The New Year so far

Maybe I'll pin my hopes on the new year, Gregorian-style. Since the Jewish New Year started I've been slammed at work, left to care for various pets as friends go out of town (trips that I can't join in because of the afore-mentioned work stress), and to top it all off: my computer had a stroke. I got the Blue Screen of Death, and nearly had a stroke myself.

Of course the first thing I do is call my dad, who helpfully points out that a) I should have been backing everything up, and b) I probably lost everything. Thanks, Dad. Instead of those little tidbits cheering me up, they promoted my somewhat-mediated anxiety into a full-blown freak-out. There were tears, curses, this-can't-really-be-happening-s. To be fair, he did try to help by finding me the Dell people in Israel. Unfortunately, they don't exist. So I proceeded to go to sleep (it was nighttime anyways, and it was either that or sink further into a funk).

In the morning I managed to find someone who would look at it first thing Sunday morning. Then I went out of town for the weekend. Nothing like avoiding reality to make things look better! I had a very nice weekend visiting with the family of a friend and coworker in a place called Holon, near Tel Aviv. It was Sukkot, so their whole family came over to eat, argue - I mean visit together, and etc. It was great fun to just be in a family environment, and they're just the sweetest family ever. When they're not yelling - I mean talking - that is.

Anyhow the computer guy came on Sunday, and discovered that my information was still salvagable. He shall forever be called the Hero of my Life. It turns out that my hard drive was in the process of dying, and was nice enough to hiccup on its way down so I could do some last-minute magic to save the contents. Well, so the Hero of my Life could do the magic. Of course, he called me today - the magic will cost about the same as a month's rent. Awesome. Still, at least it's all retrievable. As soon as I get my computer back, invigorated with a new breath of life (and a month's rent-worth of new crap in its belly), I promise to back up every day, every time I do anything on the thing. Every time. For ever and ever. And ever. I will back up like nobody has backed up before. Amen.