DISQUS

Douglas Cootey · 2 years ago

That's a terrible tragedy, Thom. I love my moleskines and hate to think what I'd do if they were lost.

As for your question, it is the nature of all information to be transient. In fact, many claim that electronic information is more ethereal and transient than old school written-with-ink-on-paper information. Your moleskine will survive a power outage unlike unsaved documents. Your moleskine will survive a pot of cocoa poured on it, though it will look worse for wear. I'd buy more Moleskines.

Good luck finding them. Hopefully you put a reward amount in the front that will entice somebody to return them. Or better yet, maybe they were picked up by a Good Samaritan.


~Douglas
☆ The Splintered Mind - Overcoming Neurological Disabilities With Lots Of Humor And Attitude

Thom Allen · 2 years ago

Thanks Douglas. After having a night to calm down and think about it, I will be buying more Moleskine's. My anger isn't that I lost the books but the data in the books.

I did go back to the area where I thought I had lost my books and wouldn't you know it I found one of the Moleskines and one standard notebook. The Moleskine was damaged beyond repair as it laid in snow all night, and had been run over several times.

I was able to get some info, but most of the text was written with an ink pen and was smeared.

I did take a picture and you can see them here.

Thom Allen
www.thomallen.com

Lillian · 2 years ago

Thom, I mourn with you. Losing something so important and personal is tough! I am glad you at least found some of them, even if the information isn't very accessible. Somehow just getting something back feels a little bit better.

Douglas Cootey · 2 years ago

I imagine when the snow clears you might find the others. Here's a time where you can hope for Global Warming to pitch in and do its part. ;)

I'm sorry, though, that the Moleskine didn't like being seeped in snow and rain for a night. I guess I'll have to revise my "pot of cocoa" comment. ;)

Actually, you've given me cause for pause. I haven't tested the ink of the pen I'm writing my journal with. If it's as waterproof as the pen you used I could be in trouble.

~Douglas
☆ The Splintered Mind - Overcoming Neurological Disabilities With Lots Of Humor And Attitude

ikd · 2 years ago

Similar thing happened to me. Somebody walked into my office and left with backpack; I lost wallet, daily planner and notebook among other things. Funny thing, my laptop was on my desk and was left there :)

I went out and bought more moleskines and just as a treat to myself I also bought a lamy fountain pen.

Cheers,

I.

erisraven · 2 years ago

A scanner is your best friend, and the quickest way to back up. I number my moleskine pages, and every week I sit down and do a quick scan of those pages I've written in. I mark the last scanned page with an icon beside the page number. It really helped me out when someone stole my bag last year. They got my Sony notebook (too expensive to replace ) but I had backed up the data within the past week; and they got my two moleskins, but most of the data was scanned on the home PC. A few printouts of the important stuff, and I was rolling again. Good luck to you with your new ones!

Macro · 2 years ago

Lets hope someone, somehow is nice and returns them. I hope you had your name in them somewhere

daveterry · 2 years ago

Thom:

if you use uniball vision micro (0.5) or uniball RT 0.38, you'll have waterproof ink too.

...dave

Me · 2 years ago

Wow, that sucks. I second the others in saying that it's the use, not the medium, that causes these things. I've lost papers, and I've lost electronic data before. Shit happens, and it's unfortunate. But, I'm not going to abandon e-mail entirely, or paper entirely, because of either one. Your idea of scanning your moleskines everyone once in a while is a good one. I used to do that, but have been remiss in doing that for some time. Good luck in finding the others, if there are others, that aren't damaged. :-X Have a few beers on me.

Thom Allen · 2 years ago

Thanks for all great comments. I did go out and buy several new Moleskines yesterday. I'm going to work on them this week end. I want to see if there are any cool new hacks out there I've haven't seen.

I did buy one exclusively for my writing ideas. I'm reading a book called Writing Fiction from Gotham Writers' Workshop, and in there it talks about having some place where you write thoughts, ideas, characters, maybe even some amount of story line. I didn't have anything exclusive for that but now I do.

So this should be fun trying to get things working again.

Thom Allen · 2 years ago

@daveterry just picked up a set of Uniball RT 0.38's. Nice pen. Although I think in the end I'll use something else because they feel so small in my hand. I like a bigger pen where I can wrap my big hands around it.

Thanks again.