Month: October 2019

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My Latest Acquisition

One of those rare finds. Released in 1984 and still sealed in the original shrinkwrap.

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Released 43 Years Ago Today

Elton John: Blue Moves (1976)

Like many others, when  Blue Moves first came out, and for many years later, I had a love/hate relationship with this album. The sound was so different from all of Elton's previous work, and yet still so fresh. It also annoyed me no end back in the day that all four sides of the album wouldn't fit on a standard 90 minute cassette tape, requiring that you buy a notoriously thin and prone to breakage and entanglement-in-the-player 120-minute cassette.

Now, of course, I think this collection is brilliant.

Favorite tracks: One Horse Town, Boogie Pilgrim, Crazy Water, Shoulder Holster, Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word, If There's a God in Heaven (What's He Waiting For?), and Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance).

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Reason #1590

What prompted this was a posting on the macOS Reddit (I now understand why I avoided Reddit for so long) where a guy was bemoaning the fact that he upgraded to macOS Catalina and because he was still using iPhoto (retired from the Apple ecosystem several years ago)  during the conversion to Photos, he apparently lost 20 years of photos and videos that did not translate over.

Okay, I understand that glitches happen, and as I've been more than happy to opine over the past couple months, during my personal beta testing, Catalina was a hot mess that was not ready for prime time. (My own experience after—admittedly against my better judgment—upgrading to the official public release a couple weeks ago has been nothing but positive, and in fact I like it better than macOS Mojave.)

What got me (and apparently everyone else on that thread) was the fact this guy had no backup whatsoever. He had a few things in the cloud, but not everything because, It was too much of a hassle and "it's too expensive." Nor had he backed up his drive prior to upgrading. I mean seriously…

How much are your photos and video memories worth, dude?

So after reading his self-inflicted tale of woe, my initial response was to write, "Sucks to be you!" But instead I didn't respond at all.

C'mon people, BACK UP YOUR SHIT. I cannot stress that enough! I have witnessed too many incidents, both professionally and personally where people have lost years of data (and I suspect in one case, their job) because nothing had been backed up.

I'm pretty sure I've posted this before, but my own backup strategy is a nightly clone using Carbon Copy Cloner onto an external SSD, coupled with a Time Machine backup onto an aging Time Capsule. In addition, Every few months I copy really important stuff (like photos and music) to other external hard drives just in case. The only weak point in my system is that none of the backups are stored offsite, so if the house burns down I'm SOL, but that's an acceptable risk in my opinion.

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CONGRATULATIONS!

Last night Ben received his second Master's, this one in Educational Administration. I am so proud! As I told him, "You've done more in your 36 years than I've done in my 61!"

I never finished my Bachelor's. After 2 years slogging away at the University of Arizona School of Architecture, I decided college just wasn't for me (and frankly coming out in the late 70s was such a distraction that my grades suffered immensely). I never regretted it, and if my lack of a degree stood in the way of advancing my career I was never aware of it, but I'm entering that stage in life where I do have regrets, and not sticking with my university studies is one of them.

Of course, if I had done that, my life would've taken a completely different path than it's on today, and I'm not sure that's a good thing…at all.