Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who managed to get the most out of his computer. This had been going on for days and God was tired of hearing all of the bickering. God said, "Cool it. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge who does the better job."

So down they sat at the keyboards and typed away. They moused away.

They did spreadsheets,
They wrote reports.
They sent faxes.
They sent out e-mail.
They sent out e-mail with attachments.
They downloaded.
They did some genealogy reports.
They made cards.
They did every known job.

But just a few minutes before the two hours were up lightening flashed across the sky. The thunder rolled and the rains came down hard. And, of course, the electricity went off.

Satan was upset. He fumed and fussed and he ranted and raved, all to no avail. The electricity stayed off. But after a bit the rains stopped and the electricity came back on.

Satan screamed, "I lost it all when the power went off. What am I going to do? What happened to Jesus' work?"

Jesus just sat and smiled. Again Satan asked about the work that Jesus had done. As Jesus turned his computer back on the screen glowed and when he pushed "print," it was all there.

"How did he do it?" Satan asked.

God smiled and said, "Jesus Saves."

So, smart person that I am, forgot to renew my web hosting in January. (Why I have it set on month-to-month, I don't know. Probably because I keep telling myself I'm going to shop around and find a better deal than GoDaddy, but I never end up doing that and end up renewing it monthly.) Usually they're pretty forgiving and will give you a week or two to cough up the cash and renew your bandwith. Unfortunately, if you let it sit for practically a month, they WILL delete your stuff. Like, all your stuff. Including your database that has 3+ years worth of blog posts (that no one else reads).

If I had half a brain, I would have remembered that joke and saved my crap like the good IT nerd that I am. Unfortunately, I don't, and I had to pay $$$ to get them to find a backup tape and restore my stuff.

Costly mistake, yes. But it's only a mistake if you make it once.

That being said… kids, back up your work. That way, if your account gets wiped clean because you were in Uzbekistan and weren't able to renew your account, you can easily restore your data using your own backup without having to pay out the nose to your hosting provider.