When great laptops go bad
Today is a sad day.  It's one of those days that you know will be here one day, but you hope it never comes anyway. 

The day started like a typical winter day in CT.  Wake up, clean up, go clean 5 inches of snow off my car, goto work.  Get to work, and the nomalities continue.  Send out a few emails, check a few things, fire up vs.net *slam on brakes*.  BSOD.  Huh?  Shit.

Reboot, and everything looks ok up to the login prompt (yeah really, that far).  Login, BSOD.  ...  Rince repeat BSOD.  ...  At this point I want to cry.  Boot into Knopix, and I can see everything on the drive, so that helps my sanity level.   Also, since I can boot into Knopix I'm pretty well assured the issue is a software one.

I have been using my personal laptop at work since I was hired.  Not because the company wouldn't furnish me one, but I love my thinkpad, and my mgr was kind enough to make an exception.  Today ends that tradition, though.  Within a couple hours of the crash, I had a new company issued HP laptop.

So now starts the long and painful process of moving my life.  We all go through it, so I won't complain about that too much (other then company issued laptops don't have 2k3 on them like my shiny broken thinkpad).  Such a sad day. 

So far, though, the HP is ok.  The screen pails in comparison, but it seems quite a bit faster.  The new laptop adds new features like cd burner, and bluetooth, which are nice, but I'm still to freaked out by the wierd colors and new keyboard to even look at those. 

There is one plus that comes out of this.  I think I am going to take the thinkpad and retire it from production, but move it to a new position in the iceglue family, "beta machine".  So if nothing else, at least I can now have a dedicated laptop to play with Yukon and Whidbey.

All I can say..  sad day..  sad day..  RIP minime (AKA my thinkpad t30).