Today I turn another year older, but instead of thinking about the year ahead, I'm dwelling more on the last few years or so. Disaster has befallen me again -- not dental, and not automotive -- but this time it's computer-related.
For some reason or other my "My Documents" folder has completely disappeared -- something to do with a "corrupted local profile" -- but I know it's still there because my disk space is still the same. No amount of system restores, logging off and on, etc. could get back what is now a completely empty and spotless "My Documents" folder.
This means everything -- my lectures, some videos, 7 gigabytes worth of music, wallpaper, my dissertation, students' grades, my master's thesis, bookmarks, pdf files, PowerPoint presentations, every single e-mail message that isn't on Gmail, passwords, every picture I've ever taken including those of Izzy -- is gone. To have the past simply wiped out like this is astonishing; it's clearly a statement against the kind of dependence we (or rather, I) have on our computers to narrate our lives, as it were.
Kind of makes you sit back and take stock of things. Yesterday Izzy finally came back from the hospital and is doing great. The puking / coughing session I had written about as a comment on the V-Monster's blog was apparently her very first asthma attack -- she hadn't been diagnosed before -- and it was serious enough to mean a trip to the ER and two nights of observation. She is, however, all happy and rested now, but this means she'll be joining the legions of Ventolin-toting tots from now on.
I told her about my computer woes, including losing my photographs of her. She said (I'm not making this up to make her sound cute), "Daddy, that means you can take even more beautiful photographs of me."
[Update: J-Lu's "IT geek" friend R. is bravely volunteering, despite my protests against it (I don't think I can find her a 1:1 scale model of Gackt though), to roll up her sleeves and mess with the computer tonight.]
[Update #2: I managed to recover all of my e-mail -- thank goodness I use Thunderbird -- but everything else is still gone. My 100 or so student papers have returned from the land of the dead; now to spend the next few days returning them to where they came!]
Ach!!
Happy birthday, Wily!!
I'm sorry about the computer woes, but your daughter really is beautiful.
Posted by: Gladys on December 15, 2005 03:22 PMHAPPY BIRTHDAY SUNNY!
Good luck on recovering your files. It must be the same kind of feeling people get when a fire guts their house.
Izzy has the right attitude, though.
O.
Posted by: o.p. on December 15, 2005 04:34 PMAs Dora the Explorer (and, well, lots of the world) says, "Feliz Cumpleaņos!"
All will be well with your computer; I can tell.
Posted by: ver on December 15, 2005 09:37 PMHappy Birthday!
Posted by: durga on December 16, 2005 02:35 AMHappy bday, Teach!
And I second Izzy's attitude...
Also this mantra:
back it up, back it up, post them on flickr.com, email stuff to gmail... all will be saved (and cataloged to make archeological digs of the future all the more easy).
Posted by: Jesse! on December 16, 2005 10:08 AMH A P P Y B I R T H D A Y !
now that you are my age, welcome to the other side of the hill. time is short here, so live fast & laugh even faster!
all the best,
ob
Belated Happy birthday, Wily! Jeez, I never woulda figured you for a Capricorn. However, it suggests that you will endure, i.e. survive and thrive.
Perhaps your loss of files is a "sign" that a new life is beginning for you!
Posted by: Okir on December 16, 2005 12:40 PMThanks for all the birthday greetings, folks! (I'm actually a Sagittarius.)
I managed to pull out some movies and some music, but all my pictures are somewhere in there...
Posted by: the wily filipino on December 16, 2005 01:12 PMWOW, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
(Another Sazh! In my class the other night we found out four of us were sagitarii)
Your Izzy sounds like she's a birthday girl 24-7.
I'll send a couple prayers to Santa Clara (who's my patron saint of computers) and Santa Rita (de los imposibles) to help with the computer. I had that happen to me once.
L* refuses to keep her documents in her Documents folder, instead sprinkling them liberally all over her desktop. Maybe I should stop giving her a hard time about it and recognize it as a survival strategy.
Posted by: Ktrion on December 17, 2005 07:31 AMsunny, happy birthday!
3 words to remember:
external
hard
drive.
oh, and 3 more:
always
back
up
I've actually become quite complacent with winXP, since it's been quite stable for me. I've normally not used "My Documents", but instead have a directory not in "C:"
you can also forward your non-gmail emails to Gmail using Thunderbird and the mail redirect extension. Email me if you want more info on this.
glad izzy's better. good health to your computer too.
will check in soon re times to get together.
you can try a linux boot disc to recover those files on the My Documents. Knoppix doesn't reinstall, replace or touch your files on your hard drive. Instead, it creates a virtual drive via the memory. So, it's a good shot at trying.
http://www.knoppix.org/
Good Luck
Posted by: Sid on December 22, 2005 12:25 PM