Wasted Days and Wasted NIghts

Is it possible that the fabulous Freddy Fender, among his many talents also presaged the coming of the computer age?  I think so.

The application of the computer has been a awe-inspiring element of the last 25 years.  When I first went to work as a geologist, my company had an entire floor devoted to the 'Drafting Department'.  I would make a geologic map with pencil on blueline paper and then go down to the drafting department and hand-in the my hand-drawn map, where I could expect a 3 day turn-around before the draftsman had traced my contours with a thin roll of drafting tape on a piece of Mylar and then lettered all of the text and numbers by hand with a Leroy set before being printed in black and white (color was airbrushed and usually only upper-level employees could request color maps).  Now, I have software that I can quickly draw and edit, color and letter in a variety of fonts all in a single day. Save the file and print as many copies as I need.  The computer and mapping and data management software have changed everything for the better.  Mostly.

I unlocked my office door the other Monday, booted-up my machine, it starts, then stops.  I try again, this time it does not start.  I look up a computer repair service on the internet using my phone.  Eugene comes by in about an hour and says, "Your power source is fried."  Eugene takes my machine away to replace the power source.  I get a call late that night from Eugene, "Yeah man, all your hard drives are fried too.  Real bummer.  I can rebuild your machine and get it to you tomorrow."  
Wasted Days & Wasted Nights.

I give Eugene the OK; new hard drives, new mother board, new DVD player, new power source, new processor, new USB ports.  Fortunately I had been doing the occasional back-up on an external hard drive, and I had recently purchased an automatic back-up software package.

Once Eugene bring back my new machine the next afternoon, he spends some time to work out the bugs, getting all three monitors to light up etc., I then go to restore my backed up files.  I get my most recent files to restore, but I realize I had not selected any of my critical geologic projects - the heart of my business to be backed up.  I hope that the larger older manually backed up files contain my critical geologic mapping data.   
Wasted Days & Wasted Nights.

I can see the older files which I think may contain my geologic project listed on my external drive, but I can not get my BackUp software to recognize nor restore them.

Wasted Days & Wasted Nights.

I read the instructions, I surf the FAQ's on the company website, I soak my keyboard with big pitiful tears.  I write the company tech support.

Wasted Days & Wasted Nights.

I submit an incident report to the company, I get a response.  In order to read the older files, I have to change the file extension from the older version to the newer version.  I do that and attempt to restore the lost files.  I can read the older files, but I can not get them to restore.

Wasted Days & Wasted Nights.

I resubmit my incident report.  I get a reply that I need to add a new line of code to my config.ini file.  I do that, but I still am unable to import and restore them.

Wasted Days & Wasted Nights.

I re-resubmit my incident report, and I get a reply, I need to add yet another line of code to the config.ini file and create a new folder.  I finish that task, but I see that "0 Files have been Restored" in my report.  

I am singing Wasted Days and Wasted Nights (in my mind).

I then check in my newly created folder, and there they are. My old files with my geologic projects.  I loose the last seven months of modifications, but the core of the data is now restored.  I am pleased.

My projects are there!  I dry up my eyes Before the Next Tear Drop Falls.