Killing time at the airport

I'm stuck at Dulles Airport waiting for a delayed flight to Savannah GA to spend a weekend with my youngest sister.  It's catchup time -- just us girls-- to reconnect as our lives have drifted apart for the last couple of years.  I don't travel much anymore and am glad of it, so to be delayed late at night and then arrive at 1AM is not at the top of my list of fun things to do.

Dulles has grown up.  The "people movers" are gone.  Instead of piling in those oversized buses to cross from the main terminal to the outer terminal, there are sleek automated driverless trains, and then lighted floors guiding me on the long walk down sterile shiny halls full of Mariah Carey's voice softly floating through the air.

At gate C28X at the very end of the hall, I sit with quiet people buried in books (yes, actual printed books), tablets, smart phones or laptops.  A few children, wrapped up in their jammies, whine.

There's a guy standing about 15 feet from me eating from a fruit cup while he talks on his smart phone via earphone and wire about Republican politics, senators and players.  I catch references to Goldwater and "thanks for jumping on that for me."  During his second phone call, he tosses the fruit cup into a nearby bin then calmly sips his Starbucks coffee.  Soon, he's onto a third call which has lasted for some time now.

The dude's well cut suit, light blue shirt and dark blue tie separate him from the rest of us.  He would be handsome if he were taller and his shoes weren't scuffed. The rest of us are in jeans, sweats, and are generally wrinkled, showing the wear of a long day. The worst of waiting passengers wear tight shirts that reveal lumps that are definitely not worth sharing and they really don' look good when the shirt is pink.  Then there's the lady speaking into her phone as if it were a walkie talkie while she pushes, not pulls, her carry on bags.  Another guy is blowing his nose into his handkerchief while he searches for his gate.  We are a motley crew, except of course for the Republican operative.  It must be swell to be so sure that your are so important.

We have a launch date!

It all started on March 23, 2012 when the braces holding Forte Vento steady on land while she was getting a fresh bottom paint job gave way in the night.  Now, over a year later and some $65000 in repairs (luckily covered by the marina's insurance) she's like new (even better than new) and will go back into the water on April 21st.  All she needs is the bottom paint, deck and hull cleaning and waxing, and the installation of the main sail before she splashes into the Chesapeake.  A short tuning sail to ensure her mast is aligned properly will make her "good to go."

John and I will both take the day off work to witness this most momentous event.  We've missed Forte Vento.  If you have ever experienced a house disaster, you know how we have felt this past year. We've learned how much it means to have a place to which we can escape.  We've missed the water, the wind, even the sudden rain storm in the heat of the summer.  Somehow being on the water had become part of us and we wanted it back.  We'll have it again soon.  We feel like expectant parents.

ZAPPED!

I never thought it would happen to me.  I've heard that it happened to others, but not to me.  No way. 

A 24 hour snow fall shuttered the government last Thursday, so I sat at the dining room table teleworking from my PC.  Not the fasted machine in the camp, but it was a productive day.  I pounded out a risk analysis of one of our major applications and was pleased with it.  I saved it to my official encrypted flash drive, not saved it to my desktop.  That was the last thing that happened before a sinister force took over my PC.  In a matter of seconds all my applications and most of my files had been overwritten with some kind of software that looks like Office Word asking me to select the Asian language I wanted to work in. 

"This can't be happening,"  I screamed by the computer. "I've got two kinds of anti-virus software.  I back up my files to a cloud service every week,"  I moaned, thrusting my hands into the air, pleading to the computer gods.
 
I typed furiously, trying to find an application that worked, then I tried to access the flash drive.  The machine didn't recognize it.  I snapped out the flash-drive hoping against hope that it was not corrupted.  It would be impossible to recreate the paper! 

Thinking that I had been injured somehow, John  rushed out of his home office. "What's happened?  Are you alright?"  I explained.  Like the EMT volunteer he once was, he took direct and immediate action, "Disconnect from the Wi-Fi and then turn off your PC.  You don't want the cloud service to do another backup now that everything has been overwritten."  I did as I was told. My forehead fell onto the dead keyboard. I felt hopeless.  It was like loosing a buddy, a reliable friend who was always there when I needed her.  We'd spent over five years together.

John consoled me.  "This can be fixed.  It's not a fatal blow, but surgery is needed." 
Today, I turned over my friend to the Geek Squad.  The young woman gave me hope. "These old machines are sturdy.  Don't buy a new one.  Give us three or four days and we'll bring her back to life."  I smiled.  I have hope.