It happened. I never thought it would happen to me but it did. I am always the one telling people to remember to make duplicate files, "back up your files!" "create multiple versions!" I am the one who has turned file back-up and organization into a freakin religious effort. But nooOOO, I had to go and save repeatedly over one file, just asking for trouble. After many days of work, only minutes away from the final save and that last trip to the printer, InDesign let me know that it was out of memory. "Out of memory?" I cursed at the screen. How can it be out of memory? The file was under 10mb and it wasn't as if I was running Photoshop, Final Cut and Flash all at the same time. It didn't make sense. So I restarted, re-opened and nothing. "Out of memory" is all it had to say to me. I tranferred it to my laptop, more RAM.."out of memory." Nothing worked. I emailed it to various people, "Out of Memory."
file corruption. "File corruption just doesn't happen to me." I kept saying over and over as tears welled up in the corners of my eyes. Ok, I didn't cry, but I wanted to. I wanted to throw my computers out the window. Instead I took a walk to the nearest pub that sold offsale liqour, I even bought cigarettes (I typically don't smoke). Did it make me feel better? No, of course not. liqour and tobacco are NOT the answer to any problem, unless being too sober is your problem.
So my second Canadian thanksgiving was spent on the verge of an ulcer and mental breakdown. Today I reflect on the situation with sadness, since if course I still have to rebuild the project, but with a little lesson learned as well. Always, always, always back up your files and save copies all over town if you have to.