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05/31/2002 Entry: "Timeless Timber and lost data"

DW Timeless Timber drumset. See the more section for more.

I've been doing some consulting work for a local doctor. He wanted to upgrade is beige Mac G3, so we did some research, and he picked up a 600 iMac G3 for a closeout price. But of course, he wanted his old data from the old machine. So I brought it back to the office, set up a little AppleTalk network, and moved his hard drive (3.5 gigs) onto my work machine (40 gigs). The I erased the hard drive of his old machine. I did this before I had re-installed the data to his new machine! (Never again.) That means if something got lost, I had no recourse--no backup. So anyways, he'd like to have his Quicken data put on his new machine in smart fashion. So I put this doctor's financial data on a Zip drive, and took it to his house last night. I booted up, imported the data, no big whoop. Only when he opens the file, there are no deposits since like November of last year! Quicked says he's in the red to the tune of like 40k!

"Bill," he says, "these aren't the right files."

"Umm," says I "that's the whole Quicken folder..."

Do you realize how big you feel when you're the computer "expert," being paid for what you know, and you've just lost a doctors financial information? I had a headache right quick.

After noodling around for 1/2 an hour, trying to get it fixed, I finally gave up. "I'll look back on my machine at work" I told him.

Then I went home and prayed.

This morning, I came in and did some digging, and found another Quicken folder hidden inside another folder. This was the right data--I still had it!

All proof that God loves me.

Hundreds of years ago, long before the discovery of the America, the forests in what would eventually come to be known as the Great Lakes region of North America were just beginning to be take root. In this setting a natural canopy of shade created by the forest's taller Pine and Evergreen trees allowed the smaller Birch, Elm, Oak, and Maple Trees to mature slowly, much more slowly and much more fully than their modern day ancestors. With rich, fertile soil and a hearty climate, the seedlings grew strong and sturdy - untouched by the hand of man nearly 1,000 years. During the great U.S. land and population expansion of the late 1800s, millions of these trees were harvested to supply the lumber to build the great cities of the United States. Every one of the lumberjacks who worked the forests during that time were given a registered sawyer's mark that he used to identify his trees and the year each was felled. Once cut, the logs were marked and taken to the closed body of water where they would be floated to nearby sawmills and processed into lumber. Many of these logs ended up on Lake Superior and, while most made their journey to the mills without incident, thousands became water-logged and sank to the bottom of the lake. There they rested peacefully for the next hundred years. Recently, this underwater forest was accidentally discovered by divers searching for treasure from sunken ships. As they raised the logs to clear their view, they found the real treasure was this perfectly preserved "slow growth" wood with incredible figuring (flame, birds'eye maple quilt) and a significantly greater density (40-60 rings per inch) than any of today's premium hardwoods could provide. As a few independent collectors and custom instrument makers began investigating the musical properties of the "Lake Superior" wood, it quickly became apparent that not only had the icy-cold temperature and low oxygen content of the lake's deep water made time stand still by stopping aging and preventing deterioration, the long submersion had also give the wood a noticeably more resonant, more musical sound by washing out the tree sap, minerals, and other organic materials. Through an exclusive agreement with the Lake Superior Water-logged Lumber Company, and with the assistance of the master drum builder JOHNNY CRAVIOTTO, a handful of Lake Superior logs were acquired by Drum Workshop just before the end of the 20th century. Using hand-selected inner, center, and outer plies that were chosen for their specific sound qualities, DW succeeded in creating a "Timeless Timber" drum set with the same proven shell/reinforcing hoop structure and proprietary shell production and TimbreMatch shell selection processes as their Collector's Series. Hand-crafted from highly-figured, 500 year old North American Maple, the drums combined this unique natural resource with the state-of-the-art drum making expertise that continues to make Drum Workshop the world leader in custom drums.

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