We Can Make Him Better

This little entry may be short and sweet.

I've felt a bit adrift, lost in a sea of vanishing data.

The painting I attach today is old(ish) one, and I sold it from a Gallery in St Thomas a while back, but, hey, I like it.

I've been logging a bit of overtime working like the devil on a spreadsheet. Unfortunately, I forgot to heed alarms in the back of my head.

You see, I didn't pay attention to an Excel warning that if I saved my file in .csv form, much of the formatting and formulas in the spreadsheet would be gone. In my mind, I'm saying, "I didn't use many formulas, I didn't use any special formatting - at least nothing that I couldn't redo. I'm sure it will be okay. Go ahead, save your work in .csv. What harm could it do?"

What I didn't realize when you save multiple worksheets to a .csv file, the system only keeps the current worksheet. Which, in this case, means when I turned the computer back on, what was my work, was a blank worksheet.

There it was, staring at me and grinning as only a spreadsheet can. It was empty, devoid of contents, a smoldering shell of its former self.

That meant hours upon hours of meticulous effort was lost, gone into the ether. My diligent work evaporated into a smattering, a virtual scattering, a useless spattering of unrecoverable electrons, making their way across the universe laughing at me merrily as they went. I'm not sure electrons can laugh. But if quarks can be charmed, strange, and spin, then certainly electrons can laugh. At least I think they were this time.

What did I do? How did I handle this travesty of justice handed out to me, well, by me?

My heart sank like the Titanic. I felt like Leonardo de Capuccino floating on a piece of flotsam in the vast Atlantic. I could see myself drifting into the deep with Kate Winslet staring down helplessly at what she hoped was her future. Why didn't she make room for him anyway? There was plenty of room on that big ole piece of wood for both of them.

Okay, don't cry. It's not worth it.

But it was forty or fifty hours of work. Poof.

I was devastated. I was so distraught I thought of getting a glass of whiskey at 9 am and blowing it all off. The angels of my better nature, sitting watchfully on my shoulder, forbade that indiscretion. The devil was silent.

I got up from my chair and walked outside. Several deep breaths later, I came back in to see what I could salvage from the smoldering embers of my blunder. Was there anything I remembered? Was there something I could quickly reproduce.

I tucked into the work and started over again. I thought, "at least I have the benefit of how I did it before. I know the process and understand the formulas. I can do this." "Figuring it out was the hard part," I told myself.

As I started back at work, I noticed a couple of things that I could have done better. I saw some things that I could do more efficiently. I saw some different tweaks in how I was evaluating the content.

I started to feel like I was making the six million dollar man.

We can make him better, faster, stronger than he was.

Something better came as a result of losing all that information. In about eight hours, I've almost caught up. I think I can even breeze through the rest of it in the next day or so.

It doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes a little screw up like that can leave you on the side of the road weeping for your mama in a glass of gin.

This time, calmer heads prevailed.

I've won. I did it. The "Come Back Kid"

Sometimes it pays to relax. Panic would have served no purpose.

Of course, getting on with it is all we can do. So get on with it.

Then I remembered a little poem I wrote.

Here goes:

This day is done.
I'll clear the decks.
I'll stow the baggage,
And bury the wrecks.

Today has passed.
I can't have it back.
Did I do the right thing?
Am I on the right track?

There's no use churning over
What woulda been?
What coulda been?
What shoulda been?

Cause today was perfect,
Right in every way.
I can't change it now,
I can't make it stay.

Today was perfect,
And I can't hold on
Because tomorrow will come
And today will be gone.

So tonight,
I'll clear the deck,
Cause tomorrow's
My blank check.

And
Today
Well
Was, just as it should've been,
Perfect in every way.
​
Until next week, I wish you peace.

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