Of late, I've been reduced to 14 hour days parked in front of the PC, the product of working on client engagements, writing a book (on green office renovations, to be published by the Urban Land Institute) and keeping up with the news on matters sustainable so as to be able to produce this column. Suffice it to say that I haven't seen much of the sunshine lately, and that sitting in front of the PC has taken a toll on my neck, shoulder and lower back muscles.
I was planning to go into mega-overdrive this week by adding 2008 taxes to the mix. The plan was to compile records and prepare a substantial portion of my return on Sunday, and then to switch over to the book during the daytime hours on Monday, getting back to the taxes on Monday night. Repeat on Tuesday.
I had switched off my computer on Saturday night in honor of Earth Hour, observed around the globe on March 28, by turning off unessential lighting and appliances between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. I felt great about severing my PC connection in the cause of reducing carbon emissions (first, the Eiffel Tower, next the PC and lighting at Leanne's place), but it might have been a mistake to have deemed the PC unessential, even on a Saturday night, for it soon exacted its revenge. I was back at the PC at 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, expecting to get down to the tax return. I switched on my computer and found … an error message. The hard drive was unable to locate Windows and continued to call plaintively for it on a querulous feedback loop.
I was darn lucky that Andrew Maletta, my computer guru, was answering his phone on a Sunday morning. Andrew did a quick phone diagnosis and ascertained that a Windows file had been corrupted. He made a house call on Sunday afternoon (thank you, Andrew) and, after conducting mysterious dialogues with the operating system (which was by then doing a pretty good imitation of Garbo expiring in Camille), proclaimed that my hard drive had been invaded by a new type of virus designed to breach the multiple firewalls that Andrew had conscientiously installed for me and which had held up nicely for five or more years. The good news was that the data on my hard drive still existed. The bad news was that the computer could not access it. "Think of it as someone pouring glue into the keyhole that the operating system needs to get to your software," Andrew advised.
The upshot has been that Andrew has taken my hard drive to the computer ICU, and that my plans to go into mega-overdrive on the taxes and the book have been scuttled. I spent Sunday like "a real human being" (as my mother would say) reading the newspapers (in newsprint!), cooking with my husband and having friends over to enjoy the results. I disengaged from cyberspace entirely, even missing 60 Minutes' account of the new crop of computer viruses making the rounds.
On Monday, I conducted business sans computer (using the telephone with some support from pen and ink felt positively quaint), and went to a pleasant and productive business lunch, scheduled because it was impossible to do any work on the PC. I've gone online a bit with my backup laptop -- purchased at Andrew's insistence that I have a backup in the case of exigent circumstances -- but have to delay the taxes and the book pending the repair of my hard drive.
I've dubbed this hiatus from my PC "Cyber Snow Days," and I must say that it's great to take a holiday from life online. I've slowed down, connected more completely with family and friends and, let's face it, gotten a life, at least for a couple of days. In short, my Cyber Snow Days have underscored for me the amount of time that we're all spending toiling in the digital marketplace -- sometimes at the expense of balance, well-being and, for some folks, sanity. The Internet is great for the mass of information it allows us to access, process and spit out, but many of us need to dial down a bit.
Make your life a little more sustainable: Unplug, take a Cyber Snow Day.
Leanne Tobias is founder and principal of Malachite LLC, an advisory firm that specializes in the development, leasing, management, financing and certification of sustainable or green real estate on a global basis. Comment online, or write to Leanne about your green real estate thoughts and experiences at greenstimulus@malachitellc.com. She'll share the best of reader feedback in future posts.
Image CC licensed by Flickr user Paulo Brandão.
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