Of Computers and Life Lessons

Well, it’s Friday morning and I have a full day of tasks to complete on this day that the conference office is closed.  Last night I attended a very important school board meeting in Laveen, Arizona—where the Maricopa Village School is located.  I came back to the office to pick up my computer which I had left there, intent in getting a head start on my work for today.  Boy was I in for an unpleasant surprise.
My computer went berserk!  Before the night was done whatever glitch had affected my laptop had literally wiped out every file and every program on my laptop!  Everything was gone—files, internet, programs, pictures…everything!!!  Obviously I did not get anything done last night.  I was dreading today when I went home after a futile attempt to recover anything.

I believe God got me out of bed at about 12:30 this morning.  I was impressed to return to the office where I had left my laptop going through a scan to see what had caused this collapse.  While in the office I cancelled the scan and discovered the “system restore” function.  It gave me two dates as options: one yesterday, the other—October 31.  I chose yesterday.  Bad decision!  It restored the system which had already been purged of whatever Trojan horse had entered the system to the moment right before the virus struck.  I got to see, first hand, the process of collapse.  It was disheartening.  It restored the laptop to the moment all files were wiped out.

After cleaning out the system again, I set the system to restore, but this time to October 31.  I got tired of waiting for the computer to restore at about 2:30 a.m.  It was just frozen (not totally since an icon was spinning).  I went home and left it doing whatever it was doing. I did a lot of praying before going home and before going to bed for good.

This morning I woke up not knowing, but hopeful of, what I would find when I got to the office.  The fact that I am writing this blog is a testament to the fact the God impressed me correctly to do the needed steps to restore this machine.  God is good! 

In the big scheme of things I guess it’s not a big tragedy.  It would have been a major inconvenience to have to reconstruct financial programs and try to assess how many documents were lost forever due to the collapse.  I was prepared to accept the loss but a bit perplexed as to how I would get the computer set up to work today since it was totally stripped of every program, not just every file!  Lesson learned.  Number one:  Back up files regularly!  Number Two: Being restored is better than being lost.  I like that.  But the third one is just as important:  Be careful what you let into your system.  Something innocent can have tragic results.  Finally:  Know your sources.  Stay away from the unknown. 

I don’t know the exact moment when the virus got into my system.  I can only speculate.  But trust me I am going to be a lot more careful about emails and hyperlinks from sources I do not know.  I thought I was vigilant—I will be even more vigilant.  Somebody out there is trying to mess me up—mess all of us up, in fact.  We cannot let our guard down—ever.  That kind of sounds like a life lesson as well. 

On a positive note—Penny will be flying in later on today and spending the weekend with me.  That’s pretty awesome.  I will be in a better state of mind now that God has restored my computer and files to working order.  I better get busy.  I need the make the house presentable for my special guest!