The Burning House

If you know me at all, you know I love gadgets. I love technology. I love to have the newest, latest, and greatest, and if I can’t have it, I want to know everything about it. I spend a lot of time reading various blogs, tech, bike, and otherwise, and one of my favorites is Gizmodo. Every once in a while, they stray from the standard topics, and late last week Brian Barrett posed the question, “What would you save if your house were burning down?”

I’ve spent some time thinking about this one. Assuming anything with legs has already escaped the building (“If you’re flammable and have legs, you’re never blocking a fire exit.”), and assuming I’m wearing pants (and therefore have my wallet, keys, and cell phone), I could get out with one item, my Timbuk2 Messenger Bag. This bag has more sentimental value to me than just about any other object I own. I’ve had it since my early days at Penn Cycle, and every trip I’ve been on since 2004, everywhere that Trek Travel has taken me, that bag has been along. On any given day, there could be any number of things in that bag, but a few things are ever present: my computer, and external hard drive – that have all of my writing, all of my photos, and all of my music; and a camera.

The funny thing though, is even if I couldn’t get out with that one item, I wouldn’t really be missing much. Just about everything I have that is important to me is backed up to the cloud somewhere. Photos to SmugMug, writing to DropBox or some blog somewhere, music to Google and Amazon. This would have been a much more difficult question to answer ten years ago, when my important photos were still in a desk drawer, and all of my writing was in notebooks scattered throughout my house.

Check out the Gizmodo story. Check out his inspiration – The Burning House.

What would YOU save if YOUR house were burning down?