DAY 41 - ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP PLAN

Actual sign from my mantle.
Gift from my dear friend Abby Hawkins.

I was goofing off this afternoon, and just decided to go back and read an old blogpost (about my brother) – and all of the sudden:  my entire blog was gone. The entire blog – GONE! I totally freaked out!

   Deep Breath. Maybe it’s just on my phone. But no, when I went inside and logged onto my laptop – it just wasn’t there. Panic. Fear. Tears. Because – I didn’t have back-up copies of those posts. It’s not so much that I think that my words should live forever, but that I expected the internet to be a stable source. I mean, my hard drive might crash – but the internet is forever. Right?

   Trying to remain calm, I did a bit of research to see if it was just hidden from view. Clicking, searching, clicking some more. After a few minutes, I found out that an unscrupulous character tried hacking my account – JERK!  So, after verifying that I am me AND beefing up my password, I was able to restore my blog. (And if you’re reading this, then you’re probably glad too!)

   Usually I am a bit of what you might call a Digital Hoarder. Typically I make backups and create versions of documents as I progress – and save them as I go. It’s a habit I developed 20 years ago when I was writing 80-page proposals – which often got Chomped by a computer at a crucial moment. When that happened (and back in the 1990s it happened a lot), I could just revert back to a previous version and pick up from there.

   And I’m especially careful to have copies of all of my photographs on both CD and an External Hard Drive. And I often make backups of my backups – just in case. I’ve had one too many computers die on me to go more than a few weeks without an update. And now with Internet resources like OneDrive and DropBox, it’s so easy to have backups of SmartPhones, photos, files, etc.

   So this afternoon I took the time to create an archive folder for my blog too. And I ran a backup of my laptop (even though my current backup is less than 2 weeks old). And I also ordered a printer cartridge so that I can print of my blog each day – because, yes, I still believe in having paper copies too.

   Because one of the things that I have learned in life is to always have a back-up plan. My life has certainly not turned out the way I expected – heck, this YEAR hasn’t turned out as expected. For that matter, today didn’t turn out as expected. But that’s OK, because I have a backup plan – and part of that plan is this 83-day Journey. 

   What is your backup plan?