RIP Macbook Hard Drive

This post is coming to you sans photos. Not because our camera doesn’t work; we bought a spiffy new camera from an old Australian rock star at the corner photo store. Just a week after our camera went, the hard drive on my personal computer konked out. My friend, the computer genius (and a Mac guy – a huge plus!), has given it a once over and has declared that data is unsalvageable and I’ll need to buy a new hard drive. While I waited for the diagnosis, I went over in my mind all of the things that were in that computer. Nearly three years of stuff. I was comforted by the fact that before I left Chico, I saved to a flash drive anything I thought was particularly sacred in anticipation of potentially losing or having my computer stolen while travelling. I pulled important pictures out of my iPhoto (including all of my 15 wedding pictures!). There were probably 10 years of pictures in my iPhoto, but it seems that if I didn’t save them before I left, they were likely to sit idle like all of the photo albums I boxed up before I moved out of my house.

So, I was remarkably zen about the prospect of losing everything on my computer. We had many more pictures from our Australian adventure so far that we hoped to share at some point, but because of the blog, we have salvaged most of the best ones. There were perhaps one or two that might have been nice to have, but we will just have to live with the memory.

Someone once to said to me, when I realized I didn’t have a camera at an opportune moment, “oh well, take a picture in your mind.” And together we mimed clicking a camera. I try to remember that sometimes when I’m here, like the other day watching the seal on the side of the breakwater. I tried so hard to catch the seal when it surfaced, and finally put the camera away and gave in to just enjoying watching it.

Today we walked down to the Warrnambool Art Gallery (WAG), which is just 4 blocks from our house. As we entered, a group of plaid clad teenagers were being given a tour. The featured exhibit was about how art can and cannot be restored. They had examples of paintings with instructive explanations about how conservers fix damage. Some of the paintings had figures painted over and the dilemma for conservers is to determine if the previous image should be restored or the painting maintained as it was. There was a story about how in the 80’s there was an event at the gallery and someone went upstairs to a closed gallery where he threw red wine on, punched holes in, and ripped half a dozen paintings. Crazy! Anyway, reading about the potential fleetingness of art reminded me that a picture in the mind is worth two in a crashed hard drive.