Lost At Sea.

Life.

It'll get to you. Though most of the time, you go on with your life oblivious. At times, lax and comfortable with your current bearings.

And then..life happens and throws a curve ball.

You can be amazed how one thing can lead to another, into a chain of events utterly out of your control. When it's all done, you just stare and go blank with all that's happened. Rationalizing why it happened and why it shouldn't have. 

Denial.

We all go through denial. In everyday and in every choice we make. It doesn't make life any easier but you'd be surprised how some people live in a constant state of denial.

~

I seriously think that whenever I get comfortable with my current line of work something happens. The facts are there, I'm not sure whether the employment gods are playing a trick on me...or they're actually trying to tell me something.

It was all good times when "the boat" was purring like a well-oiled machine. Sure we had sort of an unorthodox way of doing our thing and we always had our fun but we never really let that interfere with the whole reason we're there for. Everything was going great until something weird happened to me that put me out of commission.

Prior to coming back, I've heard that "the boat" is now sinking. Which really was a big bummer. I've grown accustomed to the "ways of the boat" and the people. Everyone there has grown on me as they've made life a bit more bearable and easier. Irregardless, when I came back on board, it just really wasn't the same. Sailing for one last time, we had one final hurrah before most of us went separate ways. "The boat", a legend, now dismantled and rotting beneath the sea.

Opportunity came knocking when a former "boat" member told me try my luck at the company he was working for. It got me excited as he was working for a well-known company. With luck, I was able to get hired but assigned to work on something that, to be honest, was flat-out boring. The people were nice...it's just what we were doing was boring.

But in the coming months, I somehow enjoyed what I was doing...or at least trying to. That's when things happened again and a few of us needed to go "float" for awhile until we hear some news. It was...sort of a welcome thing for me as it would mean a new opportunity...and hopefully a more interesting game.

I thought it was pure luck when I got called back early than what I have expected. I also thought it was pure luck when I got assigned to something new and to a whole new set of people. It was a bit rough from the start but I eventually got the hang of how they work things on that team. The work was pretty much alright and the people were more than accommodating.

Then something happened again and people had to go. I thought that this was the end...again. But it wasn't, thankfully it wasn't. We did have to work a bit more and sacrifice a bit more but we managed and we got over the hill. Things were running normal again and enjoyable. However, something was looming over our heads that we expected to come sooner or later. We really just paid no mind to it as worrying will make matters worse for us.

And then it eventually happened, what transpired just a few months ago repeated itself.  Trying to be optimistic was all I could do. Until they called me back for something different. Rather than waiting for a call to go back to work, I am now waiting for a call to get my final pay. Oh well, with all the new things being implemented there, I guess it worked out.

From all those experiences, I feel like a prank is being played on me. A cosmic joke I am not aware of. Every time I get to a point where I am comfortable with my surroundings, I suddenly get a curve ball...and for the life of me I cannot swing good enough to stop it.

~

I've come to some sort of realization that I may have become an "invalid" before even reaching 30. I know a lot of people abusing their bodies more and yet here I am. I have stopped most if not all of my vices... yet here I am. Stricken with an unusual condition a few years back that has now left me incapable of doing certain things. 

Funny, I thought that I had an mature [well....sometimes] mind trapped in a young man's body. It's actually the other way around.

...and I don't know how long it'll last.

....that...scares the bejeezus outta me.

 

~ currently drifting and lost at sea ~

the alansong

Man overboard.

Last week, my external 1TB hard drive fell from a table. It wasn't that much of a very hard fall so I didn't think it would matter as the casing seems to be sturdy. Little did I know how very wrong I was.

So I picked the thing up checked [it seemed nothing was wrong] and tried to access it but the HD wasn't lighting up and it wasn't detected by the PC. What happened next was frantic and nervous google searches and chats with my friends with regards to external drive troubles. I checked the thing again, made sure nothing was making noise or even moving inside. Then I noticed the usb port plug was a bit...skewed.

I plugged the usb back in, placed a small amount of pressure and the HD lit up and began doing the motions of booting up...or so I thought. Once I let the pressure off, the whole drive turned off and even if I did manage to let the power stay on for a bit, the drive itself wasn't detected by the PC. So I started fidgeting and fidgeting until the usb port plug broke off and fell inside the case.

With that came another round of frantic google searches and chats. Trying to solder the usb port plug back in wasn't possible...at least if I was the one to do it..then again, it would really take the hands of a pro to solder the damn thing on properly to make it to work [I read about this in a forum]. With soldering out of the equation, I resorted to removing the hard drive from the case and try running it via another enclosure and or just directly plug it inside my PC.

A friend let me borrow his own HD enclosure for testing and gave a few advice. The HD was running inside the enclosure and it seemed ok as my friend mentioned but it still wasn't detected by my friend's PC. He then said that his enclosure might be faulty and that it might need a few trues so he let me bring it back home with me. After a few more tries at home, the drive still wasn't detected.

However, I could see it in Disk Management as "not Initialized" and "unallocated". Another friend helped me go through the motions [via my bro's iPad Skype Vid chat] of putting it inside my PC [I am not a very hardware-type of guy] and then trying a few recovery programs to see if I can retrieve anything.

A few days and alot of recovery programs later, I still couldn't get any files from it.I have read from the official Western Digital forums that ALOT of other people has/had/have been experiencing the SAME troubles I have. Then a few admins stated that the data inside the HD are encrypted so it's really going to take some cash to get data back.....that or soldering the usb back on [I am entertaining the idea].

Prior to even trying to recover the files, I have surrendered to the fact that I have already lost everything. I don't care much for the music, videos, games in it. Those things can be easily re-acquired. I am most sad to lose four years worth of pictures from conventions, photo shoots, photo walks, vacations, events and daily life. I am sad to lose the written documents I have there as most of them were unfinished poems, stories and such. All those memories gone [or trapped until I get the drive decrypted]. The folly of not having a back-up of important things, I know now how important it should've been to find the time and made effort in backing-up files.

Nevertheless, people have helped me not think so much about such loss. I guess I can make new memories, take new pictures, write new things. I'm trying to see the positives and the silver linings from what happened...no matter how cliche it seems. I think it's better than dwelling on it and sulking.




~ Sailing forward ~
the alansong