Happy Tuesday,

Mark Engelhardt called me last night asking me to check out the Waitsfield offices after the fire alarm was tripped. I arrived a few minutes later to flashing lights, ambulances, fire trucks, and at least a dozen volunteer firefighters. Astonished and amazed that the volunteers beat me to the scene, I unlocked the front door and we went room by room to make sure nothing was on fire. About an hour after the ordeal began, we confirmed that nothing was on fire or smoldering, and I made the rounds with Tony to lock up.

I was reminded of a short story I wrote in high school detailing my family’s experience with the Verbank, NY volunteer fire department one very cold morning. The woodstove vents had been left open too long, causing a chimney fire, and the interaction between my father and the firefighters inspired the story. I searched my Gmail account and found the file immediately. Mind you, it was written in ClarisWorks 3 on a Mac clone in 1997. I was able to open the document in TextEdit without a hitch.

In a world with ever changing formats and media, archiving data for posterity is a tough thing to do. I’m thankful Apple is still supporting these old formats, but am beginning to realize that it’s time to convert those old documents to a modern, non-proprietary format like RTF, and copy them to a modern non-mechanical medium like DVD. Or paper.

As always, keep in touch.

Matt
matt@smalldog.com