I have wanted a digital camera for as long as there have been digital cameras. To be ready at almost any time to capture "moments" and to record videos without all the hassle of tripods and cords, etc... . Before we got our camera, we would buy the little disposable Kodak or Fuji cameras, use them, and then put them aside to be developed "when we have the money". For YEARS. We have a box full of film that needs to be developed. I'm pretty sure we even still have wedding film to be developed. Our babies' first birthdays, milestones, everything are locked away in those little disposable cameras in the box in our closet. When we finally got our digital camera, it was a huge deal for me.
Pictures are very, very important to me. I treasure them. To hold a picture and be flooded with memories that might otherwise be lost to time is precious to me. I love pictures of ancestors, pictures of my grandparents when they were my age, pictures of my parents as babies, and even our goofy family portraits from the 80's. To me, more heart-breaking than being without a computer or internet access or an immediate way to communicate with family and friends hundreds of miles away was the thought that all the pictures I've uploaded might be lost forever.
I got hit square in the chest with that fear today when a certain busy child picked up a piece of metal from a science kit and thought, "hmmm, that USB port looks like a GREAT place for this random piece of metal". The child inserted the metal, wiggled it and the computer went, "POOF" and went black and quiet. After my initial disbelief that this child had done something a TODDLER would do and my anger that such an expensive piece of equipment might have been lost to such a careless, random act of "duh", I remembered all the pictures and videos I'd saved over the last two years on the computer and froze. I sat on the couch and mourned for I don't know how long, kicking myself over and over for not backing up our pictures. How could we have left something so important to us to chance? Then, I picked up the phone and called my husband at work. I said, "do you want to know now or when you get home". That's not code. He knows that means one of our offspring has done something not-very-smart and that it was serious enough that I couldn't fix it myself. He sighed and opted for "now". I told him and he grew silent. Then, he went through the various stages of emotion I had and finally, settled on resigned as I had done. He hung up with me to do some research to see what might have happened to the computer internally and what might be done about it.
We got on with our day as best as we could here, with the guilty party on lock-down in his bedroom except to do school and eat. I was making dinner when he walked in the door, rolled up his sleeves and went to work. He hadn't found much helpful information online except that to call in an expert from "The Geek Squad" STARTED at $199.99 and went up from there. Nice. To attempt to recover information began at $300. We both looked at each other and mentally kissed our pictures good-bye. He hauled the tower to the dining room table and began taking it apart. I left the room and went back to making dinner. The taking apart of expensive equipment- even when already broken- makes me nervous. Pretty soon, I heard him fiddling around, hooking the wires back up and not two minutes later, I heard the "chime" that signals the computer has been started. Trying not to get my hopes up, I walked into the school room and sure enough, he'd done it. He's not sure exactly WHAT he did, but he did it! I don't need to know. What I DO know, though, is that we begin backing up those pictures and videos tomorrow. Maybe this was just the scare we needed to stop messing around and just do it. While the guilty fiddler is definitely grounded for the next week, I suppose he might have done us a favor, in a round-about way.
One thing's for sure. Life in our house is never boring.
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