everything breaks

I was pretty much set for the trip to Cairo for the Imagine Cup. I'd squeezed all the required bits into the case and finished agonizing about taking the big camera (decided not to in the end) and all was well. I opened the laptop for my final email check. It was dead. Very dead. Take the battery out and it still won't work dead. Not good. In fact very bad. It had all the things on it I needed, plus a bunch of stuff I was going to work on. Wah!

The only good news was that if it had done this a day later I would have been totally stuck. And I had taken a backup the day before (perhaps that is what caused the problem).

Anyhoo, I'm presently sitting in Terminal 3 at Heathrow with my trusty NetBook in my bag. It has most of what I need on it, thanks to some feverish installing last night. I'm always nervous about going away, but fine once I get on the road. I've never been to Egypt before. This should be fun.