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captainsblogI spent a good chunk of last week getting a business client's Chapter 11 papers more-or-less in order and sending out a butt-ton of copies thereof to dozens of recipients, almost all of whom will never read or understand them. The only stress-relieving moment of the whole experience was going into the joint last week to get the owner's signatures, and seeing this on the pavement on the way out:
New! From the people who brought you the game of Skunk or Weed?, it's Mask or Bra!
All that remained was to scan the original documents, save them to the client's subfolder of PDF files, log in to the court, and upload them. I saved this for after a morning of rather annoying sort-of-holiday experiences, but finally sat down to do it in the early afternoon of Indigenous People Rapist and Pillager Day.*
Just one problem: the client's subfolder of PDF files wasn't there. Neither was anybody elses'. A near-gig of vital documents, going back to 2005, neatly integrated with and powered by my stupid expensive proprietary petition software, had just gone poof! The software itself (including its internal data for each client) offers a backup function, but it specifically disclaims responsibility for and makes you check at least three ticky boxes acknowledging that before it will let you use it. Even then, it doesn't back up the PDF files which are the actual documents you are filing/did file with the court. You can get copies from the court itself online, but at a cost of 10 cents a page. A 15-year backlog would have run, well let's just say,...
Fortunately, it didn't come to that. A few years ago, I moved the default location of these saved files to Microsoft's little corner of "the Cloud," which they call OneDrive- not to be confused with Google Drive, or iCloud Drive, or Paper Drive or anything else. That's so I can access the documents from, and save new ones in, any of the three laptops I have synced with it at home or office or away. Apparently, all it took on this occasion was a single errant click of the "delete" button on one of those four keyboards (don't ask) to send the entire folder to OneDrive's online "recycle bin."
They were nice enough to send me an email saying "we noticed you just deleted a lot of files from OneDrive." Well duh, I actually had done that on purpose; just not as much of "a lot" and certainly not THIS lot. (I need to do that periodically anyway, because Microsoft decided back in 2015 to cut its free cloud storage by two-thirds, from 15 GB down to 5, because of idiots who were abusing the privilege. My cloud-based files- mostly these BK-related PDFs and other work-related Office documents- typically hover just under the newer and unimproved 5 gig limit. Any time it gets above 4.5 gigs, which a single large photo can trigger if saved to OneDrive, it nags incessantly to either "buy more data" or "free up space." I usually choose the latter, by finding some ancient-but-large file or three I don't think I will need anymore. It was probably during just such a deletion that I somehow whacked the entire almost-gig of vital data.) Once I checked, the good news was, that my files weren't dead, but only mostly dead, and mostly dead is slightly alive! They were all sitting quite nicely in my online Recycle Bin, which is restorable just as a PC's is.
Sort of.
It took almost all the rest of Monday into Tuesday to "restore" all that from one corner of the Cloud to another and then get my two primary laptops to once again sync with that content. There is no "sync" button as such for the OneDrive, but rather a hodgepodge of entries in settings to put the deleted folder back where it belonged AND get it back on the "folders to sync" list. I also acquired a pristine off-Cloud backup of the whole set of folders out of the deal, with a reminder to myself to update that backup every few weeks because HEY.... ya never know.
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Ya also don't think- at least sometimes.
Even before that clusterfudge, I had a client ask for copies of her full set of bankruptcy papers from about four years ago. Never mind that I tell clients to keep the copies I mail and/or email them at the time, so they won't have to track me down years later or, worse, get them from the court at the shitload-of-dimes rate. Somehow, her papers were not in that master set of Everything From 2005 Onward- probably because I had a crash of some sort around that time and filed her case from a different computer. I checked dozens of old emails, pored over various old backup disks, looked digital hither and cyber yon in hopes I'd find them. Just as I was about to resort to the court, I remembered: derp. You HAVE their entire original set of papers in their actual paper file. We're required to keep those all during, and for years after, the conclusion of their cases. I found the paper file in minutes and scanned the missing documents in seconds; I'd never even bothered to staple them, so I didn't die of 1,000 paper cuts when removing the heavy-duty Swingline from the corner.
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Other than those moments, we've moved right along. Still working on getting the oven repaired; a friend of a friend, with some electrical experience but no license, took a look last weekend and held out hope, but finding an actual electrician to do the job has been tough so far.
Fortunately, we have an actual cook using the oven most of the time- unlike the one in this text exchange a friend shared with us this week:
Seeing this, I was reminded of a similar Kitchen Fail by a co-worker from my early years working in Rochester. Kim was perfectly fine as a co-worker, but she came across as what people from that area can instantly recognize as "Typical Pittsford"- to this point, quite privileged if not altogether practical.
One Friday, the coffee room was buzzing: Kim had a date that night. As in a home-cooking-for-the-date date. So Monday, we all expected a full report.
Us: So, Kim, how’d it go?
Kim: Um, not so good.
Us: Bad match?
Kim: No, just I screwed up the meal.
Us: Why, what did you make?
Kim: I, um, baked a steak.
::brief pause for containment::
Us: Really? How’d that turn out?
Kim: How do you THINK it turned out? It was burned on the outside and raw on the inside!
Eleanor, meanwhile, has managed to bake everything from rolls to cornbread outside on the gas grill until we get this fixed.
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Just a couple of park pictures this time, none of them from my phone because I forgot it. Me and Pepper on The Trail Where It Happens:
And Jake, making a new if slightly smaller friend:
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Still no sign of our sign, which got stolen, or possibly blew away, on a particularly windy overnight last week. But others have been popping up, including this homegrown one:
And there have been signs from above- with flies landing on both the Vice President and the would-be newest member of the Supreme Court during their respective debate and hearing. And to think, just days before that I did a riff on There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. Perhaps they'll....
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We've watched more good stuff recently, including resuming our binge of Schitt's Creek, which is who these winning-the-Internet Halloween costumers are riffing on-
- and I finished the latest novel from the author of Man Called Ove and Britt-Marie was here. It's called Anxious People, and it's wonderful. Different in one sense- that unlike the others, who had clear main characters, the new one is an ensemble cast of mostly idiots, but among the most profound and lovable idiots you will ever meet. Plenty of wibbling to be done as the story finally reaches its rather surprising end:)
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Finally, in each week there are real-life Littles, that also make you wibbles. Here's today's:
I did a fairly routine bankruptcy for a client starting a couple of months ago, who was essentially a cold call into the office. Client had some health issues, so I went on the low side for the fee. Always prompt and responsive with things I needed after the filing, and right on time today for the one and only required hearing.
After it was done, client's spouse asks me, "So do you like Italian food?"
Me: "Who DOESN'T like Italian food? And why?"
Spouse: "Because you've been so kind and respectful throughout the process, I want to get you a gift certificate to your favorite Italian place, so you and your wife can have a nice meal out."
Alas, the place I named is only doing takeout still, but the thought was staggeringly sweet.
And wherever we wind up, I promise it won't have a statue of Columbus in it;)*
* Thought I forgot that asterisk, huh?
On the Monday holiday of various names earlier this week, apparently Cheeto took time out of his busy roid rage to post a WH dot gov official proclamation of it being Columbus Day, how important his voyage was to Italian Americans and how dare we mention any of the bad stuff and yada yada yada.
Got me thinking, though. Here he's honoring a foreigner who came into this country without permission, dressed all in black (at least per all the traditional portraits), beginning centuries of conquest in which they looted the natives' stores, raped their women and set their villages on fire.
Don't know why he'd praise him as a hero. He sounds more like the first Antifa!