Ghosts of computers past
It’s been a while. I have been meaning to post for nearly two weeks now, and yet here it is December 27. Apologies for the long silence, but what can I say? First it was a mad rush of final papers, then a train ride and excessive holiday baking and cheer. I’ve just been lounging the past few days, and am only now fully headed back to the Internet.
However, it was more than just general busy-ness that kept me away. See, right as I sat down to write my second-to-last paper during the last week of the term, my computer died.
Died, like, Jacob Marley, dead-as-a-doornail dead.
Which would have been disturbing, given the timing, even if I had backed up my data. That’s right. I didn’t back up my computer. Ever. Sure, I have a few thumb drives with key documents, but I never quite got around to getting an external hard-drive or using any comprehensive online storage. So, while my dad tells me I can probably salvage some of the data, I’m currently working from scraps of documents hither and thither.
This is pretty humiliating as an librarchivist, and just annoying as a computer user, but I’m telling this gruesome tale as a warning story to anyone who has bah-humbugged backing up records. It’s like Scrooge says: you must live in the future, present, and past. Take care, folks, and happy holidays.
