So you went on vacation and you took a lot of pictures right?

Well it has been a couple weeks since we got home from vacation.  Seems like a long time ago that we managed to get off the road and back home.  Not saying the road was a bad place but travel makes me happy and it also makes me realize that home is a comfortable place.  It was an amazing trip.  I can only say we saw some amazing places.  It was also very relaxing.  It is one of those trips that we had no agenda and we just went with the flow.

So you may be asking where are the amazing landscape photos?  Why are you not updating 500px with amazing pictures?

The answer is?

Our iMac died.  No sooner did I get the photos off my camera and our iMac took a big grey screen dump.  Now this is not really the time to replace a device as we are truly getting our house finished up and we are just getting our feet back under ourselves.  Reno's cost money and it does not grow on trees.

Back to the pictures.  Gone? or what?  Well I was stressed as all our photos and so on were on the disk, the iMac I tried to rescue, many steps, I do not shy away from working on these things.  So I hit the web and made the effort but it was done.  We pulled the sheet over its web camera and walked away.

What is a guy to do?  I did what any IT storage guy does.....scream!  I actually did not do that but I wanted to.  I went out and bought a storage device, a qnap to be exact.  This was something I had wanted to do for a while but was busy with other projects.  So now we have a lovely storage array with redundant disks.  What next you say?  Well I started the recovery process via our Macbook.  Sadly the macbook is also old and tired but it start the process and I know I am getting my files back.

Then we did the next logical step and ordered a new iMac it is beautiful, we are very happy with it.  I am still restoring data but it is looking promising.

I have also started to do amazon glacier backups.  Very economical and integrated into the qnap.  So at the end of the day I have files stored in the cloud and redundant network storage and a new iMac to speed up the photo editing.

Now I just need some time to get the apps all setup and working not easy with things like lightroom as my catalog files are going to be tricky.

But such is the way things go around here lately it is one after the other.

But keep in touch I will have some pictures posted maybe by next week on Wednesday.  I am hopeful.

By the way if you are not backing up and storing your data on another disk at the minimum you really should because the thought of loosing all my photos was pretty scary.

Happy Backup!  Even Happier Restore!

PS:  Your backups are only as good as your last restore!  That is my IT tip of the day.

Time again for a recap or maybe a night cap

Much time has passed since the last post.  Seems our days were quite full and my desire to update those that are interested in my ramblings was low.  I think today is a day for a bit of a look back on the last 2 months.

First off, cycling has started again.  I decided a much more relaxed approach was required this year as it was an early start to the riding season.  But to date it has been very nice to get back on the bike and ride in to work.  I have been able to ride about 3 days a week on average depends on weather and temperature.  But there was a break in the riding due to a vacation so I am going back this week coming up and I think it should be a good week of riding.  We are out of the deep cold weather and so on.

Sinclaire arrived home from University.  Year 3 under her belt.  She may have made the deans list this year.  Amazing to think she is doing this well and I think it is also just amazing that she loves what she is taking.  But we will see how much time she spends at home.  Now that she is 20 she tends to spend more time with her boyfriend then us, so natural but strange.

Work has been a full plate lately and is about to step up again.  I am not complaining I like when work is busy it is just a lot of effort navigating the internal workings of our groups.  There is a lot of red tape to process and get through in order to even begin the work I have in front of me.

Vacation?  Yes there was a holiday.  We went to Phoenix for a week and then drove home with the folks.  It was an adventure.  I have to admit I saw some things that are truly amazing when it comes to the beauty of the landscape.  I also was able to cross a couple of locations off my list of places to visit.  I took a lot of photos and did some very fun stuff.  the last half of the drive home was hellish.  we hit a snow storm in the hills of Montana and it was a long couple of days driving from salt lake city to Calgary.  We survived but just say it was not pleasant.

Photos?  Just downloading those now.  I am sure I will have a bunch for the 500px site soon.  I again find the process of going through the pics a long one.  I am sure it will take a couple weeks.  As I am working a lot of extra time coming up so not a lot of time to do post processing.

Kitchen wise our backsplash tile is in.  Now we just need to install it.  Oh the joy.  Almost to the finish line.

Well that is my recap.  Next up is a quick piece on how to survive an extended road trip with your parents......kidding