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It's summer, and with summer comes the pain of having to stay in when it's so nice out. It doesn't really matter what your position is in design - if it's this kind of weather, the office is like a jail and wifi is like a ball and chain. Excuse the hyperbole - I imagine you can probably relate unless you hate nice weather. How do you get away from the screen and what do you do?

I just got back in from Trinidad and Tobago. Kenneth climbs up mountains in Nelson, and I'm not sure what Shawn does in Vancouver - take your pick of amazing outdoor activities there. The Smallbox office in Oak Bay is very close to Estevan Village and Willows Beach; great places to eat or grab a cold beverage, and then go for a walk on the sandy shores. I would have been walking there today if I hadn't rolled my ankle on the weekend playing tennis.

Is any of this work related? I suppose it could be. If you do plan on working for a company in a part of the world with summers as nice as this, be prepared to fight the urge to leave the desk and go outside and play. We're very fortunate to be working in this part of the world.

How about you, what are you filling your non-design time summer hours with?

Do you remember that thrilling moment when you first started using the internet? I don't either. OK, I have a vague recollection of sending my first email and experiencing internet addiction first hand after playing a multi-user dungeon (MUD) game in university for three straight days when I really should have been studying for finals. But, I don't remember which website I visited first. In all likelihood it was probably Microsoft, since I think I used an early version of IE for Mac as my first web browser.

Last week while I was housesitting, and trying to fall asleep upstairs and somebody broke in downstairs, well..he climbed in. (Let me take this opportunity to remind you to keep your accessible windows and doors locked at night.) I heard the guy, my boyfriend chased him out, 911, police, late night scotch, yadda yadda yadda. He didn't take much, just a couple bottles of wine and of course my entire life. My laptop was sitting downstairs and he grabbed it. My beautiful, year old, 17" MacBook Pro that (sadly) I consider an extension of myself. All my work from the past year, all my music, all my writing and notes and thoughts and yes all my pictures, including my collection of recent vacation pictures I hadn't even had an opportunity to share.

I was chatting with my boyfriend and feeling really down, weepy and like the universe had wronged me and I came to a realization. It could have easily been an everyday hard drive failure. I've had a hard drive fail me in the past, it could have happened again, and I felt like an idiot. These things happen, often, why am I not backing up my stuff every day? Why aren't you backing up your stuff everyday? If you are, good for you, you can skip the rest of this entry unless you have tips to leave in the comments.