Protect your past! A sobering tale...

This is a post that has little to with design, and lots to do with taking care of what's dear to your heart.
On a recent business trip to Paris, the window of our hired car was smashed, and a bag containing most of our "virtual history", not to mention the many and varied valuables that we tote from place to place when travelling: wallets, cash, cheque books, passports, access codes, account documents, company details...was stolen.  The list of losses is long, and particularly worrying, when you consider the damage that can be done if this kind of information gets into the hands of computer savvy criminals.  The theft of documents causes anger and frustration, plans to be changed, and time, money and effect wasted to replace them...but it's so much more than that...
Don't these people realize or care (Ok, stupid question: no, of course they don't care!) that it's just as much the "other" things we carry around with us that's valuable, as the "stuff" they can quickly "sell on" and spend?
We'll never be able to replace the hardrive that held details important to the business trip, but also the family's history in photographs: 17 years of growing children, and a lifetime as a couple, that we'd etched virtually, but never physically...the memento's given from toddlers to "The best Dad in the world", dog eared now from years of living in the back of a wallet, but totally irreplaceable to the Dad in question.

We've gone through feeling a myriad of emotions from the day it happened: from pure anger that we'd been robbed, stupidity for leaving the bag in the car in the first place, to distress and pain when we started to realize just what had been lost. And then some... Of course we were physically unharmed, no one had been in an accident, all our loved ones were safe. Putting things into perspective, it could have been much worse. But it was still very unpleasant, and costly to go through.

So let our sad tale be a useful lesson. Do what's needed to back up your "virtual life" as many times as you need to, and do it now. Travel light, and only take it with you if you really have to. Store things separately, and duplicate files and hard drives if needed. (Use "the clouds", but not as a unique solution). Think less like the trusting soul you surely are, and start to think "what would happen if"...so if the worst does happen, you might only lose replaceable practicals, not irreplaceable intangibles. Good luck, and keep safe.