Sick::Sick::Sick

There are some days when you just wish you hadn’t got out of bed.
Today started off innocuously enough, woke in time, (no need for an alarm these days with a cat who demands breakfast at 6).
Got to work on time, (a little early even, hot on the heels of posting niece and nephew one and two’s birthday gifts. One a lot late one which may arrive on time).
I did have one wobble in that I stopped for coffee at my NEW favourite cafe. This is fine except that my OLD favourite cafe is next door to the PO wherein I had to post the gifts… The only available carpark was right out front of OFC. So imagine me trying to hide the fact that I have a coffee in hand. OFC has a history of making my coffee when the barista sees my car… Didn’t make eye contact, ducked back into the car quick smart to make sure I wasn’t spotted… No doubt I’ll hear about it next time I’m in…
Anyway, to work, business as usual with the addition of a quick side trip to the city to pick up ‘mother of all lenses’ to shoot the dancing girls again tonight. (immediately depressed I can’t afford a ‘mother of all lenses’ for myself). All of which appeared to go without incident. Easy.
So, you’re probably wondering by now, why on earth I was wishing myself back in bed when the day has so far been so unremarkable.
It actually all didn’t go to custard until much later. Post the ‘Shoot the Dancers’ gig.
The thing with digital pix is that it’s all so ephemeral. All you have to show for your night’s work is a cartridge that may (or may not) have lots of lovely 0s and 1s which can be translated into rather beautiful works of art. You know in theory that those noughts and ones are arranged artfully because you have a little screen you can preview them on. It’s good stuff.
Usually.
You can hear where this is going right? Two hours of observing a night of beauty and truth through a small window and a fat telephoto lens. Two hours and 600 pictures. Two hours and a process of transferring those files from camera to computer that went horribly wrong.
As in insert card = no pictures. Actually that’s the short part of the process. It was more like

1. Insert card number one, the card with the curtain call photos and transfer pix without incident.
2. Idiotically remove card from camera WITHOUT ejecting it first (and learn NEVER to do that again).
3. Insert card number, the mother of all cards, the one with the bulk of the pretty pix.
4. Scratch head in wonder as to why there are no images there.
5. Freak out.
6. Call PIA and whimper.
7. Try not to think about the fact that your files are gone… gone… gone.
8. Console yourself with the thought that you did at least get a whole bunch of quality shots last night.
9. Prep the computer to shut down, shoot off an image on the camera to verify that there really isn’t anything on the card – it definitely says “Folder is Empty”. Whimper again.
10. Watch junk on telly to calm down. Whimper a bit more.

Now, this is where I tell you the happy ending.
PIA asked if I might give the card to one of my IT boys in the hope they might fix it, and I initially dismissed it as futile. But there, at one moment, there was a spontaneous thought that occured that maybe they were still on the card, maybe there were recovery options.
Enter Google.
So I searched, found, and downloaded a free trial of a product for complete twits like me, who’ve done such daft things in the past and set it to start scanning my card. And what do you know, the files were still there.
Cue Massive Sigh of Relief.
The crazy thing is, these photos don’t have much value except to the participants and the marketeers who use them to promote successive year’s events.
But to me they’re art. I wasn’t too gutted that they were gone from a work point of view, but the thought of the Art being forever lost was too much to write off. And the purchase of the product has set me back $45. (Money well spent).
So, I ask you Blogosphere, where did that voice come from? That suggestion that I consult the Googracle?
I really didn’t expect there to be an answer less still such a good result. And I can tell you I was sending up rocket after rocket by way of prayer in hope (not much in the way of faith) that the fact normal deleting of files takes minutes rather than this apparent instantaneous evaporation may mean they hadn’t fully gone. But if If I’d left it and assumed that the files were gone then they surely would have been once I started shooting new pictures over the top of them.
My take on it is this; God does look after his kids, recalcitrant or not, and I’m pretty confident that voice, that whisper was His, (or one of His mates the HG or some errant angel etc. etc.). I can’t believe it came from myself. I was too busy feeling miserable.
Either way, I’m rather thankful. And now that I’ve spent the whole evening recovering files I’ve barely had a chance to look at them, let alone put them up on flickr.
Time for that tomorrow.