Lost Brew Logs WTF!!!!!!!!!

I have two brew log bound books. One from '95 to '00 and one from '00 to the present (almost full - feel guilty it is not).

I've got a few things in the pipeline, needed some new ideas, and looked back through my first bound log to find out what I rated "top dogs"...decided to order some ingredients on-line Sunday to make a wheat from '96 and a steam from 99'.

Today I go looking for my book...CAN'T FIND IT!!!! ALWAYS leave it with my fermenting lot, with my brew library, or with my keys and wallet - always!

Looked in the beer fridge in the garage, the brew library upstairs, the bar downstairs, through my brew equipment in the basement, back outside, under the bed...nothing!!!!

SWMBO'd is a pack rat and so checked her work bag and laptop case because she likes to scoop and dump everything she's working on...NOTHING!!!!

SWMBO'd also likes to collect a week's worth of junk mail and toss at once...YES I WENT THROUGH 6 BAGS OF FREEKING TRASH AND GARBAGE...AGAIN, N O T H I N G!

We have someone clean the house every couple of weeks...did they toss it? Not in the clear bag they generate and toss in the trash - yes I went through that to!

SWMBO'd likes to go around the house and toss everything in a drawer or cabinet to make it easier for the "cleaners" - really?

So after 1 hour of my life I will never get back searching every place I've been in the house since Sunday (and all the while thinking where I'll hide in the house to slash my wrists) this is the conversation with SWMBO'd...

Me = honey, where is the stuff I left out to bring to my parents
Me = (just realizing the "stuff" is also missing)
SWMBO = I don't know
Me = were the cleaners here Monday
SWMBO = Yes
Me = well don't you usually dump everything before they come
SWMBO = Yes
Me = So where is the stuff I left out to bring to my parents...
SWMBO = (light goes on), oh, maybe in here
SWMBO = Looks in a the first hall closet, nothing
Me = b!tching at her and opening the second hall closet...
Me = finding the stuff for my parents AND MY G@D D@MN book!

Yes we are still married, no I don't think I will file for divorce, yes I will now scan every single page to an electronic file, and yes I will now keep that damn log (both of them) in the safe with other valuables!!!

THIS IS A LESSON FOR YOU ALL! Scan and save!

There, I feel better.

Misleading title... you didn't lose them!

I had my first year of brewing records on BeerSmith on my old laptop. Which died after that first year. Fortunately I printed out everything too. I think I still have that... somewhere...

Losing data sucks. That's for sure.

Good to hear you found them. That'd be pretty scary to lose that much information.
Keep backups everywhere, even online too in several locations.
Physical backups (flash drives& tape drives) are good, but you don't want them in one location either (oops, flood, or oops, fire, or oops EMP), a safety deposit box might be overkill these days.

Online sources would be pretty good too. Use several email accounts and just email a few attachments to yourself . (As we know, hotmail did lose some email recently). Or how about Google Docs, after scanning into pdf you can put it out there, and even make it public should you decide to.

If you want to spend money, you could have any online backup or cloud data locations, but there's *probably* enough free ones out there.

Good idea. I just backed mine up to Carbonite.