Re: Well, this was not a good night (update)

Re: Well, this was not a good night

So sorry, amigo. Hang in there.

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

Really busy trying to manage the situation but will catch up with everyone who PMd as soon as possible. Thanks.

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

Getting an external hard drive case and putting your hard drive into it is way less expensive than a data retrieval service. That's designed more for damaged drives when you need files off of it; your drive should be OK, and getting it into another case should be sufficient.

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

JD, dude, this really, really sucks. I especially am not surprised that the dude who broke your laptop acted like it was no big deal. Fucking scumbag.

I didn't go to the SEC tournament this year, on account of the fact .... (uh never mind) .... but a similar thing happened to me last year.

The tournament was running late, as it often does, and the Birmingham Barons personnel started shutting down the press box before the Ole Miss-Vandy game ended. People were working, on deadline, and these cocksuckers acted like all the newspaper barons and the peons that they crush for breakfast every day.

They're moving the window panels in, and I'm in the corner of the press box, where my laptop easily could have bought the farm. Fortunately I was there and not on the field. I got up, started raising hell and they looked at me like I was a Young Democrat at Jerry Falwell U.

Anyhow, they reluctantly stopped. But the game would soon end and they stayed at their posts pretty much in a four-point stance. Much as I wanted to oppose them in said four-point stance and knock them halfway to Dreamland, I resisted. But I got so flustered by their lack of professionalism and courtesy I accidentally dropped my glasses over the press box ledge. (My blood pressure was probably a little high at the time.)

They fell about 40 feet.

I scrambled down and found 'em, down in the stands, and got 'em fixed the next week. A little chip at the corner of one of the lens. Otherwise fine. I did talk to SEC media relations staff about what happened. Had to get some cheapie glasses at Wal-Mart at 2 in the morning.

To hear that this bullshit is still going on really sucks.

Regions Park is a central location for the SEC Tournament, but they oughta move it once in a while. Those fuckers there just take it for granted.

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

The kid who knocked it over came over and apologized and set me up with a desktop PC here so I can at least cover today's game(s). They're trying to figure out a way to salvage my laptop. They are aware how costly in terms of dollars and inconvenience this has become to me, so they seem motivated to act.

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

He still hugs a root ....

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

Rain delay.

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

JD,

Also, you might look into getting an external hard drive in the future. I have a Passport that holds 320 gb and I got it for less than $100 at Best Buy. Some of them are even cheaper than that, but I went the Western Digital way because they're compatible with both Mac and PC. It won't help for right now, but it's a good way to have a solid backup in the future.

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

I have 99.9 percent of everything backed up on a Western Digital, which is somewhere inside the 10x10 storage room I put most of my stuff in when I moved out of my apartment Tuesday and moved into a friend's house to lower expenses. It's in a box next to my PC, which I put in storage because there's no room for it where I'm living now.

What's not backed up is the stuff I wrote and worked on yesterday before the night game. That's the urgent data, which I need for my Tuesday hearing and for a feature due this week, and it's a reminder of what Moddy said about flash drives and regular backup.

When I get back home, I can climb the mountain of boxes in storage and eventually restore most of what's lost -- assuming I have a laptop to back it up to. I was using Dell's backup feature until now, but it's doubtful that will be helpful in this case.

So, pain.

Thanks for the tips and advice.

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

Good for them, JD. That's a lot better than the way the league I was covering handled a situation after one of their idiots knocked a soda on my laptap ripping a sheet of paper out of his notebook like a serious wiseacre late during a competitive game.

The team provided use of a desktop in the arena, thank goodness. No word as to whether my boss got the league - or that foolish scorekeeper - to reimburse us for the damage to a company laptop.

Hang in there, JD. If you have the info backed up, then it's a matter of seeing what the folks will do for the laptop. "Hang in there" isn't much but some here have been subjected to worse.

Take care ...

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

Damn, Dude. Sorry to hear that. I hope things work out for you.

This is kinda something I've been curious/thinking about for years.

Anyone ever have their laptop smashed courtside or anything during a game? What the heck would/could you do if that happened?

I came close during a conference tournament in March. I was standing courtside talking to another reporter with my screen up and during warmups a ball came bouncing over the table and smacked into it full-force, knocking it down.

Luckily, it was fine. But a day later I saw someone else's laptop take a similar blow during a game and basically the whole screen was smashed and destroyed.

What a nightmare that would be on deadline...

 

Re: Well, this was not a good night

I was fortunate when I worked at a weekly that I didn't have to have my laptop with me at a game. That usually meant that I could compile my notes and go to the office (which was about 15 minutes away) to file my story.

I took my laptop to a game once, but I ended up not using it. I wound up using a desktop computer in one of the offices in the rink. I certainly wouldn't want to risk taking my laptop to a game under other circumstances. That laptop is my computer.