I was determined to get started at my desk this morning. My computer wasn’t. It was offline, as many from two providers in different states were — according to the radio news I heard, when the radio station itself wasn’t cutting off the air every few minutes or running groups of commercials to make up for that.

There were still things I could do. I read my assignment for my Thursday night Bible study class in my grandfather’s Bible. I looked at my notebook for things I got finished over the weekend and thought about what I need to do before a meeting this afternoon.

I even had some extra time during the down time with one of the books I’m reading.

This is part of why I get nervous about people talking about having their personal libraries on a Kindle or Nook device and all of their notes for various projects on notebook computers.

Sure, my novel-writing notebooks could break — if I get mad at them enough to through them down. My notebook of passwords is about to run out of space, but I can keep it anyway among the notebooks to the right of my PC. (I’m left-handed enough to know that the right side is safe storage.)

And my diaries — notebooks, to many bookshops where I bought them — are all still here. Were there “notebook computers” in 1975? I doubt it, but I could look for them in my ’75 diary without having to have any more of a format change than being able to read my handwriting from back then.

When I first heard about blogging, I heard it was people keeping diaries on their computers. That scared me away for a long time. What about when you need a new computer? What if it breaks, or locks you out as it did to me earlier today? I would never sleep properly!

My diaries are still the pen-on-paper method I’ve always used, although I now use ball-point pens instead of the markers I favored in early years. Space is getting full, but I have a few more years of room in the cabinet.

So the only relationship this morning’s down time is going to have with my diary is when I write about it tonight.