The Danger of Assumptions

Yesterday, something very horrible happened to my computer. It was put on standby before I went to sleep and was plugged into the outlet for the entire night. In the morning, when I went to do my morning routine of checking my email, it wouldn't turn on.

The first thing I noticed--it had shut off from being in standby mode. Odd, though not too unlikely. I pressed the power button. Nothing. I pressed it again--still nothing. Hm...ok, well THIS has NEVER happened before. I went on to press the power button a few more times, but to no avail.

Oh no. I thought to myself. My computer finally got tired of me keeping it on all the time and has decided to strike back. It finally grew wary of my constant demands... Uh oh, when was the last time I backed up? Then I remembered that for some random reason, I decided to back up my work stuff the night before. You go girl H! But then I remembered something else--CRAP! I haven't backed up my pictures for awhile. Oh. my. god. I think I just lost two months worth of pictures, except for the low-res ones that were uploaded onto Faceook. x_X

Now, I know you're probably thinking "there are so many worse things that could have happened". Yes, I know, I could have lost all of my work documents, I could have not backed up any of my pictures, etc. etc. That's true. But if anyone's a picture taker/lover, that person's me. And while it's not the worst thing in the world, it f***in' sucks to have two months worth of pictures vanish like that.

I then called a few people, hopeful that my pictures can still be salvaged. But most of what I got was "are you sure it's not out of batteries? why don't you plug it in?" Um, it was plugged in for the whole night, how could it be out of batteries? I decided that my best bet is probably to let one of my coworkers know and see what the procedure is for turning in a dead laptop. So I emailed one. Great. Now I won't be able to work until I get another laptop. And who knows when that'll be. (Yes, I use my work laptop as my personal laptop but that's only bc I've been waiting for the upgrade from Apple for their MacBooks.)

The day went on, and I had decided to bring my laptop to my friend's apartment to see if he had any ideas. "Where is your power adapter? Are you sure it was plugged in?" Was the first thing he asked me. "Yea, I know the battery's not dead bc it was plugged in for the entire night." I replied. "Well, let's just plug it in and see what happens, " he persisted. "Ok," I sighed. Afterall, it couldn't hurt.

So he plugged the laptop in and pressed the power button and...
the green light came on! It's turning on!

...
=.=

Wow. I was speechless. I felt sooooo stupid! How could I have not realized that instead of my laptop having the problem, that the outlet could have been the faulty one?* I was stunned. I didn't know what to say. I didn't understand how I could just assume that my laptop crapped out and refuse to try methods that people have been suggesting to me all day.

Ok, lessons learned:

• Stop assuming things and being boxed in by those assumptions!
• Whenever laptops don't turn on, check the POWER first.

*It turns out that it was neither the outlet nor the laptop's fault. There's a switch in my room that's rigged to a pair of outlets. And I had connected one of the outlets to the floor lamp and the other to a surge protector which connects my laptop and laptop-related equipment. When I had gone to sleep the night before, I turned the switch off--forgetting that it would also cut the connection to my laptop. x_x