I have a pretty unbelievable story to tell you about my ThinkPad. I work in marketing for a large corporation on Florida's gulf coast. In the summer, the weather here can change pretty quickly and tropical storms are always a threat. Fortunately for me, I work from home, so I don't have to worry about driving into the office in bad weather.

It was September 16, 2004. I was working on a huge report that my team and I had been putting together for six months. The news on the radio wasn't good. Hurricane Ivan was churning up the Gulf of Mexico and heading this way. My husband was boarding and taping up our windows... but when the hurricane finally made landfall, it wouldn't be enough to stop the storm surge. We lost power at 10pm, and soon after, we could see water coming in under the door... The storm raged for hours and eventually my home office was flooded with nearly four feet of water. At some point, my desk tipped over, and my ThinkPad sunk to the floor.

The next day, the water had gone down enough to assess the damage. I went into my office and found my ThinkPad, sitting upright on the soggy carpet. It was wet and dirty from the muddy salt water. When I pressed down on the keyboard it had a crunchy feel. My heart sank. All my work...down the drain. I figured my computer had drowned, but I shipped the ThinkPad to my company's help desk anyway.

A few days later, I was working out of our regional office when I got an e-mail from our help desk - with my report attached! You can't imagine how shocked and excited I was. Not only had I been saved six months work -- but all of my other files were recovered too.

Thank you ThinkPad!

Sincerely,
Allison Gilmore
Marketing Operations
Pensacola, Florida