daines'n around

In a week I will have lived in Provo for 9 months. I sit and wonder how time has flown by. I've become comfortable in my solitude, and not completely blissful in it. I enjoy my work but still yearn to do something different. I dare say I've run the risk of having become complacent, and I'm not entirely sure why.

It's not like me to be content with stagnation. Free time has not helped much. It has only enhanced my feelings of solitude. I stay awake for hours playing games, watching television shows and reading what can hold my interest for more than three minutes. Still I think to myself that I'm too busy to blog. I have nothing to write about. Nothing to inform anyone about.

But I'm not busy. I'm elated when my phone rings, which it hardly does anymore.

I haven't been on a date for three months. I don't even take photographs very often anymore.

I need to change something.

I just need to find that something.

Less than a week later,
I feel much better.

Sort of a renewed hope in the future -- a happy feeling.

I took an easter trip to Henderson, Nevada to visit cousins.
I took time out to visit Hoover Dam.
More on both of those later.

Text messaging is good.
The Easter Moose missed my house, but cheered me up.

Tonight I must have listened to the fantastic album Keep it Like a Secret by Built to Spill. Simple melodies, infectious guitars, swelling chords and poignant lyrics. My sister would call it nasal. I still call it beautiful.

This week I turned on my USB Backup Hard Drive to backup some photos from a recent wedding.

Click.... whirrr click.... clunk.

CLUNK? Why did it clunk!?!?

Where's the bah-dum sound of XP recognizing the drive? None?

Calls into three data recovery companies tell me I am looking at spending between $800 and $1200. I explain that I'm a recent graduate with an expansive photojournalism portfolio that is now trapped on this tiny brick. They feign sympathetic, but this won't lower the price at all.

I don't have the money now. I'm photographing a wedding in June, but my income won't cover even half of the drive repair/recovery after travel expenses.

Is it worth going into debt for memories that I may never otherwise be able to keep? My heart says yes. My paycheck? No.