"What do you mean, never?"

So, my work machine (geskekelud) died on Friday. Today, they tell me that the drive is broken enough that it can't be mounted on a good machine. And they (for other values of they) tell me that my local files were never backed up. Now, I know I ran the backup GUI and selected directories and told it to go, but maybe there was some "yes, really" button I didn't click. I'm not usually inept at software, but it was long enough ago that I don't remember clearly.

There's not a lot gone. Old zephyr logs. Kludgey perl scripts that it would do me good to rewrite. justom's cycling archives and twe's mud (which I have to feel more guilty about losing).

But my copy of my thesis is gone, too. (Quotas were smaller then.) It was a stupid junky thesis, and I'm never going to be an immunologist again, and I didn't ever read it except to reference how to bibtex URLs for class help, but I'm still strangely mourning it. Like putting the cat to sleep at age twenty-one when she's gotten too old to walk or see or enjoy living any more. Except that's a stupid metaphor too.

Goodbye, little cat. Goodbye, stupid thesis that taught me I shouldn't be a scientist.

Damn.