Back Up Your Hard Drive

Without warning, my three year old hard drive gave out.  The computer wouldn't boot up and I tried everything I knew to find a fix or a work around, including whining for help to my teenage son and geeky Mac friend (Hi, John!).  Off it went to a computer repair shop and the word came back that the hard drive was inoperable and no data could be recovered from it.

There was a half hour where I thought the back up drive was also toast.  The tech called and said he could find no personal data on the external drive but finally agreed to look again.  He found my music and pictures but restoring to a particular date was somehow not something he could do. Why not? His explanation sounded like this to me: "Right click blah blah blah control A blah blah blah Windows security system blah blah blah."

I now have a new hard drive and pretty much all of my photos back.  My iTunes and music are still scattered between the iPod, the external drive and the new drive.  Never having looked at the files on the external drive, I was surprised to learn that the filing system of storing the data there involves breaking it up into small packages and cramming it all into vast numbers of compartments, scattered throughout time and space.

But it is better than nothing.  Back up your hard drive today.

Montana

Here are two pretty mountain photos from my trip to Montana.  The first is from Glacier National Park, taken on the drive up Going to the Sun road.  The second snap is through the windshield (obviously) of the mountains in North Cascades National Park in Washington.

Ray and I drove over to meet Dave, who was finishing a long motorcycle trip up the unpaved roads of the Continental Divide. Dave's brother and sister-in-law live on Whitefish Lake so it was an easy and totally pleasant place to meet and have a holiday away from home.  We went out on the lake in a pontoon boat and met some nice dogs from the neighborhood and enjoyed our time with family.  Ray's point of view is altogether different, though.  When I asked him what his favorite part of the trip was, he said, without any thought at all, "Guns and motorcycles". Uncle Gary knows how to make his nephew smile.

Hi, Willy

The Cabin

It is such a very long drive to our cabin in Alaska and this year, I didn't go.  Dave drove up in a maniacal two days and got the systems up and running.  He launched boats and beat back the brush and repaired a ramp on one of the docks.

Ray flew up to Juneau when school got out and spent a few days with some of his old friends.  Then he and Katherine joined Dave up at the lake for some Father's Day fun.

Dahlias

There was a blurb in the local paper about a flower show in a nearby town. It was rather like a county fair with first place ribbons and judged categories and all, but there weren't any goats or angora rabbits or quilts.  It was strictly dahlias.

They are such showoffs! It is so tempting to post ALL of the pictures I took.  Love these flashy blooms!

Not Enough Yarn

Sometimes things just don't work out.  A hat pattern and a ball of yarn seemed destined to be together and I was more than halfway done before a feeling of unease set in.  Did I make a mistake on the cables? No, the increases that shape the slouchy, beretishness of this hat made the cabling go askew, and, well, there wasn't going to be enough yarn to finish.  I could buy more yarn but I will rip it out.  There is a better hat to be found for this particular skein.

More Pincushions

Crushed walnut shells (sold as lizard litter at the pet store) proved to be a much better filler for pincushions.  They add a bit of heft which keeps the cushion from lifting up with the pin you are trying to extract.  Maybe the coarse grains also sharpen the pins?  Who really cares about that? They are fun little projects and making half a dozen or so might seem excessive until one looks on Flickr for the real zealots.