Data Storage

I happened to be looking for a couple of things the other day, and that often signifies the end of a period where my room is fairly neat. I hope that doesn't happen this time. Anyway, while I was looking for those things- props from a theater piece which I am performing again this evening- I came upon some other items which I had vaguely wanted to get my hands on again. I mean by that the legal pads which I had gone through in the past and which I had not lost.

As I said the other day, some of them go missing before every page can be used, but I did manage to locate half a dozen legal pads which I did use all the way through and retain after the fact. I wonder if there could be more. I would like to have them as some kind of record. I don't know how useful they would be in that capacity. It will be at the very least an amusing period of time spent going over the pile of them.

A lot of the pages are filled with writing I did in pencil. Pencil doesn't tend to survive as well as pen over time. I suppose an archivist would have to scan it all to make sure it exists in perpetuity, but I'm not going to worry about that. It seems premature to save something that nobody may end up having any interest in. I'll just have to take the chance that they could fade or be destroyed. One thing I can be sure of is that they won't become yellowed. That's the virtue of canary yellow legal pads.

From now on, my plan is to store these pads in a box where they may be found if I have the idea that one may contain something important. It may be argued that this approach is no more than a counterproductive affectation considering that all this may be done more easily if I just typed things up and kept them online (or on a hard drive), but there is the real risk of having the information lost forever. With the legal pads at least my musings have a fighting chance.