I know a lot of you are going to want to virtually box me around the ears now, and you're perfectly right to do so.
When I got back from holiday, and switched on my comp the next day, there was a funny noise, it didn't boot, and when I took it to the repair shop, they kept it there for a full week to see if anything would get the harddrive going.
Nothing did.
At least I was sure that my last update had been sometime in May, so that the data loss would be manageable. I already know that "Dying of the Light" would be beyond retrieval, since I'd finished it just before the holiday and I knew I hadn't drawn a backup.
My last backup wasn't in May. It was in October, 2008. Nearly a year's worth of photos, drawn pictures, written stuff (among that the Rhyddion rewrite and six or seven Heroes fanfics), and loads of funny children's quotes - gone.
I know. I deserved that, I should have made backups regularly.
Then, last week, I got a call from one of Germany's top newspapers (Süddeutsche Zeitung), who were publishing a children's Fantasy book and wanted one of my pics for the cover. Guess which: Dying of the light.
Luckily, I had printed the finished picture so I could scan it, but for some reason, even in the copyshop with a really good scanner, we couldn't get it free of JPG artifacts. I spent most of last night repainting areas of it so it looked just about okay for printing.
I was lucky in a few other regards, of course - I was able to retrieve most of the written stuff from the places where I'd posted it, I'm so glad I posted the third chapter here after all (even though it's going to be redone with a lot of changes). I even managed to find most of the kids' quotes again by going through my old posts in a parenting forum where I posted most of them. (Of course, there are those I'd have remembered anyway. "Mama, when the dinosaurs lived, there were no humans, right?" - "That's right." - "Not even farmers?" - "No, no farmers either, of course." - "Then who looked after the dinosaurs?")
The holiday wasn't the best experience either - at least my husband and I now have a pretty accurate list of things that we have to avoid next time. And I think the most important thing to avoid next time is Spain, at least in summer. 42 degrees in Granada were just too much, and that wasn't the exception either.
There have been a few good things too. The kids now have a bunk bed in Timo's room, Jana has moved out of our bedroom, which opens up a world of new opportunities to be done in the bedroom (some of the more innocent ones are reading a book before going to bed, and employing a radio alarm clock again. For some reason, Jana always slept through the beeping of a normal alarm clock but but sit bolt upright when the radio went on at six AM.)
Another great find was a book I read in Spain, "Wales - epic views from a small coutry". I feel the need to rethink, rewrite, or maybe just enrich, pretty much my entire story. A wealth of wonderful stuff there. No need to devise your won Fantasy world when there's Wales!
Anyway, I guess it'll be a few months before I've got my comp back to the way it was, and until I've scraped together all my stuff again.
The first thing I did was buy a new backup drive, so I won't have to share my husband's any more, and I fully intend to use it at least once a week. More often than that if I happen to draw a new Best Pic Ever. Just in case.
`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
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Still, good reason not to update for a while, that's a lot of recovery.
So did the mag accept your improvised pic?
Heh, I've just spent two weeks in Spain with my dad, and he lives right in the heart of the Costa Del Sol. I bow to the air condition.
Anyways, Spain can be fun but it requires air con, a pool, and a whole lotta doing nothing but the least streanious activities.
So you have two sons? How old are they? How long have you and your husband been a happy couple? (Sorry if I'm too nosy, I'm just curious.
Whereabouts at the Costa del Sol does your dad live? We were near Malaga, a bit further north, near Almunecar.
I have a son and a daughter - Timo will be five in October, Jana two in September, my hubby and I have been married for eight years and have been together since 1996.
I grew up there actually. My parents divorce jst before I turned 11 and so my mom, brother and I moved to Denmark. But we used to live in Marbella. We moved a whole lot, so we lived many places but almost always close to Marbella and/or Malaga. Now he lives not too far from the airport. I think Mijas? I could be wrong.
I don't think I've ever been to Almunear. But I never was good with names so... maybe.
Cool! That's almost 13 years!
Aww five and two! Such cute ages! I take it Timo is the boy and Jana the girl, am I right? Do you have a picture? I bet they're really adorable. I love kids. Though I wouldn't want a job involving them.
I had literally *just* finished copying all my cds to the HD, traded them all in and bought disks to back it up. The next day it died, completely. I lost about 10 gigs of music, 5 gigs of art and stories, pics, family stuff too. I'm still recovering! (wibble) I'm happy you made some backups and were able to save some things at least!
And about Spain... well, I live in the north of Spain and something I have clear is to avoid the south in summer >_<. Everything southern of Madrid or the Mediterranean area is too much hot for sure. But the north is OK! We have temperatures that are nice and about 25ºC