@BillRM,
That sucks Bill.
I write down my passwords (often with simple salt). This isn't secure in the case someone breaks into my house... but I am not worried about someone breaking into my house. The threats I worry about are online (and reading an index card locked in my office is quite impossible to do from online).
I suppose there is good reason to encrypt a laptop drive (preferably with a hidden partition for the important stuff) when traveling. However, I haven't had anything worth hiding up to this point.
I did have a software contract job where encrypting the data was part of the signed contract... but I had to nuke that data when I was done with it.
I don't know what else to say. Other than that sucks.