I have a bunch of pictures just waiting to be formatted and posted up here for your enjoyment. Unfortunately, I am the victim of the rare Laptop Fire. Alright, so I’m exaggerating just a bit - the laptop itself never caught fire. But my AC Adapter did. Regardless of what actually burned, I can’t use my laptop until my new adapter arrives in the mail (hopefully this weekend). But there is a lesson to be learned here: Redundancy and care.

First, lets talk redundancy. Backups are something that you should make a priority. Chances are, you may not need to go back to your backups ever. But you have a lot to lose if you caught without backups of your precious data. External Hard Drives are pretty cheap these days, they are definately a worthwhile investment. It’s also a good idea to burn backups to CDs or tape backups (just be aware, both have a set shelf life). If you can get it to an off-site location, that is best - just in case the horrible happens to your home (fire, flood, etc), you want to know you can get it all back. This is your livelihood after all. If you can afford it, a safe deposit box or an internet backup service are great solutions.

As for care, it’s always good to take care of your equipment. This isn’t something I really need to remind you of, after all you may have spent a grand on your camera. But there are little things you don’t always think about that you should consider. Lets take my AC adapter, for example. The fire was caused because the wires broke inside the protective rubber sheathing. Looking back, I may have wrapped up my cables too tightly and the repetitive stress at a certain point must’ve caused it to break. When I get my new pack, I will make a conscious effort to keep the cables loosely gathered in a loop (as opposed to bending the wires back on themselves).

This could’ve been a serious problem. It could’ve caught my house on fire. Thank goodness I was there. So I’ll count my blessings and consider this a warning. Hopefully I’ll be back in action this weekend and I will post some new photos soon.