Backing up.

Last week sometime, my friend had a hard drive scare. There was a shutdown, and then a sad, question mark-y icon. "You are out of luck," said the tech guys.

I thought to myself: shit! Because backing up is not my strong suit. This, despite the zillions of sleek little terabyte hard drives I have laying around casually, all hey, girl, how bout I back you up? And I'm all, nah, I got poems to write. It's National Poetry Month, yo.

Well, those carefree days are no more. I am backing up to a cloud thingie recommended by my son. You set it up and the system backs all your data up to the celestial data cloud.

Children, let me tell you: a lot of data takes a lot of days to back up. To the cloud. And by a lot, I mean my computer is running slow.

Safari is all um, I just ate a lot of carbs so I'm taking a nap right now. Open up an app? So tired. Don't rush me. Try to upload/download anything? Whoa, that seems like so   much    work    why don't you go take a break or something? I need to think about it.

Also, the number of files it says it's backing up--this back up system--keeps changing, and not always in the downward direction. This makes me anxious. Is the system just finding more files to back up? Is it because I keep using my computer--obviously, these are modern times!--and therefore my work needs backing up? I tell you, I feel like this back up might last forever. Like No Exit.  Or Kafka. Or, you know, a hellish afterlife. Except I'm still living this life, and I need to get some work done!

Literally since I started this post, my back up system has discovered that it has a few hundred extra files to back up.

My friend was lucky, in that the tech guys were able to find her data, almost all of it. All her FB friends were all, you better start backing it up or next time the disaster will be for REAL. That's when I started backing up, and I think I will be backing up forever from here to eternity.

Data, amirite?

Today's poem.

This week in prognosticated data.

Things that I hope will arrive at my office: one long-ago ordered bookshelf.

Amount of books that will fit on my hoped-for shelves: ten boxes' worth, please oh please.

Hours I will spend in my office: between three and twenty-five? 

Syllabi that will be completed: two. I hope.

Books that I will finish reading: two.

Reviews of books that I will commence writing: two. (I hope.)

Number of meals I will cook and/or otherwise prepare at home: five breakfasts, three lunches, four dinners. 

Proportion of clothing I will cull from my closets to give away, because items to be given no longer give me, personally, a spark of joy: 25%, I hope.

Christmas trees that will come down down down: one.

Remaining holiday food that will be either eaten or discarded, such as naked sugar cookies and stale baked goods:  all of it, ALL! come hell or high water.

Poems to be written: I am planning on three.

Number of birthdays this week in my family: one!

Amount of birthday cake I will eat, even so: not one piece, because the birthday boy lives in Arizona for the love.

Movies I will see: three, or I will know the reason why.

Blog posts to be written: As God is my witness there shall be SEVEN. 

A little story about my data.

It's sort of the same story I have about my shoes, books, music (see: data), photos (see: data), files, tee shirts, and sweaters: too much.

But let me start at the beginning.

Tomorrow, my employer is replacing my current MacBook Pro with a new one, as part of the regime of keeping employee laptops up to date. So: exciting! So happy!

Right now, I am transferring data from said current laptop to an external drive. Here are a few things I have learned about data and me:

1. I do not have a good filing system. Or rather, my filing system works okay, but it is all over the place. Like my shoes, books, music, photos, files, tee shirts and sweaters. And other stuff.

2. I have to retrieve all of it, and copy it to said external drive. This is going to take longer than I thought. Will I be up all night? We'll see.

3. Is there some of that data I don't need? Probably. No doubt. Which data would that be? Who can say? Not me, not right now, not when there's so much data to move, and I don't want to be up all night.

4. Photos. Anyone? Anyone? What should I do, or rather, what should I have done? iPhotos is bossy. I knew this awhile ago, but I never came up with a better solution. Here's one solution: delete bad photos from the camera before importing them. But what if the bad photo is interesting? Who can tell, when you're looking at it on that teeny camera screen?

5. Music, oy. I know I should just stop buying it and only listen to Spotify. But would I then be doing my part to save the music business? Which can barely be bothered to save itself?

I would make a comic about this, but this would involve, maybe, creating more data. I'm nervous about that.

I think I need better data habits, hygiene, and practices. I wish someone would send me some directions about how to do that on my new, fresh laptop. I don't want to besmirch it with my terrible old data regime.

The end of the story about data. I'm sorry it doesn't have a happy ending. Give me advice, so there will at least be hope.

Data points.

For the weekend:

People in Moab, UT for spring break: a kajillion
People overheard, verbally considering buying a sword: two
Flavors of gelato at the gelato store: a dozen or so
Amount of pizza ordered from Paradox Pizza: two eighteen-inchers
Number of major arches viewed in Arches National Park: two
Joy-to-sore-feet ratio (after hiking): ten-to-one
Degree of certitude that a hot tub would be a good investment: seventy percent
Hours driving: ten
Clothes-I-needed to clothes-I-packed ratio: one-and-one-half to one
Total number of pictures of rocks:  hundreds
Ounces of fine red sand in my shoes: five (per hike)

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