Losing Everything

I had a feeling I was losing my Mac. First the track pad went out and it just seemed to be moving slower, thinking harder. I even toured around Best Buy one day when I was still in Ohio.
I should have known and I should have ensured it was backed up right in that moment. I think I assumed it was all connected and happily saving to the iCloud.

Back it up.

It was Thursday night. I'm calling it the Mactastrophe of 2016. I was mid typing when suddenly the whole computer just... shut down. As I tried to reboot it got stuck on the white Apple screen. I began searching on my phone, I followed all the advice and tips, nothing. I decided to let it run like this all night off the charger, kill itself, and I'd reboot fresh in the morning. Friday morning comes, nothing. The white screen of death. I Google more. I call Apple Care. I'm trying all things. I have so much of my life on this little machine. It's all scrolling through my brain ~ photos, work, races, training data, athlete data, so much ~ please don't be gone!

I needed to get away so I planned on taking her in to Geek Squad and I left for a swim...

Great 5000 meter swim but bad news from the Geek Squad, it's the hard drive. She called it, "basically a piece of plastic". She says there's no way to get data from it unless they send it away and that usually costs $500+ if they can even recover anything. Apparently the memory in a MacBook Pro (this particular model) is a moving piece vs. a flash memory. Moving pieces eventually stop working. I think I stood there staring at her speechless for at least 4 minutes. And then the tears. I couldn't even control them. I felt like I had lost everything. You might as well have burned my house down and left me standing with only the clothes on my back and my bike in my car.

iCloud was empty. I was so stupid not to have backed anything up. I don't even understand.

Back it up.

The Mac is currently in the hands of a friend who might have a way to pull the data off. I'm not counting on it, but oh my gosh it would be AMAZING!! I went ahead and made the UGH purchase of a new Mac and my intent is to host weekly backup parties with myself right here at my place. I've been logging on to all things trying to remember and recover passwords and downloading any important documents that I've emailed and can re-save to this desktop. Although a pain in the ass, so much stuff is re-creatable. It's just stuff. But there's also the "stuff" that can't be recreated. I had albums and albums of photos ~ adventures. All gone. I had a personal spreadsheet of all my training and race data since 2010. Since 2010!! All my athlete training data, payments, accomplishments... All my finances and budget spreadsheets. All of my writings. All gone. It's truly devastating.

The technology available at our fingertips is palpable. It's easy to use, inexpensive, and foolproof. We have NO EXCUSE to lose photos/work/data to a computer problem. We KNOW this. We are SMART! Back up your computer. Back up your phone. Right now, GO DO IT!! GO!

Back it up.