As I am writing this, I am waiting on a squall line that the weather-guy says is approaching my neighborhood. If it really hit hard, what would I save first?

Well, the pets, of course. But beyond that? The computer? It has my life in it. But a few years back, when I first discovered thumb drives, or flash drives, or whatever you are calling them (is there a difference?) I went a little crazy about them. I back up my files on them, in addition to the hard drive on my computer. I carry them with me all the time, on a key chain in the bottom of my purse.

So if that nasty old storm takes out my computer, I’ve not lost everything. I have most of my work on those little drives…but I did stuff this afternoon that’s not backed up.  Excuse me, I’ll be right back….

Okay. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. What is YOUR backup plan? Do you use ‘the cloud’? I’m not sure I trust that. My new Office Suite 2013 automatically sends everything there. I haven’t gotten used to that, and admit it startles me when I go to open something and it’s not right there in front of me. And what if sometime in the future, Microsoft decides to hold my work hostage? What if they decide they’ve been storing it all this time and now I have to pay to get it back? And, who says it’s hack-proof? Yeah, right. How many times have we seen danger messages from the Microsoft people themselves warning of possible leaks/hacks/theft/viruses? Not a real confidence-builder, is it?

I have a friend whose husband has their files in an on-line storage system, through his office.  I wonder if that’s any safer? Seems to me it would be subject to the same questions I asked above. Another friend simply has an external hard drive that she backs everything up to, in case her main computer fails. Well, that’s portable enough. Grab it and go to the storm shelter…if you are home when it hits.

E-mailing things to yourself seems to be a safe bet…you can access your e-mail from any computer these days. But I’d have a huge amount of stored things in it by now. Others store work in a safe deposit box. Still others tell me they periodically copy things and let relatives keep them. Surely there’s a little safety in that, because what are the odds that EVERYBODY would get wiped out in the same night? Still, the constant updating and re-storing would drive me crazy, and that’s really a short trip these days.

Hmm. While I was typing this, that horrible storm passed by.  All I got was a little rain.

Well, my stories and poems are safe in the bottom of my purse, which I keep by my side during weather emergencies. Being as prepared as possible.  Where are yours?