Poet Ponders the Digital

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley August 2008 Issue July 7, 2008 You Can Always Go Back, If You’re Prepared Digital pictures and digital music. My life is stored in bits on my laptop hard drive and an iPod. I can’t remember the last time I had film developed and my last music purchase was a hard-to-find jazz track downloaded from Amazon. My life is definitely digital. Memories are convenient… and at risk. I was thinking about this while watching the residents of Big Sur and Santa Barbara try to gather their belonging to flee fires. Like the victims of this summer’s horrible floods in the Midwest, these families sometimes had only minutes to gather important possessions. Losing pictures of my wife, my family (including the pets), and special moments from our lives would be devastating. I realize the Valley is extremely “safe” when compared to many other locations. We don’t have hurricanes, tornado seasons, or horrible fires. It is easy to forget we should protect our digital ...