Tonight I started attending a nonfiction startup class. It’s eight weeks long, and there are only three students in the class. Thankfully, the other two students seem very cool. Interesting, different, and working on projects that I would want to read. We’re all in different places in our writing, but I think that will help us all get better. Plus the instructor is very relaxed but also has interesting exercises and readings to focus us and really push us to make progress on our projects.

Who knows, this book might actually get finished.

This afternoon I went to the cafe in the building where I work. Every day they have a little trivia question; if you get it correct, they take 10 cents off of your bill. It’s usually something fairly obscure, like the tallest mountain on another continent, or the first person to do something cool. I know maybe 20% of the answers? What I’m saying is that they aren’t gimme questions.

The answer to today’s question was Wham! As in, the George Michael duo from the 80s. I have reached the point in my life where the folks most likely to be working as baristas and putting together tough trivia questions think that knowing what group George Michael used to sing with is not common knowledge.

Yikes.

So much going on in the world, but I did a bad job curating this week. So instead of my weekly round-up, today you get this: Things I Learned While Camping

This weekend Austin and I went camping with a few friends. Some of them are seasoned campers; others had only camped during their youth (me) or had never camped at all. It was car camping at the Tower Rock Campground in Washington State, and here’s what I learned.

• As much as a ‘camping pad’ might claim to help, what I really wanted was an air mattress.
• After watching multiple people start campfires, I understand how to start them in theory, but don’t think I could yet start my own in practice.
• I really don’t have a problem peeing in the woods when the vault toilet is just too far away.
• I still unintentionally scare myself by conjuring up scenes from the Blair Witch Project when I am in a forest in the dark.
• There is a lot of prep work that goes into having fresh food during a camping trip. I failed at that this go round, but am ready for next time.
• I can definitely go three nights without showering. After that I probably need to figure something out.
• I enjoyed car camping but am clearly not ready to upgrade (downgrade?) to backpacking any time soon.
• It’s nice to not have any internet or phone access for a few days.
• I can share a little two-person tent with Austin and not feel claustrophobic at all.
• The friend who planned this little camping adventure is the best. Here’s a shot of her photobombing us at the lookout near Layser Cave

We have been having a fantastic week up here in Yosemite. We are staying just south of the park’s gate, and we’ve gone into the valley four times in a week. Austin and I went on a seven mile fairly easy hike the first day, then two days later went back for another 13 miles on the valley loop trail. My feet are destroyed.

Today we went on a four-line zip line tour of the forest, which was gorgeous. And each evening we’ve been playing games, drinking wine and having just a general blast. It’s great to get to see my three year old niece, and my extended family (as in, my in-laws). We head back to Seattle tomorrow, and while it will definitely be sad to say good-bye to folks and this lovely setting, it will also be really nice to get back to Seattle, and the kittens.

A little over two weeks ago, my computer died. The battery was acting up and then the hard drive starting to make a terrifying clicking sound. I got the blue screen of death. When I rebooted it, the screen was black, with the words ‘cannot find operating system’ appeared.

I wasn’t too concerned, however, because just under a year ago I bought a subscription to Crash Plan. I’m in emergency management, so I was thinking a wireless back-up system would be preferable to an external drive, because if there were an earthquake or a fire, the external drive would be useless (crushed or burned), while a cloud system could be accessed from anywhere.

I subscribed and set up my account, then downloaded the Crash Plan app. Following the site’s instructions, I selected what I wanted to back up, and hit the ‘start back-up’ button. It was late on a Thursday night, but I really wanted to get it done (I get that way), so I stayed up and watched as it backed up all of my files. It took a fair bit of time. When it was done, I selected how often I wanted it to do a back up, and that was it.

So, like I said, I was pretty relieved I’d done that, as when I took my computer in, they first thought they could recover the data from the hard drive, but in the end could not. Last night Austin picked up my computer, and we turned it on. The guy at PC Fix had loaded some odd items onto my computer (in addition to the standard things). For example, when I booted up, a gaming software system popped up, complete with his log-in information saved. Yikes. Eventually Austin did a full wipe and reinstalled Windows. In the meantime I went to the website of Crash Plan to follow the instructions to recover all of my data. I downloaded the app again, and signed in, and saw that it had completed a back-up 18 days earlier. Cool. I went to retrieve all of my files and …

Nothing.

Panic. For a brief moment. But Austin talked me down and said he’d figure it out. I took a shower and came back, and he confirmed … yup. No files.

I mentioned Crash Plan on twitter while Austin sent a tech support item. Today, thought multiple back-and-forth conversations, their tech support have tried to convince me that I never hit the ‘start back-up’ button.

This is not a matter of me making an error. I’ve done that. It happens and it sucks. But this? This I KNOW, with certainty, I did. I have a vivid memory of it. So my guess is that when that happened, something got fucked up on their end. Which is fine. I mean, a bummer, but fine. I just wish they’d own up to it, and accept that they screwed up. Instead, they offered me a year-long extension on my subscription.

In what world would I extend a subscription with a company that so dramatically screwed the pooch the first time around? Because of them, I now have no tax documents, no dissertation, no cover letters, no work I did for a few of the organizations I volunteer with. No list of places I’ve lived for the next time I apply for a government job. Thankfully most of my pictures from the last few years are online, so those are safe. But I just finished a project scanning and uploading all of the documents I had in paper form, so those are gone. I have no record of any of the service performed on my car. No receipts for items of value for insurance purposes. Shoot, I don’t even have my renter’s insurance policy.

But it’s going to be okay. I’ll find the documents I’ve lost if I really need them (like, say, my tax returns for when we buy a house). I had emailed my book to a couple of people, so that’s not gone. And I learned a couple of lessons.

1. Don’t trust Crash Plan. In fact, don’t trust any online back-up. Once you’ve completed the back-up the first time, check that all of your files are there. Delete a couple that aren’t needed and try to restore them from online. Screen-cap the whole process and save that in your email, just in case. Every week or so, check and make sure it is still doing the back-up properly.

2. Use an external back-up drive. My goal is to secure one that is large enough for important items (probably won’t put photos and music on there, since I can save that to the cloud easily) and then save to it twice a year, and store it in a safety deposit box.

Thanks to Austin, my computer is now mostly back to normal. I’ve got the right OS, I’ve got my Microsoft office, and most of my other programs. I’ve still got some more things to download and sync, but it’s nearly as good as new. I doubt I’ll get any further with figuring out why Crash Plan failed, but that’s okay. I’ve learned my lesson.

And I got to find all sorts of cute pictures of kittens. Everybody wins!

On April 27th our landlords called to tell us they want to put their condo (our apartment) on the market. They gave us 60 days, but some incentives to get out earlier. By May 1st we’d found a new apartment, although in a new neighborhood. That day I also rented boxes and booked movers. On May 9th, we moved. On May 10th, we unpacked.

What I’m saying is, it’s been an unexpectedly busy two weeks. Hopefully the weekly wrap-up will be back on Sunday.

This is going to be quick. We decided last fall to do another visit to London and Paris in the spring. I wantedto see my friends, and we both loved Paris when we were last there. We’re now in Paris, having spent four nights in London. One thing that was a reminder for me is that trips to London aren’t really vacations for either of us. For me, they are reunions, full of wanting to see my friends as much as possible. For Austin, it’s a lot of going where I want to do. He likes my friends a lot, but it is more socializing than either of us usually do, and in a condensed time.

Which is why we go to London first. We see friends, get ourselves exhausted, and then can relax on the next leg of our trip. We took the train down this morning, and were greeting by a hail storm. It was actually kind of cool. Our hotel here is LOVELY. Hotel Banke. Check it out. Don’t know what deal we got online, considering how expensive the drinks in the bar are. But the room (we’re on the top floor!) is sweet – not as small as I expected, and with a gorgeous view. After freshening up we decided to seize the sun that had burst from the giant rainclouds and went on a 5 and a quarter mile tour of the city in about three hours. 

Based on a recommendation from the front desk, we had a very French meal – at a large restaurant that has been open for almost 150 years. They were very kind (they had menus in English as well as French), and my steak and frites was delicious.

The only real downside right now is that I have a cold. It’s not nearly as bad as some other colds, but it’s not fun, and I’d rather just be able to keep going without having to stop to take medicine, or blow my nose, or rest. But considering I’m in Paris with the best man I know, I’m still pretty lucky. 

Oh, and I’ve already had macarons. So yeah, this trip is awesome.

For the first time since we moved in together three years ago, the Mister is out of town and I am not joining him. I’m very happy for him to have a chance to go to a work event where I’m sure he’ll have a lot of fun.

But I’m more happy for me, because I get the kittens ALL TO MYSELF! Seriously, it’s amazing. Tigger has already crawled into my lap for snuggles. I’ve just ordered a movie on Amazon (a comedy about abortion, which should have just been called ‘Hey, Ashley, You’ll Like This One’), and will soon be enjoying the worst pizza in the country. Only downside is I’ve got some work to do tonight as well.

But that’s okay. Because, as I said before, I get the kittens ALL TO MYSELF.

My sister-in-law is extremely creative and very talented. She’s the head pastry chef for a great little shop in Santa Barbara, and was the genius behind the cupcakes and truffles and Austin’s and my wedding. She not only knows how to make all kinds of sweet and savory treats, but how to throw a party.

The whole point of our trip down to Santa Barbara was to celebrate our niece’s third birthday. The theme for the party was Cinderella, and Joc went all out. We helped hang thin white fabric and sparkly bits from the deck overhang, set up table and chair, and set out all of her decorations. She did some simple work with ribbons and mason jars, created a great birthday banner, and made these ridiculously detailed Hershey kiss mice. The mice were two kisses glued together bottom to bottom, with tiny mouse ears glued between, a tiny pink tail, and tiny googly eyes. She scattered them across the tables, creating delicious, adorable decorations.

She also made some involved but delicious and clever appetizers. There were cucumber cups with dill cream cheese piped inside, toped with smoked salmon and a slice of tomato. There were dates stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in basil and prosciutto. There were cheeses and other nibbles, and everything had a label so folks knew what was what. Because the party involved adults and children, there was wine, fruit drinks for the little ones, a table covered with butcher paper and art supplies, pizza, a Cinderella bouncy house (which Austin and I got to try out before the kids arrived), and a Cinderella piñata. There was also an amazing two-layer cake covered in blue fondant and lots of bows, with a Cinderella cake topper. One of the flavors was chocolate with chocolate buttercream, Nutella and pretzels. Our niece had an amazing time, which was obviously the point, but all the other kids and adults seemed to have a great time as well.

Why do I share all of this? Because I want to remember the party for the next time I get to throw a little shindig. There were so many special touches that I think I would enjoy employing at my cookie party or some other time. Obviously our parties won’t be child-focused, but there are often kids there, and there is more we can do to make sure they are having fun.

Also, I want an excuse to make those Hershey kiss mice.