"The website that didn't want to be"

I was so close! The website would have been live a bit more than a month ago. I bought a new hard drive to make all the pending backups I needed to and that for many varied reasons, I couldn't do before. The new hard drive was installed and I rushed into copying files there. Go, go, go...

Early in the evening, the system slows down dramatically and it finally freezes. No, no, no...

Yes.

The hard drive died, while I was trying to back the data up. Too late.

I brought the computer to a local store and while the guy was checking if the disks were alive, the power supply died with a bang that made his UPS to turn everything off at the place. That was fun to see. Sort of. I almost laughed. I'm glad I didn't because the best was to come.

Well, maybe it's finally time to get a new computer. (She said, after seven years of loyalty to her old machine.)

The new computer arrived two days later, Friday evening. I bring it home, Debian Linux is installed, things begin to be set up. On Sunday I log into SL, wow at the graphics and the FPS I can get. I take a few pics. I think about the dead hard drive, but I also think of how to start rebuilding my work with the help of the latest backups I had. And then, for no reason at all, the computer reboots. It does again, and again. It does again later in the day. It does randomly, for no apparent reason. It seems I can't start rebuilding my work yet.

On Monday I call to the store. Houston, we have a problem. Since I was developing a script with a deadline, I couldn't bring the new computer to the store immediately. Rather, we tried figuring out what the heck was wrong while I tried finishing the script, testing things that could give a clue about which part was causing the problem. Little more than a month later, after some bumps in the road of replacing parts, it seems that the new computer is finally working as it should. Stories like the weekend without (new) computer because the replacement of the new power supply died are to be told during Halloween, around a campfire. The culprit of the whole new computer mess was indeed the power supply, so if you see that your computer randomly reboots, consider it as a possibility so you don't have to be pulling your hair for a month trying to find out what's wrong.

Many important files died in the backup I was trying to do, and if you ask me why I didn't have a RAID set in place or why I didn't get another drive earlier, or why I didn't do this and that... I could tell you yet more horror stories, but since we humans are going to judge anyway without understanding the particular life situation, I'll simply answer You know nothing, Jon Snow and save all the explanations that would go nowhere.

I haven't given up yet on the data of the dead hard drive, and that's yet another story. But there's something that didn't die in the middle of this: the website. I'm sorry for whoever was celebrating. (Probably the same person that reported this blog in the first place)

The website code, while it takes long to develop, it can be compressed in a small file by today's standards: Less than 1 MB. That size is something that even my slow connection can upload without strangling the net's use, so I backed this up and uploaded it often. Because if there's a fire in the area and then flooding, I will be able to have that work safe. I know what kind of things can happen. I just don't have the resources to be ready against all of them.

The experience has been frustrating to say the least and it hasn't come alone. Cats, parents, doctor appointments, rehabilitation. Life. It was hard not saying anything in the lines of this is unfair! or all this bad luck can't be possible, it was so tempting because that's our first irrational impulse. Things suddenly get wildly out of control and the Universe sure has been conspiring for this, because we are that important (That last phrase was sarcasm. Just making sure.)

I noticed how this kind of irrational thinking was building in my mind and I had to give myself time to get some perspective back into my thoughts and not let myself surrender to the easy believing.

You're having computer, cats, health, etc. issues, but that means you have computer, cats and a life that lets you take care of it.

Bad luck is just one roll with low probability, but it's still possible. Would you have complained with similar chances, but in the good luck direction? How many more people are having similar situations? Exactly, you don't know, so you can't conclude you're the only one having this happen.

Still thinking you're having bad luck? Watch two more episodes of Grey's Anatomy and then be thankful because you don't work at the Seattle Grace/Grey-Sloan Hospital. That would be being unlucky.

Now I fear giving any kind of notice that lets know if my work is advancing or is close to anywhere. It was close to somewhere when it stopped to be close to somewhere. All I can say is that I have started working again. Finally. (One sure could say that that website is slacking and doesn't want to go live.)

I hope I'll be back on track soon. I really do. Because I've written down on paper a lot of things while these problems were happening, and those things won't type and publish themselves alone :o)

Have a great day :-)