Something Lost, Something Gained

On July 6, 2000 my parents house caught on fire. It was during construction of an addition being made to the house and was blamed on faulty wiring. The fire destroyed the bonus room and half of the new construction that had been built on top of it and to its sides. Not only destroying the contents of the bonus room, it began to sweep through the attic before it was brought under control on the hottest day of the year (so far at the time). The event was so prolific, that it even made it to the front page of the local paper that day. Looking back on that moment in my life, I have never been the same; both the good and the bad.

Way back in 2000, there were no such things as iPods and iPhones. All I had was a Palm Pilot V and a ‘brick’ Motorola cell phone. On that hot July day, I was no longer living at home, but away at college a mere 40 minutes away. At that point in time I was speaking with my parents nearly on a daily basis. To make a long story short, the phone had been busy at their house for hours and I was starting to get worried. After getting in touch with my grandmother, I learned of the terrible incident. My father who is legally blind (but by no means disabled) was the only one home at the time it started seeing as all the construction workers had left for lunch. Somehow he managed to get out safely and get the cats to safety as well as have enough foresight to go outside and film the disaster. (Proud of him for that.) Once I made it back to my parents I was just at a loss for words. My mother was working and hadn’t found out about it yet when she arrived back at the house, so I was going to be the brave one to tell her what had happened, but only managed to break down into tears as I told her.

A part of me burned up with that room in July. What was it? Have I managed to regain it? I don’t quite know. My wife has always said I was never the ‘same’ after it happened, so I’m not quite sure what burned up in there. Innocence? Childhood? However, I did gain something from this disaster; the sense for a need to backup my life.

In previous posts on this blog, here and here, I have discussed about living in one suitcase. The idea is that you can fit your life into one piece of luggage. After one loses something, they tend to have a greater appreciation for that which they have. We all have ‘stuff’, and lots of it. Things that we ‘need’ that wind up being thrown in a closet or room only to gather dust. That’s part of what this room was not only for myself but my parents as well. Trying to go through the debris and remember every little item that was in there is nearly impossible. What made matters worse was that the construction workers started shoveling stuff into the dumpsters before we even had a chance to go through it. Which brings us back to the point of this post. What good came from this disaster? I started making inventory lists of all my belongings, more importantly, I started converting my life over to a digital lifestyle. Remember, we’re talking about 2000, not 2011. I had account numbers, Quicken files, inventory lists, etc. all accessible on my Palm Pilot. I took pictures of my apartment and all its belongings so that if the unthinkable or something else were to happen…again, I would be ready, or at least better prepared. Pictures were scanned and saved to Zip disks. (Remember those?) It was a small feeling as if I was in control. Fast forward to 2011.

To be quite honest, I don’t know how I survived without my iPhone all this time. I’m sure that sounds pathetic, but it’s the way that I am and a lot of others are these days. My entire life in my pocket. No matter where I am, I can access crucial information on my device. As I mentioned, the fire brought the need to backup everything in my life and that’s just what I’ve done….maybe to an extreme. Let’s break this up into aspects of my life; how I’ve backed them up and how I can access them with an iDevice. (more…)