happy birthday?!

want to hear the saddest story?
you know my husband, the almost professor.
it's his birthday today.
he's 37... old huh?

anyway... for the past month he has been collecting data for his thesis.
all day, every day.
last night he says, "I'm almost done!!!  Only 3 more companies then i have collected the data for 350 companies for the past 12 years.  It has taken me 5 weeks.  Next, I can analyze it."
he finished up while i went to bed with yawns of congratulations.

this morning, we went to the gym.
while our kids sleep- 5:30-6:30am.
our oldest is almost 12, and we have cell phone, so i feel safe leaving them alone.
this morning, when we got home, everyone was awake.
the girls said, "Daddy, Lily has something to give you."
she handed him his jump drive.
that he had left plugged in the night before.
he has not backed his jump drive up since the beginning of September... 
BEFORE he started his data collection.
seriously.

we went to lunch for our special birthday date, and when we came home, he plugged in his jump drive... so he could back it up and begin his analysis.
totally BLANK.
nothing.

as i type, the computer is running scans to see if the company can help us recover any of the data.
but so far it still says "0 files recovered."
isn't that a horrible birthday present?
i knew we should have slept in this morning...  let's blame it all on the exercise.

blah.  37th birthdays.  it's the curse of the "you're too old to be in school" god.
maybe saint timothy (i think he's the saint of lost stuff) can come to battle for us.
{can you tell i'm reading percy jackson?}
oh, i sure hope this story has a happy ending...   he's a good man, charlie brown.