A blurb from the article titled Google helps states make public records easier to find:

WASHINGTON -- By providing free consulting and some software, Google Inc. is helping state governments make reams of public records that are now unavailable or hard to find online easily accessible to Web surfers.

This year I attended my first ShmooCon.  ShmooCon is described as:

ShmooCon is an annual East coast hacker convention hell-bent on offering three days of an interesting atmosphere for demonstrating technology exploitation, inventive software & hardware solutions, and open discussions of critical infosec issues.

So apparently more was wrong then just my hard drive, the other night I rebooted my system, and it didn't boot up, I'm pretty sure the power supply is bad, so I'll be warranty(ing) that. I went and got a new mobo and case, so now all is well in my computer kingdom. Thank god. Still lost all my data from last week though, even though I think I found a way to get it back.