This is the risk of a paper based lifestream. I have a PDA, a T-Mobile MDA, but I only use it to make phone calls, store documents, email, Twitter, and keep my lists. I never kept lists in my Moleskine. Typically I scan the notebooks for relevant tasks, notes and list additions, and type them into a note file I keep on my PDA. I felt good about it. I had a digital copy of some notes and lists and everything else just stayed in the book.Remember the IT guy always telling you to backup? Well, it had been months since I'd backed up my Moleskine. There is no recovering months of work. There are things in those books I can't remember, and I planned it that way. My poor execution in backing up my trusted system came back to bite me in the ass.
So now the question; do I go out and buy new Moleskine's or do I abandon this type of collection system all together? At the moment I'm just sick and pissed all at the same time. I went back later to trace my steps and no luck finding them. Hopefully someone will find my business cards in the back and call me, but nothing yet. My instinct is to go get the books and quit whining, get over it, move on. So I'll wait until tomorrow. Maybe I will have a clear head and make the right decision.
Cammeron Reilly pointed me to a blog post of his when he first made the leap to a paper lifestream, and the concern he had about losing it. I never really had that problem. Maybe naively I assumed nothing would ever happen because I was always careful. But this one day when I rushed instead of took my time, really messed me up. I guess now I have a reason to write more blog posts on the subject.
That's a terrible tragedy, Thom. I love my moleskines and hate to think what I'd do if they were lost.
ReplyDeleteAs for your question, it is the nature of all information to be transient. In fact, many claim that electronic information is more ethereal and transient than old school written-with-ink-on-paper information. Your moleskine will survive a power outage unlike unsaved documents. Your moleskine will survive a pot of cocoa poured on it, though it will look worse for wear. I'd buy more Moleskines.
Good luck finding them. Hopefully you put a reward amount in the front that will entice somebody to return them. Or better yet, maybe they were picked up by a Good Samaritan.
~Douglas
☆ The Splintered Mind - Overcoming Neurological Disabilities With Lots Of Humor And Attitude
Thom, I mourn with you. Losing something so important and personal is tough! I am glad you at least found some of them, even if the information isn't very accessible. Somehow just getting something back feels a little bit better.
ReplyDeleteSimilar thing happened to me. Somebody walked into my office and left with backpack; I lost wallet, daily planner and notebook among other things. Funny thing, my laptop was on my desk and was left there :)
ReplyDeleteI went out and bought more moleskines and just as a treat to myself I also bought a lamy fountain pen.
Cheers,
I.
A scanner is your best friend, and the quickest way to back up. I number my moleskine pages, and every week I sit down and do a quick scan of those pages I've written in. I mark the last scanned page with an icon beside the page number. It really helped me out when someone stole my bag last year. They got my Sony notebook (too expensive to replace ) but I had backed up the data within the past week; and they got my two moleskins, but most of the data was scanned on the home PC. A few printouts of the important stuff, and I was rolling again. Good luck to you with your new ones!
ReplyDeleteLets hope someone, somehow is nice and returns them. I hope you had your name in them somewhere
ReplyDeleteThom:
ReplyDeleteif you use uniball vision micro (0.5) or uniball RT 0.38, you'll have waterproof ink too.
...dave
Wow, that sucks. I second the others in saying that it's the use, not the medium, that causes these things. I've lost papers, and I've lost electronic data before. Shit happens, and it's unfortunate. But, I'm not going to abandon e-mail entirely, or paper entirely, because of either one. Your idea of scanning your moleskines everyone once in a while is a good one. I used to do that, but have been remiss in doing that for some time. Good luck in finding the others, if there are others, that aren't damaged. :-X Have a few beers on me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all great comments. I did go out and buy several new Moleskines yesterday. I'm going to work on them this week end. I want to see if there are any cool new hacks out there I've haven't seen.
ReplyDeleteI did buy one exclusively for my writing ideas. I'm reading a book called Writing Fiction from Gotham Writers' Workshop, and in there it talks about having some place where you write thoughts, ideas, characters, maybe even some amount of story line. I didn't have anything exclusive for that but now I do.
So this should be fun trying to get things working again.
@daveterry just picked up a set of Uniball RT 0.38's. Nice pen. Although I think in the end I'll use something else because they feel so small in my hand. I like a bigger pen where I can wrap my big hands around it.
ReplyDeleteThanks again.