i met client M at one of the large conference halls at the boston sheraton hotel in the late morning, where they were setting up a presentation for one of their clients. i took the 1 dudley square bus out of harvard square to get to the hynes convention center. i missed the bus i was supposed to take so ended up taking the next one, which made me 20 minutes late to my appointment. it was moving day for incoming freshman so harvard square was mobbed with people, which contributed to the traffic congestion.

it was my first time meeting client M in person. he showed me the layout for the interactive i'm coding which is simple enough that it shouldn't take more than a few days to finish. i was also there to pick up my work laptop which came in a heavy industrial level case. i had to lug that thing home, looking very serious with my metal briefcase. i wanted to get some snapshots of the insanity down at harvard but the case i was carrying was so cumbersome i decided to go straight home instead.

all was right with the world until i was doing some photo backup and i dropped my external hard drive to the floor. this isn't the first time it's happened, and it's actually the 3rd. you'd think i'd have learned my lesson my now. those other times the hard drive didn't have anything particularly important and the drives themselves seemed to work fine afterwards (although i might've damaged the docking station, which would eventually corrupt all the drives i used it on). this drive however was different - it was my photo backup for 2011 to the present, almost 2 years worth of data. photos are important enough that i always meant to create a second backup but never got the chance. i tested the drive afterwards and i seemed to be able to see my photo directories, but i can't seem to open any of the ones from 2012 because the drive seems abnormally slow. corrupt catalog? physically damaged drive heads? who knows. but it's all i could think about the rest of the day, like this depressing fog.

surprisingly, i'm not that upset about it, despite being in a bit of a funk. they weren't vacation photos, just photos of my everyday life. i still would like to recover as much as possible, but the best ones i've already put on the blog; these are just bonus pictures, and the original files in case i ever want to print a photo of what i ate on a particular day to poster size. once i finish recovering my photos, i think i want to store them on an HFS+ volume, which has never corrupted on me before. i've had the worst luck with NTFS.

in the late afternoon i took the bicycle to belmont, where my parents were having lobsters for a late lunch. i'm not particularly fond of lobsters (i think they stink and it's hard to get ride of the smell from my hands) but i had one anyway, with a vinegar ginger dipping sauce. i stayed for dinner as well, some rice noodles.

returning home, i came across a perfectly nice wooden cabinet on huron avenue. it had 3 drawers with mesh screen front so you can see inside. not sure what it's used for, but i called my father to come pick it up. since it wasn't that big, i managed to strap it to the back of my bike and ride back to belmont. i ran into my father when i was nearly at their place. while unloading the cabinet, i managed to tip over my bike and smash my bike bell in the process (not a big deal, these were cheap china knock-offs anyway, i have a few more at home).

back at home, i spent the rest of the evening trying to recover my photos. 2011 is mostly safe, but 2012 is a big question mark. i'll continue the salvage operation tomorrow evening.