Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana

Column: Upside down turtle

If you’re reading this, the paper has somehow made it out, but at this point I’m not really sure if it is going to happen.

I’m writing this on a Tuesday morning, shortly after our external hard drive that we use to store most of our information, quit working. Long story short, all of the work we have done the past several weeks is gone. Everything I had ready to go for this edition of the Ledger is no longer available. The information is recoverable, but will have to be done professionally and I may not get it back for months. So in one day’s time, I have had to try to figure out how to get an entire paper done.

Trying to get this done in a short amount of time is already a nightmare, and I apologize if anything gets left out of the paper that needed to run. I’ve had to go back through old emails and notes, and think I have everything that needs to go on a list, but I’m sure something might sneak through the cracks.

After about the fifth story I had to rewrite this morning, I laughed to myself because they were all a lot better the first time around. Writing eight or nine stories today won’t be ideal, but I’ll do my best. That’s all you can do.

This column was originally very light hearted in anticipation of Halloween, but it’s stuck on a hard drive that I have no access to.

I actually tried to get into the hard drive, but taking it apart was more of a chore than I could have possibly imagined. It was like trying to get into a turtle shell. Not that I have a lot of experience getting into turtle shells, but I’m sure it is similar to this hard drive.

Probably the worst part of this is that I had purchased a new hard drive and was planning to save things a little bit differently in anticipation of something like this happening. I sure wish I would have started a little bit sooner, because now I feel like a turtle that has been flipped over and trying to get shell side up. Some of the casualties from this week’s debacle include senior photos, but I will try today to get pictures of all the seniors from football and the cheer squad so they can be recognized in this edition. I also cannot access the Museum Memories story, but will try to get one in an upcoming edition.

I remember working at a paper in Wyoming and the tales of something similar to this happening. They called it something like Black Monday, and they lost years worth of information. I was always glad I didn’t work there on that fateful today because now I understand why they looked back on it as the worst possible workday imaginable. On a positive note, I wanted to change the design of some things in the paper, so that can happen now. I don’t have a choice. I really just wanted to spend Tuesday evening watching the Cubs without a care in the world. At least they play tomorrow.

 

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