kaiberie.com

Object lesson number 1:
Make sure your backup system works, even if you’re relying on an external drive.
Object lesson number 2:
there is NO PHYSICAL way to backup 200gbs of drive - ever - don’t let it get that far.
Object lesson number 3:
Copying something to a drive then deleting it from the source is not backing up (don’t ask ;))

My beloved and I, despite being fairly broke for the next few months, went out and bought a new drive - a networked one in this case(and I need to rearrange his side of the bed, cause it’s all there) to make sure that should the worst happen again, that we’ve got a plan.
So this morning - so far - has been spent messing around with the new drive (it’s ‘only’ a 320gb drive - so 300gbs really) and setting up duplicates/backups/etc. I like the duplicate function for very small folders - like my story writing ones - which will also be ‘caught’ in thier own dated backups, but duplicating whole folders, especially ones I empty, would only be a one time thing. And I’ve just added something like 12 extra mantinence tasks to something that I wanted to be an automated process. Sigh.
As I keep saying to people - don’t rely on thinking you’re doing it right. I did up until now and this month was an INCREDIBLY painful lesson. Some of the photos I lost were gorgeous, including the ones I took at the Fringe, that I didn’t *quite* get round to uploading/editing.

The one thing this has taught me is that my priorities are a total mess

I take photos then I hide them away on my drive till I get the notion to edit and sort them, and even then, I don’t do it properly.
I spend a STUPID amount of time blogging and writing stuff that doesn’t really take me towards goals that I set myself at the beginning of the year.
Writing itself tends to be something I sneak in between classes and work on said classes, instead of actually embracing it properly.
Social networking - though fun - is not productive.
And I don’t place nearly enough value on my talents.

I can see a couple of you thinking ‘when did she suddenly grow some?’. I didn’t.
The hard drive thing isn’t JUST the actual hard drive - my ‘own internal hard drive’ got scrambled in September, and I finally sat down with my other half and worked out the damage. It’s vast.

Lots of people live externally - we do things that don’t rely on remembering stupid amounts of details about what a character said, or we can retain the beginning of stories. I can’t any more. I’m not even talking I can’t remember because I got the idea at the beginning of the day and we’ve only JUST STOPPED eight hours later. I mean, I go looking for a pen, and I forget what I was going to write.

It’s worse than that though - I’ve lived most of my life either online or internally. My stories are all, effectively, stored in my head somewhere.
Can you imagine how it feels to know that you know the person talking to you - but thier name, thier reason for being around you is completely gone?
And then - it’s someone in your head, so no one else knows them?

The positive in this is that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been - but I still feel like several freinds were murdered the day I smacked my head. People that have been with me longer than I can…see, there I can’t remember how long they’ve been with me, but I KNOW they’ve been here since before the kids.
So, this isn’t just about ‘backing up’ your puter. As important as that is, most people can rebuild if a disaster happens - just remember to back up your brain as well. That’s not as easy to rebuild.
I’ll be blogging more on this at MNaBC this week, I think, but as depressed as this sounds, I’m not. Inside I’m kinda down - but if it’s a sort of amnesia (fingers crossed) they’ll be back. I’ve got lots of pretty metaphors to explain it, but it’s giving me time, and space to get on with rebuilding some key things before they return. Or I’ll rebuild clones. Or something. There’s got to be a way to get them back - the stories, and my freinds.

And, that’s where you guys come in, in a way. If you’ve got ANYTHING of mine. Any fragments you happen to have lying around in your emails, or stories I talked to you about, or whatever, send em on to my gmail address (donnakaiwilson at gmail dot com). I know that most people have copies of stuff that went out to my beloved and my best freind Keith, but y’never know.

Trackback URL