Building Again

Here's the latest update......I am building my house again after the "fire" (I really don't want to offend anyone that has actually been through an actual fire)! I picked up my computer yesterday from the data recovery dude in Boulder. And the good news is, I have more data than I thought I would get back! Bad news, I have lost all recently created pages and numbers documents. And all of Isabelle's baby pictures from the first 3 months of her life (but I'm pretty sure my mom can help me out with this one). And I have to reorganize all of my 3000+ emails into their proper categories (I use email as a filing system for personal and business). And I have to re-do all photo events for the last six years. And I lost all of my play lists on iTunes. And for some reason the recovery process duplicated lots (500+???) songs that now need to be deleted. But hey, I have data!!! So even though I am looking at hours and hours of work in front of my computer......it's OK. I can deal with this.

And bless my wonderful husband, he took on the whole "negotiating with Apple" part of the deal. And as of last night, I feel mildly satisfied at what they are doing for us. Of course, it is not compensation because they are not liable for data loss blah blah blah. But they are at least doing something.

Speaking of my husband, a big Happy Birthday Michael!!! You are my rock, my love, and I cannot imagine life without you!! Have a wonderful day:)

Oh, and that other little thing around the corner......Clearwater???!!! Yep, hopping on a plane in the morning and racing on Saturday. I am excited! I'm looking forward to meeting new peeps, and racing in another "worlds" this year. I have my race plan and nutrition plan all set up, now it's just getting to the start line. Of course, I am traveling with my buddies PIC Sonja and Anthony and I know we will have fun:)

I will try to post an update or 2 and I believe you can follow live on www.ironman.com. Just look up my last name and make sure I got out of the water without too much bruising and ego bashing (last world's experience). My start time is 7:15!

Ciao for now!

Apple Burned My House Down

Or, alternative title...The Things I Lost in the Fire. There was not an actual fire I assure you but the only way to describe the loss I have experienced over the last week is to compare it to that. PIC and I got to ride outside the other day....it was glorious and 75 degrees. As we talked about what happened, she said just that. It's like your house burned down.

It's my computer. My mac. My life. Apple has ruled my world since 2006 and actually before that I think. I am an Apple lover and we are an Apple family (except for Michael's work stuff)....an iphone (my second one since they don't actually swim), 3 shuffles (only 1 currently works), 3 nanos, 2 classics. I need a laptop soon since my kids are taking over the desktop and a macbook pro was at the top of my list. Was.

So what happened you ask? I upgraded my operating system to Snow Leopard about a month ago since I wanted to upgrade my iPhoto and do more things with my 4,000+ photos. Easier editing, better organizing....it all sounded so wonderful. I put more memory in the mac to handle the new OS and at the beginning of October I was up and running! It was great! I love iPhoto. iTunes was pretty much the same and I also changed my mail option to mac mail. For the last month I have been editing, sorting etc. etc. Snow Leopard also prompted me to set up a guest account. Great! I was thinking about having the kids work/play there and not potentially mess up my stuff. But Sunday night my computer went to sleep while I was putting the kids to bed. I came back down to check email and accidentally clicked on the guest account. It took a very long time to log in. Way too long. So I hit escape to try to get back into the main log in screen. Once there I logged into my account.

And it was gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. I did what any person who has had experience with an IT department does. I rebooted. And logged in again. And once again. Gone. I literally panicked. I may have screamed. I freaked out. Michael freaked too. It was all gone. The programs were there but they were empty. iTunes prompted me to start a new account. Same with iPhoto and mail. WTF? The documentation of my children growing up over the last seven years. Years of building a great iTunes. And my mail. All documentation of my work, my business, receipts. Gone. As I type this I am shaking again. Garmin data for the last 3 years? Gone.

After 30 minutes on the line with Apple support on Monday, I get this.....we know about this problem with Snow Leopard and guest accounts but we can't help you. You need to go to a third party data recovery specialist. WTF? I was crying trying to keep my shit together and not rip the Apple guy's head off on the phone.....because I know that as much as that may have made me feel a tad bit better, it wouldn't have accomplished anything else. So I find a data recovery specialist and after several days of him looking into the problem here's what we know. He has found raw data files but it doesn't have any information on it like date stamps or anything helpful like that. He feels pretty confident that he can recover most photos (THANK YOU!!!), all of iTunes, and not so sure about mail and any other documentation. All for the low low low cost of $700. And, more than likely, I will have days and weeks of work to go back in and reorganize all the data.

And what is Apple doing to help us out? Well, at this point, nothing. Nothing!! They keep pointing the finger back at me......because I didn't back up my data. See, because I had the new OS, I was a tad bit lazy getting around to backing up my computer. I was confident that I was OK with Snow Leopard. I have a hard drive. It's just unused and empty. But is this problem really my fault? I think not. This is a known problem to Apple and there are no warnings out there. No one told me at the Apple store....BTW don't set up a guest account you may lose all your data.....no warnings. So tell me, what is your data worth to you? How much would you pay for it? How much should Apple?

I will get my computer back on Tuesday. And we'll see what I've got. I am mildly hopeful but I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking how stupid I was for trusting my OS and not backing up. And freaking out that I may have lost all those wonderful family photos. My children's history......My business.......My life......

Lessons here peeps???? BACK UP YOUR DATA!!!!!!