Yesterday, my laptop self destructed. Hard disk? What hard disk? So yeah, basically, I don’t have a laptop anymore and since my entire life is made up of little ones and zeros, that was kind of a big deal. But then I decided,
Let’s be zen about this whole thing, Heather. What do you need out of life? Love? Yes. All the photos you took in Europe? Nah. The spreadsheets outlining your budget and your debt attack plan and your wedding? Nah. You don’t need them so much as really effing wish you still had them. Besides! Many of those things (minus the photos) are on your little memory stick anyway. So relax.
And then this morning, the memory stick stopped working. It turned out to be a Windows 7 issue (no need to get any deeper into that) but you shoulda seen me. Remember that scene in Ghost where the best friend/bad guy is frantically banging on his keyboard while the tiny computer screen tells him that there are zero dollars in his embezzlement fund and he is FUH-REAKING out? Oh yeah, I was doing a fantastic recreation.
“No, no, no,” I kept saying. “No. This is… no.”
You know when you mess with Rain Man too much and he starts rocking back and forth all upset about Wapner? Well, technology is my People’s Court. I need it. I do.
Well, the memory stick is working, so I’ve chilled just a bit. But the laptop? Still among the unliving. And if you add that to the list of things that broke or needed replacing in the last week (his brakes, our dryer) it might explain why wedding planning makes me want to curl up in a ball on the couch and stay there. Forever.
I like to sit in a corner and rock back and forth while I eat a bag of Cheetos but I guess everyone has their own way of getting through things… ; )
I completely understand. I’m going through my own load of crap now.
Why is it that when one shitty thing happens it creates a domino effect with everything else? Maybe it was that mirror I accidentally stepped on and cracked a month ago…
I guess we just have to remind ourselves that things eventually get better.
Feel your pain, H.
unemployed again… must be my turn to win the lotto….
I am sorry to hear about the technology fail!
Can you live without a dryer for awhile? A couple of air drying racks are all you need!
I know that pain (well, not losing wedding plans, but not being able to access very very useful data). If the hard drive still turns on (spins), but your computer can’t read it, there is still plenty of hope for a good geek to retrieve the data. Even if it won’t turn on, and you really want that data, there are data retrieval specialists that can try and get those pictures off for you.
You can always try this, or better yet, get your Dork Lord to try it for you
http://lifehacker.com/170257/macgyver-tip–save-your-hard-drive-in-the-freezer
Good luck!
ah- it’s mercury retrograde- not sure if you buy into astrology, but it’s basically a three week period dominated by miscommunication and technology problems. I was having the worst day yesterday, and a friend informed me mercury was going backwards again…. anyway, sometimes it’s nice to blame this stuff on the planets being out of alignment! Always makes me feel better.
Hoo boy. Student loans and an unpaid internship have me rocking back and forth about the wedding planning to the point where I have simply just not … yet. Good luck to you!
)
dont assume all is lost… I had a hard drive crash and reformatted. then it happened again. and then a third time.
the third time, i bought a cd called ‘recover lost data’ for like, $30 or so and put it into my computer. 9 hours later, it had recovered things from that first re-format…
see if you cant put the hard drive into an external shell or something and look into whatever the current version of that program is. for $30, its worth a shot.
ps – wedding planning is awful torture invented by unhappy people who wish to make happy people suffer. remind yourself of that and dont let the unhappy people win!
also, indiebride.com. the messageboard is a wealth of budget-friendly information…
Jeez, you managed to have an even worse week than me!
You should really look into this one program called Dropbox. You can pay to upgrade the size if you want, but you don’t have to pay anything to get 2GB of storage. Then you just install the Dropbox program on whatever computers you want, and add files. It will keep those files synched across all of your computers, so even if one of your hard drives bites the dust, your files will be safe and sound. I’ve been planning my wedding too, and it’s been invaluable for keeping guest lists and stuff consistent between my laptop and my desktop. Here’s the URL: https://www.dropbox.com/
Hope that helps!
I’m eloping in a national park. Zero guests. Zero. Still having a photographer, but since it’s not a full wedding, and not on a Saturday it’s going to cost 1/4 his normal rate. I still have a beautiful dress. I will still have awesome pictures. It is still in a wonderful spot. But it’s going to cost comparatively next to nothing (minus the rings and the dress). We’re having a “reception” at a restaurant the month after we get married. It’s pretty economical, and I’m sure had I had the energy/desire/will-left-to-live to plan any further we could have planned a party for much cheaper. But I’m not close to my family and I feel alienated from many friends for various reasons, so it’s an easy way out for me! (I feel like some “friends” got jealous and petty as soon as I got engaged. Sigh.)
Once upon a time, in March, my computer died. I cried. I took it to the store, they told me I was out of luck. I said that wasn’t an option. I bought a new hard drive and told the fixer guys to try harder. I got my files back. I stopped crying in April.
I tried convincing myself I didn’t really NEED my pictures, my nerd spreadsheets, and other important files, but I kind of did. (Here, the word need means “really, really, really want,” obviously.)
I hope you can get your files back. It’s hard when it feels like everything is breaking or failing all at once.
Finally, if you told me your wedding was a BYOB potluck dinner in some parking lot, and asked me to bring my iPod to supply the dancing music, I’d still be thrilled to be there
Oh Heather. I hear you. Wedding planning will send you into a foetal position even in the best of weeks. I LOVED my wedding – 40 people, one bridesmaid, 15 minute ceremony, reception at a 5-star restaurant overlooking Sydney Harbour, bliss! – but HATED planning the wedding, and believe me, we kept it simple. So simple that I caught a taxi to the wedding (I met my husband in a taxi, so it seemed appropriate) and bought my flowers the day before (saved myself about $1500 doing that!), but even a simple wedding took up every spare minute and every spare dollar we had. It was exhausting.
An unexpected bonus, though, is when you come back from your honeymoon, your brain will feel free-er, lighter and unbefuddled-er. Why? Not just because you’re all loved up, but because you won’t have a wedding to plan! A fog will be lifted from your mind. There’ll be entire hemispheres of your brain free to contemplate whatever you so desire. You’ll feel like you have so much grey matter to spare you could solve the world’s problems. So, there’s that to look forward to. That and the fact you’ll have the most awesomest man ever by your side. Wedding planning sucks, but it’s totally worth it.
xx
Welcome to my life. Weeks ago the hard drive on my Macbook went. It just up and died with no warning. Just gone. Forever. And at first I freaked the eff out and then I realized that this was an opportunity to start over again and to be better at keeping things safe this time around. So I ordered a Time Capsule to keep stuff safe. I’m going to be better at dating and organizing photos and I will survive this.
Now, I am off to purchase a bunch of new software since I lost half of my disks as well as order $300 worth of music off iTunes. But I’ll be happy while doing it, dammit.
*weeps*
This is why I love gmail, Flickr, Snapfish, etc. I just store all my goodies there or email them to myself and they are safe (ish) in the hands of the interwebs. After one laptop theft, I learned my lesson.
Man, my sympathies are with you. It’s all stressful stuff, but at least you are trying to keep it in perspective. Better than what I could do probably. Good luck. (And might a hammer fix that computer? Just kidding, sort of)
Oy. Been there, done that. I know how awful it feels.
Two words of advice (or is it one?): dropbox.com
I feel your pain! I just dropped my laptop in the lap of my IT geek at work and told him to make it work. He looked at it and told me it was personal, I gave him the death stare and told him if he has any hope of my laptop here surviving the day he will make that damn thing work…I am nothing without the information on that stupid laptop and stomped off – I think he was laughing at me.
Heather,
This happened to people at work as well. Our IT guy said this is a virus that deletes one very important file. He was able to fix everyones computer. So I dont think all hope is lost. He posted these links for us on information about the virus. But it only took him an hour or so to fix the peoples computer that it infected. Seek help! Someone can totally fix it. Here are the links: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/21/business/AP-US-TEC-McAfee-Antivirus-Flaw.html?src=busln
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=33389
Good luck.
I totally feel you on the wedding planning. My fiance’ and I decided we were going to wake up the day after the wedding and not owe anyone any money for it. Which was incredibly stressful at first. It sounds hokey, but now that we’re only a month away, I’m glad we did it that way. A year long engagement (to save up the money) was annoying, but doable. Having wonderful, creative friends (to design the invites, take the pics, help us negotiate good prices with rental companies, etc) was wonderful. A lot of the finishing touches make it person for us – we’re doing a celebratory shot instead of a champagne toast because I don’t like champagne and shots were cheaper and our favor will be a picture of each person we invited and us that we’ve signed thanking them for coming and stuck in a picture frame from Dollar Tree.
And now that we’re a month away, having a cheap (aka small) wedding means much less stress. There’s a lot we don’t have to worry about because we couldn’t even afford it in the first place.
Of course, people told me stories like this right after the thrill of the engagement had been replaced with the sinking dread of the potential wedding bills and I didn’t care. So take it for what it’s worth. But I really am glad we’re doing it this way…
I think maybe you need to hire someone to come do a technology cleanse on your house. Maybe burn some sage or old firewire cables…
You write about money problems a lot. I’m sorry it stresses you out so much- just reading about your budgeting and expenses and planning gives me anxiety. I’ve had more than my fair share of financial hardships, but I can’t relate to the hyper vigilant fretting about $ management. It sounds painful.
Everything is going to be OK.
http://www.tshirthell.com/funny-shirts/prince-of-dorkness/
I just saw this and thought of The Dork Lord
I guess we all have our things. And yes, it is rather painful to have almost zero financial security and to know it’s your own fault.
Perhaps I will start tagging posts that mention finances so you can skip them altogether and avoid being bothered.
Make sure back up, backup and Antivirus/antispyware up-to-date. Just finished reloading the whole op system on a Dell Vostro for a pet food store company owner friend who’s laptop was killed by trojans. Spartacus to the rescue. As an ex-president once said, “I feel your pain.”