Why I made this blog + When my old laptop was stolen

This ended up being longer than I wanted. Sorry about that.
(just scroll down to the underlined words if you don't care to read a side story)

About two or three years ago my laptop was stolen, right from my lap, while I was sitting in the porch next to my sister. The memory was burned so hard into my neurons that I remember it in slow-motion. I can still feel the weave-patterned texture on the metallic rocking-chair. I felt a slight shadow, a blur to the right of my peripheral vision as I gleefully browsed YouTube videos. I saw those pair of hands swiftly, smoothly, move down, closing the lid, grabbing the sides, carefully lifting away my most prized possession.

I would barely even let people even touch my laptop, so the split-second reaction in my head was that it was probably a friend of my sister's playing an awful prank on me. But no, I saw him straightening up after leaning over the the division between the lawn and the porch, turn away, briskly walk towards the street. He was stepping onto the sidewalk when motorcycle silently cruised next to him, and he got on.

This was probably the first time in my life that I experienced a genuine "fight or flight" situation, This was also probably the first time in my life that I experienced a genuine brain fart. My "fight" response kicked in, and though at the time it seemed like the right action to take, there's no way to stress enough just how bad of a decision it is to run alone and barefoot at night after two criminals that where both bigger than me, and probably armed.

I sprinted. I sprinted so fast that at the end of the block there was only the length of about three cars between us. I yelled "thief, thief". I saw his eyes. His expression clearly conveyed that he wasn't expecting this, it was as if his sight reached out to me and asked "what you doing, dumbass?" (the same I now ask of past-me).

At the corner of the block, I saw cars and motorcycles across the street. I kept yelling, this time in their direction... but nope, they all just looked on in interest, just stayed there. I yelled some more, but that didn't really help much.

They took a right turn (with me on tail).

Unfortunately, the new road was clear ahead for quite a distance, so they accelerated greatly, and the distance felt longer and longer, until they didn't feel as "within my reach" as before that final, crushing moment when I gave up.

I punched a chain-link fence.

I would continue the story, but it would be pointless.

I never saw them again, I never saw my laptop again.

Now, my frustration wasn't so much about a petty physical good (even though having a laptop had been a childhood dream of mine), but what was in it. Just the previous day I finally personalized Windows Vista settings perfectly for my tastes (all desktop icons hidden, but heavy focus on the start-menu structure) for which I felt amazing at the time, but more importantly, that was where I had my journal.

I had been keeping a journal, almost daily, for almost two years. All the events in my life that I considered important to me. The notes I kept about my relationships with people. Things I wouldn't ever tell anyone. Vivid descriptions of my plans, my dreams, my hopes. All the messages I would leave "future me"... GONE

Some things you can't replace.

The worse part about it was that I never got back to having that same journal-keeping habit. Maybe it was the thought of starting from zero, maybe it was the frustration of it all.

In any case, I'm not trying to complain about what happened and it's not something I've ever really vented about until now. I know people with real issues, real problems, real worries, that keep their heads up and push forward, since it's the only thing they can do. And there I was, running to find myself a problem. I was lucky I wasn't faster.

Again, going back to the subject of why I decided to start a blog:

I've spent so much time online reading and consuming the content of others that I decided that having my own presence would be a natural progression. Though I don't plan to pump out stuff to the internet every day (or even every week), I've found "getting out there" to be very satisfying. I've met some very interesting people since I started doing this, and I'm better off for it.

Keeping an online presence has been a lot like keeping my old journal. I can at any time go back and see things I've done or said. It's even better, since I sometimes get to read people's opinions and comments on things that I myself have done or said. From trivial things, like a photo-montage of a local singer, or bit of school related info that was only available as a hard-copy before I shared it (and would make a really boring hyperlink).

The final tipping point was a comment I received on a poorly written article I made 10 months ago for HubPages (under a pseudonym, in case someone ended up burning their house down). Guess what? I got a comment! Guess what else? I now have actual traffic to the article! (only a bit more than 300 views though). I didn't even do any promoting for it, so unless there's a new surge of faulty power bricks in the market, some of the stuff that goes through my head might actually be of interest to people (instead of me shoving it into their face)

So yeah, all's well that ends well.

Hi!