Freelance For A Living

So I was at home yesterday fighting with my new hard drive when I hear a knock at the door. I try not to answer knocks, but sometimes the three-year-old beats me to the door.

So I answer the door and here is this girl holding a box of baking soda and she says … “Hi, my name is so and so and I am with so and so company.

Do you use baking soda?”

I was a little bit stunned because I had just got done cleaning my microwave with baking soda because Max “warmed up” his grilled cheese sandwich for like 10 minutes (while I was on the phone doing an interview) and it basically nuked the entire sandwich and blew smokey particles all over the inside of the microwave.

So here I am looking at this box of baking soda thinking about how my microwave stinks and I mummer “yes.”

“Great” she says and hands me the box. “Now I just want to get your opinion on one more thing,” she says as she runs back to her van. Well that one more thing turned out to be a Kirby vacuum cleaner.

I don’t know if you are familiar with Kirby but this vacuum puts all other vacuums to shame. Being the neat freak that I am, I would KILL for a Kirby. But unfortunately I don’t have $1,700 to blow on a vacuum and I don’t know who to kill to get one.

Anyhow, an HOUR later, I get the Kirby salesman out of my living room. Yes I am totally impressed with the product … but hello … can you say “recession” Kirby salesman? And besides, this girlfriend never pays full price for anything unless its surf and turn.

Moving on …

After the salesman left I logged into eBay to see how much Kibry’s were going for. A new Kirby vacuum with FREE shipping can be purchased for $450. You can basically buy 4 vacuums on eBay for what that guy wanted for one (holy hell, what is the mark-up on those things anyways?).

Now get this, you can buy a used Kirby vacuum (with a 5 year warranty) for $150!

And so, if the Kirby salesman comes to the door don’t give your arm and leg for one of those bad boys. Instead, tell the guy to quit asking you stupid questions like “can you afford 8 quarters a day” and kick his ass out.

PS - I totally kept that box of baking soda

A Lesson Learned

Casey — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:58:32 +0000

~ I knew better! I did, and yet I didn’t do it. What’s wrong with me??? ~

Tuesday the unconceivable happened - My hard drive went to computer parts heaven and I was left with NOTHING!

It all began several weeks ago when my trusty iMac started acting not so trusty. First it began running slow and the fan was a bit louder than normal. I searched the Internet and ran a disk utility program I downloaded from some site (gee, I am already sounding stupid). The results were a faster running computer but major problems getting the machine to startup each morning.

Then the other day, it really got bad. After five minutes of searching for the hard drive, the computer finally booted into single user mode - oops. Now I knew I had a problem so at the advice of a computer tech, I downloaded and ran AppleJack. AppleJack did its thing. This time the results were worse - I was informed my hard drive “was not healthy.”

Snap!

Now at some point in the whole “my computer is dying before my eyes” scenario, you would think that it would have occurred to me I should back up my hard drive. But no, I’ve always been known for taking the long road and this was no different.

After running AppleJack, the computer was done. It wouldn’t even boot up. So I packed him up and took him to the computer guru who had good news and bad news.

Good - You need a new hard drive and it will only cost you $130 to fix your problem.

Bad - I can’t retrieve any data off your old hard drive.

Well snap, crackle and pop!

So there you have. I lost the entire contents of my hard drive. This includes, but is not limited to, my music, client contact information, photos, portfolio, purchased fonts, invoices, passwords and income/expense reports.

So for all of you freelancers out there that are living in LaLa Land as I do, this is just a little reminder that you might, just maybe, want to backup your hard drive on occasion to avoid a similar mess.