I am depressed.
In a disasterous moment (5 minutes ago) I realized I'd lost everything off my computer.
Since starting this art blog, I have had a blast creating posts about my artwork, other artists, and other art related topics. The last 6 or 7 weeks most of my posts have been focused on and written while I was on my American art tour. I successfully created miniature art hunts in 6 different cities in America.
This Art as Treasure tour has changed my life. I have met great people, created new art, videos, miniature hunts and got to visit places I've never seen before... and now it feels likes it is all erased.
My Brand New 2007 HP Pavilion laptop had given me multiple headaches during my art tour, including losing wireless capabilities, which after 6 hours on the phone with tech service the HP guy tells me every once in a while the wireless card just simply goes out....I'm standing in Jamestown, North Dakota, home of my second art hunt of the tour thinking, "How the heck am I going to create art hunts, post visual clues on my website and edit videos online with Jumpcut from coffee shops and libraries....WITHOUT THE INTERNET?"
Flush 30 dollars down the drain to buy a wireless card for my computer was my solution. It was a successful temporary fix. (i am planning to send the bill to HP and ask for reembersement)
The art tour continues, Billings, Montana; Portland, Oregon; Costa Mesa, California; the beach and the ocean; Salt Lake City, Utah and Yellowstone National Park. Each place we spent a week experiencing amazing things, and amazing people. All this was recorded with video and photographs.
Until now.
I made a back up disc of my art tour files. Everything. From day one to day 45, over 80 short videos and 600 pictures. Memories captured forever. Having less than 5 days left on my warranty, I sent in my computer for repairs; to fix my non-working wireless capabilities. In the process of repairs, they switched out my hard drive. I literally just set up and plugged it in, all excited to put all of my art tour files back onto the computer, only to find the disc empty.
I typically test each back up disc to make sure it worked, but in the hussel and bussel of completing this art tour and trying to get my computer fixed in a timely manner, I have essentially flushed the images of the most important 6 weeks of my professional and personal life down the drain.
This sickness will stay with me for a while. I guess this means I will not be able to put together my Salt Lake city video....which is VERY sad.
Kelsey, the lone companion with me for the last 6 weeks has told me to treat this like a fire. Try to be happy with what you have, and move on. Good advice. Just hard for me to accept.
5 comments:
Oh man, that is terrible. I can only imagine how much that hurts. But Kelsey is correct. There is nothing you can do about it now and you still have all the memories and the joy that came from being in those places and meeting all those great people. Just never forget.
I'm sure there will be many more happy moments in your art career. You're too motivated, full of great ideas and fantastic at art for there not to be more great moments.
If they put a new disk in, wouldn't it be possible to get the old one back? I would at least try to insist that I need my things back. Maybe that is simplistic of me, but I always heard that your things are stored there forever and someone who knows how to do it can retrieve what appears to be lost.
I hope that you can somehow restore your things.
I lost almost all of our old family pictures when the ceiling in a closet leaked after a hail storm. We didn't know it until it was too late. And, before that, someone broke into my house and stole everything I had, including old pictures. All I could do was to try to remember what I had and either write about it or try to draw it!
Think of all those people who have lost their irreplacable things from Katrina, and fires and floods. Sad to think that a computer can do that to you. Maybe a case for getting an external hard drive or something to save everything on.
Good luck!
Sorry to hear that Billy! HP has been nothing but trouble for me as well. It didn't start acting up until it was already 3 yrs old and crammed full of stuff so it didn't make much sense to get rid of it. But maybe in your case you could make a little cash and put this bad experience behind you.
I'm glad you guys had such a great trip though. At least they can't take THAT away from you.
thank you kris, alicia, and cecelia.
i did call HP and they confirmed my memory was erased in trying to fix my computer.
and i will try my best to let the images go. looking at it from the perspective of a true disaster like hurricane catrina, the massive earthquake in china or other such disaster my loss of images does seem kind of lame, so thanks for putting that into perspective for me.
i feel bad for the people of Salt Lake who will not get a proper video now. But, what can you do?
Time to move on.
Memory can be erased, but there are programs like "Recuva" that can help to get erased things back.
http://www.recuva.com/
Best of all, it's free!
But it's not flawless. It can't get things back that have been over-written. But if the memory is still there, it can piece it all back together.
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