was stored on multiple servers, backed up nicely to each other and on redundent disks. Servers came and went, system installs here and there, yet nary a bit was lost.

One night I was filling in for one of my workers at my little dry cleaners shop. Don't ask! Anyway, right before closing a police offer walks in to inquire about having his vest sewed. He seemed personable enough and when he saw my computer, a nice shiny PowerBook and a guitar, his detective instincts kicked in. Sure enough he started asking me all sorts of questions. Before I closed shop we had discussed Apple, music, 9/11, a major case, and finally politics. He then requested that I run for Alderman in Chicago. I jumped at the opportunity. I have been asked many a time to run for office. Now was that time. I could hardly sleep or contain myself that night. I can make a difference. I can win this thing.

Well that next morning I awoke to find my email not responding, and my website down? Hmmm, what could this be? Damn CIHOST is constantly bouncing their network in their Chicago datacenter. Will they every get their power problems recticified?
Next thing you know I was on the phone with one of my larger clients and he was joking about my servers getting stolen. Well little did I know how prophetic he turned out to be. What is it they say? "Many a truth is said in jest?" Shakespere.... right?

Well in fact, that night. The night after my meeting with Mr. Jackson, the police offer. The night I so graciously accepted his request to run for office. Well that night all my servers were stolen. Stolen from a secure, co-location facility in downtown Chicago. Stolen! I mean gone! I was crushed. I was doomed. I was freaking doomed. Oh Sh..... my offsite backups? fff....ffff...fff.ffkkkk... All my backups where on the different servers! I am freaking doomed (IAFD).

What was that about the Chinese for crisis?

So I started to run for office and I mean run. I was going to be the best damn Alderman the City of Chicago ever had. I was going to transform the 24th Ward. Yes sirree. This was ordained. This was a run for G-d! I was a shoe-in! And run I did. I ran straight into a brick wall called Chicago politics. Crushed and spit out as the rookie I was.

Ok, so maybe it wasn't ordained. All my walks through the ward were just some self-delusional moment of manic insanity. Ok fair enough, let me go crawl into my hole for month ok? I finally understood the term "licking ones' wounds". Nothing like experience to really be a good teacher.

Well, where was I? Oh yes a clean slate. Then, I remembered my previous bout with delusional dreams of greatness... my game! Yes my game! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes... my game. Time to do my game. I do have a clean slate. Mmmmm, the feel of the wind as I walk through life in a dream again. My star eyes back for another look. Oh yea, this is feeling good.