You can plan
You can follow your plan.
But you can't anticipate catastrophe.

In fact, I did anticipate that I was developing a problem, my computer has been spontaneously rebooting for a couple of months now. Usually when this happens it is due to a thermal issue with the CPU. So being a proactive sort of guy I opened up my computer and sucked out all the dust.
This worked for most of the internals but the CPU fan was still clogged with dust and pet dander. ( I wonder where that came from). Removed the fan and sucked it clean.

Closing it up I figured I was good to go. Then the beeping started. This was not a good sign. The beeping is an indication that there was a low level error on my main board. Pulled the memory cards and reseated them, pulled the connectors and reseated them. The fans were starting and stopping and the system wouldn't boot. UGH.

Emergency call to the Repair shop.

They did a wonderful job. Reseated everything washed all the connections ran multiple memory and drive tests, upgraded the bios and had it back to me 28 hours later. I'm baaaaack. Whew. Dodged the bullet on that one.

When this all happened I was in the process of copying my C drive to my external drive. It seems that I have been unable to run a backup from the Windows 7 system since I got this machine and I was trying to at least save the data in case of a problem. Missed the boat on that one.

After the repair, my backup utility is operational. I still think I may purchase a copy of Norton Ghost to provide another form of backup but at least I have one now. I will be doing a system image from the backup utility today.

It really pays to be safer than sorrier. I seem to spend a lot of time on this high horse called backups but....when it is time to need one it is too late to do one.

Now, the drawback to this was that I had taken 2 days off this week to work on my online stuff. I figured 5 days would get a good dent in my backlog. Well I took the 4th to play with family, 2 days were lost messing with my computer so now here I am day 4 of 5 and just getting to my backlog.

On a positive note, my wife dropped 50 Shades of Grey on my desk last week, so I got to read that book to see what all the fuss is about. Yup, Chick Porn. Actually, it is a well written exploration into a young girls sensuality and sexuality. There are some very well written personal encounters, a protagonist and antagonist that are wonderfully matched. Not really thrilled about some of the subject matter but without that aspect the book would be run of the mill. Not really one you can put down once past the first 20 pages.

Fortunately, I treat all this like water off a ducks back. I try to stay unruffled on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.