Here's Charley! It just started raining, but it's expected that Charley, already downgraded to a tropical storm, will not have much impact in the New York tri-state area. Charley is supposed to be cleared out by tomorrow morning, at which time I will decide whether roads and traffic will be normal enough to drive down to Philadelphia to visit my brother and his baby. I'm still a little creeped out about having a nephew. And my brother didn't make going down any more attractive by waffling on while giving me directions to his place.

From my relative position, he becomes completely subjective. He simply loses all knowledge of whatever knowledge I might or should have of Philadelphia from previous visits. So he's describing Rte. 676 going through central Philly, how it looks like it's underground, but it's open air, as if I've never been on it before. He took 15 minutes giving me directions that he should have been able to do under 3. "You'll come up the ramp and you'll see the station - you know the station, it was the one in 'Witness', you remember the movie 'Witness'" (uh, not really). So I had to filter through what I thought was important and what was just waffling in his effort to be helpful and meticulous. Unfortunately, his attention to detail is not going to help me from not getting lost, if anything, I'm now expecting to get lost.

He could have been much more helpful by relating street names that I should be familiar with from going to his old place. He moved earlier this year, but I think his new place isn't all that far from his old place, and he mentioned streets that I recognized, but didn't mention them in relation to what I know. So I was pretty confused writing down the parts of his directions I deemed most relevant.

*sigh* And my computer died last night. It's on life support now, and there are still some files I might be able to recover if I can get Internet working and my CD burner, which actually hasn't been working for several months. Then I'll try re-installing the operating system to see if there's any life or hope left.

I'm borrowing my brother's laptop for a few days before going to the upstate New York monastery from Tuesday to next Sunday. And if I'm going to head off to a monastery for reals soon after that, I shouldn't even be thinking of buying a new computer, right? I'm thinking right.

Remember back in the day when your computer would crash, or your father re-installed the operating system without telling you, and you lost all your files and data, and you freaked out in shock and panic? I remember when my first computer died. That empty feeling. That jaw drop. That disbelief. Now, it's just 'eh', because you knew it would happen eventually. Really important stuff you managed to wisely backup, but the stuff that is lost is just lost. Even if I lost all my photos, which I'm not sure I have, they're still there, it's just a matter of whether I can get them off that computer, it wouldn't be such a big deal. If I had sentimental photos, which I don't, I would have backed them up, but all the photos I have are documentary and aesthetic. With digital, I just continue to shoot documentary and aesthetic pictures and it's no big deal if the old ones are gone.

But if you're at all worried, you should go back up anything that's important now. So go.