My Friday drive home from the train station in the prevailing snow brought forth by one mother of a noreaster was slow, slush filled but uneventful. This of course was a good thing, but I think it also served to give me a false sense of winter driving mastery in my car. The next afternoon I decided to venture out into the blowing snow once more to grab some lunch, but even though I was taking things extremely slow out on the road and with more caution that I had at any other time, I still managed to do a number on my car.
Seems I was heading into a 90° left turn with a tad too much speed and I locked up the wheels. The skid that followed pushed the front right wheel into a curb and subsequently bent the rim out of shape and scrapped the tire. With many a muttered curse and a word or two of praise that the damage wasn’t any worse, I got out and threw on the steel belted mini-donut that Chevrolet considers an adequate spare tire in the cold, wet snow. The grand total of that lunch trip sure was expensive, huh?
Well, not as expensive as this next misfortune.
The scene is Monday evening on my train ride home. My commuter bag has been lying on the floor — the nice, dry floor — and I’ve been going about my business typing and listening to tunes on my iBook for the trip down to my regular station. As I’m gathering my things together I notice that my bag is now half soaked through from all the melted snow water that formed during the trip. This has even started effect some of the things I have inside, such as a t-shirt, a few books and one of my journals. Ugh!
I got home and proceeded to empty the bag of everything, then double checked it again. I figured the poor thing hadn’t had a good cleaning since I bought it and this water spill was just the excuse. Confident that there was nothing else in the bag, I placed it into my washing machine with some t-shirts and started the bad boy up.
An hour or so later I returned to move the bag over to the dryer, considering I needed it the next day and all. It was as I picked it up that I noticed there was a big more heft to it than I remembered. Water retention maybe? Wait, there’s something in this hidden pouch. A few blank CDs and…OH FUCK!!!
You see, I have this little external hard drive…and, um…I just washed it.
Yup. I washed a 40GB hard drive that was filled with all my work and pictures from at least the past two years (among other files). I have since found out that I may be able to recover some of the data — how much I’m not sure — but at a staggering price of $600. Of course I’m left with little recourse but to pay it because I REALLY need those files. If I had properly stuck to my backup regiment like I wanted to then I could just write off the drive itself and just buy a new one at a third of the cost of recovery. Ay Carumba!
Well, another two hard lessons learned. Oh well, what’s the point of doing dumb things if you can’t share with others?
Tags: Personal