Fr. Z's Blog

… pours.

What a day I have had.

First, I have felt dreadful all day long. I forced myself out (into the rain – and I don’t do rain well) to get something to eat. I ate about a third of it, gave up, and crawled home.

I figured that, being a prisoner of my room and illness, I would try to polish and cut down the talk I am to give at the LMS conference on Saturday. Thus, I opened my files and got to work and, in my medicated stupor, promptly deleted everything.

I couldn’t even recover temp files or auto backups. Nihil. Strange. Even the autosave directory: zippo. Even the temp directories: nada.

But wait! I had a back up!

I can remotely access things at home. That was when my connection to the internet failed. No problem, quoth I. I used my phone to get into the files back home in order to send a copy by email. That is when the app failed. I wasn’t daunted. I used my other phone, and found that the computer back home, thinking it was being attacked by different sources, locked our all access for a time. Never fear. I have a backup drive with me with enough notes on it that I could use for the talk.

The backup drive wouldn’t let me in.

At this point I nearly put my 300-pound head on the table and wept.

I took a nap, instead.

Rising, I said, “I don’t think I am supposed to give that talk in that way.”

I have therefore spent a few hours putting together with substantially the same thrust but with a couple different angles.

Now, of course, all my apps work again, the internet is back, the computer at home is allowing access, and I have emailed myself a copies of what I worked up.

Today was a classic example of Zuhlsdorf’s Law which in its broadest terms states that “Murphy was an optimist.” In application, however, Zuhlsdorf’s Law states that, in the very moment you need technology, that technology will fail you. And the extent of the failure is directly proportioned to the urgency. I am therefore glad that I wasn’t doing this tomorrow! Anyway, I am sure you have all had the experience of wanting to show someone the great new thing you have. It is precisely then that it won’t work.

Otherwise, perhaps it is that Titivillus knows that you are at low ebb and, therefore, throws spanners into your stuff.

You might have heard that medieval scribes thought that a devil named Titivillus made them introduce copying errors in manuscripts. With all these new gadgets we have today, there are endless ways for us to make mistakes, Titivillus or none.

That was today for me. All day. From top to bottom.

I now, however, am looking out the window and seeing a little blue sky. I am also sensing something akin to hunger rumbling away.

Time for more decongestants and a walk.