More Consequences of Idiocy

Every day I find yet another reason to kick myself in the ass for not backing up my hard drive. I lost so much information, so much data, so much history... it continues to take my breath away. Today I realized another document that I have lost.

I had a spreadsheet laid out for all my course requirements, all my chosen courses for fulfilling those requirements, all 3 of the minors and the honors certificate. It calculated GPA and missing requirements. It cross-referenced between the minors and the requirements their courses meet. It was a bloody awesome spreadsheet!

I knew I had lost the document when my drive died. But I thought I had 2 backup plans. First, I had printed it out to take to my advisor and to show family/friends. Second, I thought I had sent a copy of it to my Once Best Friend. I checked the file where the hard copy should be and it wasn't in there. I have a vague recollection of it getting crumpled and torn and therefore thrown away.

Bummer. But I should have the file that I sent to her saved in my Sent Messages folder. Tonight I scoured my messages, incoming and sent, in both email accounts. It isn't there. Obviously I IMed it to her instead - a logical thing to do at the time. Except that now I have no copy of it anywhere. It's not like I can ask her if she still has a copy of it!

So I get to recreate the spreadsheet. The calculations and format won't be a hideous problem, more time consuming and annoying than anything. But I had gone through all the courses, all the major and minor requirements, and decided all of the courses I was going to try to take. It took a long time to do and will take an equally long time to reproduce. Add another thing to my never-ending to do lists.

I am so frustrated and angry at myself for this. DAMMIT! I know better!! Such a stupid thing, such an obvious thing... and it continues to bite me in the ass over and over and over.

Moral of the Story: BACK UP FILES! FREQUENTLY! ALWAYS! and PRINT HARD COPIES! FREQUENTLY! ALWAYS!