I caved :-(

[Rachy_B]

Two months! Two months today! I made it...and then I broke...

On Saturday I had a massive fight with a male friend of mine. This was owing to his repeated comments about different girls as we walked through town. Personally, I don't find it appropriate to comment on a particular body part of a person and how appealing this makes them. 'Objectification' would be the tame version of what he was doing. It was like walking around with an entire rugby team on an 18-30s holiday in Ibiza (uk version!) or football team on spring break (USA version!). He'd be the dirty old man sat in the corner of a pub rubbing his thighs at every pretty girl who walked in! Having spoken to various people about this, it has been agreed that this was totally inappropriate (some have even argued it is dangerous). I told said friend it was inappropriate and disgusting in no uncertain terms. He walked off angrily and about 15 minutes later I went after him. He'd gone home (as expected) where I went to pick up my things. I'd left my 1TB harddrive, blank dvds and the bag I had brought them in and needed them back (why they're there is a long story, but they were). He let me into his building and to all intents and purposes, threw my HDD, bag and dvds at me and slammed the door in my face.

I didn't plug in the HDD until this afternoon. No amount of fiddling and playing would get it to work. That's 1TB of stuff, 1TB of my life GONE! That's one undergrad, two masters and a substantial amount of work towards a PhD, GONE! That's all my photos (I'd scanned in EVERY photo I owned), all my home video clips, all my documents, all my music and movies GONE! What he didn't know is that with the exception of my movies and most of my home video clips, everything was backed up (despite a brief panic about my PhD work and second masters work!)... The point is, 1TB OF MY LIFE WAS GONE!

Today, I'd used less than 1 battery on a 510 penstyle, using 12mg juice...this was at about 5pm in the evening so there hadn't been a lot of nicotine going on today... as I'm sure you can imagine, I caved. 4 cigarettes later and conversations to two very dear friends, we worked out how much I had backed up on disks elsewhere anyway but I still caved... My PC repair store are confident they can retrieve the data, whether he just treated the HDD like poop in the 15 minutes he was alone with it, or formatted it but I'm still so angry! I don't know whether I'm more angry that I smoked (I blame him!) or that my HDD is now broken and I've had to pay £150 to get my data retrieved and onto a new harddrive (I blame him!)! I didn't smoke after I found out a secret about the guy I was seeing and this was the kind of secret that shouldn't be a secret and should have been shared muuuuuuuuuuuuch sooner! I wanted to smoke after I found out his little secret but didn't...I spend an hour in a doctor's office and don't smoke...destroy my 1TB HDD with my entire life on it and I'm gonna smoke! Priorities? Wrong? Anybody?

Interestingly, I needed comfort and I needed it in a destructive manner. I knew smoking was bad but I did it anyway. I KNEW I had nicotine and could turn to the ecig but I didn't. I'm angry with myself for smoking but I'm glad that I learned something about myself. In moments of stress, I can be very self destructive. I need to work on this.

I'm back on the ecig now that I've spoken to the PC repair place. I offered the guy a kidney, a piece of my liver, my first born and my soul (although I'd have to get it back from a friend first) if only he can get the data back. Seriously, I offered him a kidney! He was cool with the usual price of £80 and using the new HDD I just bought for £70 though. Said person is now a former friend (blocked from all forms of contact) as I don't want anyone in my life who is that disgusting about the opposite gender and who can, out of stupidity, negligence or malice, do that to my property (1TB! BABY PHOTOS! 3 DEGREES!). Please keep your fingers crossed for my data, and my sanity...NO MORE CIGS FOR ME! EVER!x

P.S. Moral of the story #1: Have better friends. #2: Back up!!!!!! #3: Destroy all tobacco in your house...BURN IT!...no...wait...flush it down the toilet!

 

[juicejunky]

Sorry to read about your troubles, seems the smoking part is the least of them. Glad to hear you are back on the ecigs and I hope you get your data back. Hang in there, falling off the wagon isn't nearly as bad as it used to be now that we have ecigs.

At two months, did you enjoy the cigarettes or were they nasty?

 

[J.R. Bob Dobbs]

find a computer repair shop, a lot of times drives that wont boot can be recovered. considering its stuff for your PhD i would spend much to get it recovered.

also try re-installing the drivers for the drive.

or if the drive has an operating system on it plug that drive in by itself. remove all other drives.

your problem could be as simple as the computer not being able to assign it a drive letter as well.

right click my computer(in windows) and select manage then pick disk management(at the bottom of the list on the left) see if your drive is even listed. if it is then your drive works, and your trouble is software related. Change the drive letter (right click the area where the drives info is listed) then reboot your computer.

if all this fails try entering your computer's bios, usually pressing the delete key or an f key will do it. normally the bios splash screen will tell you what key press is required. the screen only displays for a few seconds so you need to be quick(or press the required key alot) nose around in the bios until you find something displaying drive info. see if your drive is listed. if its listed , it is a working drive and can be fixed within windows like i mentioned earlier.

though if your drive is a usb external drive some of these options may not work.

 

[mikejm]

I wouldn't worry about it.Smoking is really not that big of a deal and it looks like you'll recover your data. Soon you'll be back on track with your 510's.

 

[volume control]

Eh if you stay with the ecig and only cave once every four months, thats pretty good! I kind of want one just to see how it is lol. I know, disgusting\


Also i repair PCs, you can get the data off those externals if its just case damage very easily. You shoulldddd be fine. Hopefully its not the drive itself. Im not sure what it costs to recover if something in the drive itself broke, but its possible

 

[RosaJ]

Rachy, I would say you're a very lucky woman! It could have been a lot worse. Don't sweat smoking cigarettes, you're back on track.

 

[tidegirl]

So sorry that your former friend is a ...... And don't worry about smoking. That is the beauty of PVs, there is much less of an all-or-nothing attitude with them. You have dusted yourself off and got back on the juice. Your info will be recovered, and you will move forward. Hugs to you.

 

[tidegirl]

Wow, can't believe that one was censored. Guess it will be an inside joke, since I can't tell you what it was. Not what I consider a bad word though. Not even remotely. Idiot will work in it's place though.

 

[SilentScreams]

Wow sorry to hear about your troubles. As a man with 99% female friends I know how NOT to act in public with them. Although some of the female friends I have will point out other women and make comments on their "parts", I never start those conversations.

Having broke down once isn't going to kill you but it did show you something about yourself. Good luck.

 

[acidrayne280]

I wouldn't worry too much about caving once in a while. You're still better off than if you had continued to smoke. I still have an occasional cigarette if I'm in a pinch with no e juice.

As for the hard drive, any computer place is gonna charge an arm, leg, and firstborn child to recover your data. You can pick up an external box for hot swapping loose hard drives for around $40. One of my soldiers had a similar situation with her hard drive and the geek squad wanted $1000 to recover data. I used my black-x box and liberated the hard drive from its case and recovered about 98% of her data for $free.99. It's worth a shot IMO

 

[bobbybilly]

Rachy_B Try to keep in mind you are only human (at least you look like one in your picture) and us humans are imperfect whether we want to be or not. In my opinion having a few smokes makes you no worse than if you're opposed to swearing and let a few swear words fly in the heat of the moment from time to time. Don't beat yourself up emotionally, you're doing great on quitting so allow yourself to celebrate that fact. Actually you have quit smoking. You're no more of a smoker than a non-smoker who smokes 4 cigs in a day and then never smokes again. I hope tomorrow is a happier day for you!!!!

 

[MF DOOM]

Chivalry is dead baby.

 

[X P3 Flight Engineer]

I look at Vaping as an alternate (and safer) way to get nicotine and life is definitely not linear (or smooth), far from it. Sometimes I need very little nicotine to maintain my sanity, sometimes..... well, it takes more. Smoking is not a failure, it's just an alternate (less healthy) option. Many people do both, some for a short while some for longer.

You do what you have to do to maintain your sanity. A few smokes may have saved someone's life! Lol
A few smoked now compared to the one thousand plus that you didn't smoke is peanuts. You know Vaping is healthier, tastes better, and saves a lot of money. Increase your nic content for a while and keep some stronger nic juice around for emergencies. Vaping will bring you through.

We are thinking of you and hoping things turn out better than they were before! Sometimes it does good to shake things up a little.

Relax, Enjoy!

 

[marceloscope]

First point: once upon a time a friend and I retrieved data from a laptop HD that sounded like a maraca when I shook it – granted my buddy and I are in the business but did it with a cheap usb adapter to a box with linux OS when nothing else would recognize it. we tried a few. suffice to say if the geek squad isn’t able to retrieve your data, you may have alternatives. the other industry standard mission critical sort of alternative runs higher – like upwards of 15-20K.

Second point: your data is more important than some randomly toxic ‘friend’ and certainly some puff from a plant. aside from the lesson you taught yourself about calling out latent and offensive behavior, you now have the new charge of recognizing stupidity and making it work for you.

Third point and my last: I appreciate that you’d rather not cave, but you did. That bit’s on you. You seem like a conscientious person. So were I your friend, I ask you to lay off yourself altogether for the cigarettes. Sure, take the blame. You can and will. That semi-toxic ‘friend’ won’t.

Ok one last point: don’t hassle so much about a couple of smokes under duress. Were this scenario to become habit, perhaps rethink third point first, second point second, first point third – and include all variations.

So in conclusion / PS Moral of story: #1 yes fundamentally; #2 yes absolutely; #3 ok maybe not so much. yet. for me.

 

[patkin]

Give yourself a break.... you sure need one.... 4 cigs every two months is about a pack a year! If you compare it to alcohol, that would make you a social drinker.... not a lush so you're still not a smoker. Emotional upset still gets to me and I smoke then. You know what they say about branches that don't bend in the wind.

 

[kiwivap]

Hi Rachy,
Sorry you had such a rough time. And glad to hear everything was backed up. Hang on to your kidney. They come in a tad handy after a bit of imbibing.
I think you're doing really well actually.

 

[J.R. Bob Dobbs]

Chivalry, not dead...

Chivalry is dead baby.

but....






































NOBODY EXPECTS T HE SPANISH INQUISITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Racehorse]

Rachy, hope tomorrow is better for ya. Wow, that's a pretty harrowing series of events you had.

as for the backup, do not let your computer guy try unless he knows he can. There are some very good data recovery companies around that can bring back mission critical stuff. Most hard drives that people wipe clean are not really "wiped".

Hope everything works out for ya. glad to hear you're vaping again. Don't beat up on yourself though, a few analogs okay, well, you have the rest of your life in front of ya.

 

[Rachy_B]

Well the HDD is with a reputable company...I've got a really good mate who could have tried it for free but he's having a spot of bother in his own life so I'm not gonna interfere with that! Better to pay £80 and keep a good friend! Still, I wouldn't pay $1000!

I heard that to really wipe any drive it can take up to 24 hours of a program writing and rewriting and rewriting again data onto it but that moment of :huh : (a story in smilies!) would make even the hardened person crack! I'm told by none smokers they would have done the same thing too.

Shortly after I got home from the PC shop, I hopped back on the vaping horse. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be tbh! I had my 24mg juice on hand just in case but my 12mg DIYed Virginia (I like to call my DIYed juice 'moonshine' now!) did the trick. It turns out, vaping is easier to get back into than smoking. The smokes tasted pretty good, even with 2 month old dried out tobacco but it wasn't as good as my moonshine! I'll keep smiling and hoping for my data, mourn my trusty HDD, and keep on with my 510...I love my 510 all the more now!x

 

[Rachy_B]

Chivalry, not dead...




but....






































NOBODY EXPECTS T HE SPANISH INQUISITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actual ROFL! There's an episode of QI about this- apparently people DID expect the Spanish Inquisition because they sent word a month in advance so you could prepare your case and prove you weren't a heretic! Who knew, huh?! Also, my lecturer last year started talking about the spanish inquisition (with a picture on the screen) and I bit my tongue really hard so I wouldn't say 'by jove! I wasn't expecting that!'...it hurt! I'd thought about using it to break the ice in an important presentation I have to do and then realised my presentation is about death and its probably not appropriate to make jokes about such matter at a time like that! You're a total mindreader though because that's been on my mind for DAYS!x