An Unexpected Delay (and some Unsolicited Advice)

It happened.  I knew it would.  And it’s my fault.

I’ve been asked when my book on Revelation will be released.  After all, I had said several weeks ago that I expected it to be ready by around October 10th.  And those of you who can read a calendar know that date has already come and gone.

Oh, I’ve got some good excuses for why it isn’t ready yet.  Really, I do.  Two weeks of being gone from home with a laptop that wouldn’t recognize the SD card I’d stored the book on–meaning I couldn’t get any work done on it during that time.  A Restoration Movement Seminar in Texas (and my three lectures for it).  Spending time visiting members here.  Sermon preparation.  Class preparation.

Then came today.

We left the house this morning to go visit some members, when I discovered that my SD card wasn’t in the pocket that I had put it in.  And we haven’t found it yet.  My family and I have scoured the vehicle, the garage, the house, and everywhere else I can possibly think of.  I’m rather concerned…

Right about now, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Why are you so upset?  Surely you have a backup copy, right?”  Well… I do… from August 12th.  So, it’s not completely lost.  But the backup I have only has 81 pages done.  The version on the missing SD card has 175 pages done.  Needless to say, this is a significant setback.

And just for the sake of humiliating myself further, I am also going to admit that the SD card was also the place where I was storing my book on the Apostles (thankfully, I have a backup copy of it from a month ago here somewhere), as well as the text of all three lectures I gave on the Restoration Movement last Saturday (no backups, and I gave my printed notes away).  So I’ve lost at least 50 hours of work that will have to be re-done–all because I didn’t keep up with backing up my files.

I hope this explains the delay in publishing my Revelation book.

Now for the unsolicited advice

We have all heard people say “make sure to back up your files.”  And I agree, it is a good idea.  But you need to do it regularly.  As in, when you get done working on a project, or updating it, or copying pictures to your computer, or whatever–make sure to back them up.

I kept letting it slip; kept saying, “I’ll do it later.  I’m too busy to do that right now.”  And now I am reaping what I sowed through my negligence.

If you think backing up your computer files is important, remember this: It is nowhere near as important as making sure you are right with God.

Christians know they should pray to God; know they should confess their sins to Him; know they should repent–but they put it off, and put it off, and eventually forget what they needed to confess in the first place.

Do it regularly.  Don’t let it slip, because you don’t know what might happen.

-Bradley S. Cobb

One thought on “An Unexpected Delay (and some Unsolicited Advice)”

  1. Over 30 years ago, after losing a 22 page term paper, with only a printed copy of a rough draft left of a term paper that was due in less than 24 hours when we saved computer files to audio cassettes I learned the value of backups. 12 years ago when I as the Director of Assessments and Institutional Research for CRC and we were getting ready for our on site visit from North Central Accreditation and CRC’s main server crashed and took down the automatic backup, I was the only one that had our self study book we had worked on for two years. We lost 2 weeks of fine tuning instead of two years of work that had to be ready in a couple of months. By the way I had my original copy and 3 backups of it. I give you these examples to tell you for about 25 years now I NEVER SAVE ANYTHING ANYTIME without saving it in a minimum of two backups. I tried this backing up REGULARLY but then you forget what you backed up and what you didn’t. My college work I would save it to my laptop and a jump drive and then regularly take that jump drive home and put it on my main computer and its extra backup. At home on my main computer I have two extra backups. When I save it, it is always saved to all three. Once you get use to it, it doesn’t take that much extra time. I CAN’T TELL YOU how many times this have saved me. Brothers learn from an old man that has been around computers since 1971, I love them, but I don’t trust them without backups. Hope you find it Bradley!

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