
I had a bit of a scare yesterday.
I was home alone, enjoying a rare afternoon of working in peace and quiet while my husband and son drove my mother in law to her home, which is two hours away.
I was deep into my work when I heard a weird popping noise in the kitchen. I walked inside and the kitchen was filled with smoke. I wasn’t cooking anything and nothing wss “turned on.” When I couldn’t locate the source of the smoke, I called 911. Then I gathered up the pets and exited the house.
While I was standing on my property talking on the cell phone to my husband and watching a myriad of neighbors drive slowly past to wonder about the three fire trucks and ambulance in my driveway, I had a disturbing thought. What if there was a fire and I lost my laptop. Kind of silly, right?
Not for me. Last week, I thought I had an emergency when I couldn’t remember any of my passwords. If I lost my laptop, I would lose everything. My computer is my livelihood, my life. If it melted in a fire, I would lose everything I needed to make my living. Oh sure, eventually I could get it all back, but it would take days.
This was an important lesson to me to back up my files on a regular basis, and store the disc in the fire proof box that contains all of our important papers. If my house was a flame, my computer would be the least of my concerns, but if I wanted to rebuild I’d need the information inside that computer to get on with my life. People, I beg you. Back up regularly.
By the way, after about an hour, the firemen located the source of the smoke. My refrigerator blew up. It came with the house when we moved in five years ago, and recently started “making noises.” We figured we’d need to replace it soon. Guess soon is here.






Whew! I'm glad it was just the refrigerator!
Yes -- back up, back up, back up, and protect those discs. One of my computers has just collapsed and is showing the 'blue screen of death', so I'm really happy I took this advice!
Posted by: Lou Paun | June 18, 2007 8:45 AM | Permalink to Comment