Recent events have continued to preoccupy me, and I'd like to share a few enduring lessons from these experiences.

1. My Private Meltdown

First, thanks for all the great suggestions for backing up your digital assets.

For pure inventiveness, the best post in that feedback thread had to be Tim Underhill's answer to my question about which tea ended up in my laptop. "Calami-Tea." It's the kind of wordplay that you wish you'd had the wit to dream up. Bravo, Tim.

(Of course, being my day's first cuppa, it was Earl Grey.)

Shout-outs as well to:

Vince Londini: Delighted you loved Ben Yagoda's new book, "When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better And/Or Worse." I couldn't agree more.  Check out this interview with Ben about an earlier book that's also a gem for writers.

Perle Champion: Thanks for the hope.

Bob Pepalis: Yours was a mirror image of my desperate attempt. There are some who'd say a good Pinot Noir is worth any laptop.

Don Lipper: I'll check out the online back-up services you described.

Genevieve Bookwalter: I considered telling our IT chief, Dave Pierson, that my cat knocked over the mug, but it's was such a transparent and lame excuse that I took the honest route.

M. Baker: I'm checking out the Lexar jump drive. Four gigs!

Lex Alexander : All I want for Christmas...  me too.

2. Status Report: Still Undergoing Tests

My tea-drenched MacBook is still hospitalized, but, proving once again that honesty is the best policy, Dave P. has provided a replacement PowerBook G4. For now, I'm using Google calendar and documents to register events and store active files and trying to keep all liquids at bay when I write. 

3. In the Blood?

It turns out that back-up problems run in the family, as this e-mail from my brother Jay reveals in all its gory detail.

4. Hearing Voices: Listening to David Halberstam

Waiting to get blood tests this morning at one of those featureless diagnostic services outfits, I brought along a recent copy of The Economist, the British news and global affairs weekly. You gotta love its motto, from Sept. 1843:

To take part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid, ignorance, obstructing our progress."

It's my best source of foreign affairs coverage and a model of authoritative, concise commentary and reportage. Writing tip: If you want to learn how to write solid, one-graf summaries, whether for print, broadcast and online, try some "Modeling Lessons."

The magazine usually includes at least one obituary, written in the British fashion that sums up a life with deft, candid and sometimes lacerating prose, rather than the typical American obit written off a checklist ("survivors include," "belonged to," etc.)

Legendary journalist and historian David Halberstam's obit was admiring, and employed a device -- describing a person's voice -- considered in a recent post:

"He took his job seriously: so seriously that, with his professor's glasses and a voice as sonorous as gravel shifting underground, he seemed like a shaman of the trade."

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