Mid morning panic attacks and camcorder gremlins

Hello all,

I had a camcorder gremlin this morning.  My camcorder decided to stop working properly.  It told me the tape I had in it was blank, which it wasn't. I was looking at it not 2 hours ago and it was fine. So, I thought that was odd and I tried several other tapes, same result.  Then I tried tapes from another room, same result.  So, now I'm thinking some evil force has wiped my tapes!  I had stuff relating to JFK and a lot that wasn't.  I had tapes of visits to cemeteries, where my Dad showed me where his parents and other relatives are buried in Binghamton, NY.  I had another relative giving me a guided tour of another cemetery in Silver Lake, Pennsylvania.  I had tapes of visits to England in summer and Christmas time, and a trip to Verdun, France touring the battlefields of World War I, and more recently to Cardiff, Wales where I found the church where my great, great grandparents were wed. The thought of all of that being lost forever was heartbreaking.  So, I tried to calm down and pray to my Mom, and SHAZAM!  She fixed it.  The camcorder is back to working normally, the tapes that I feared were wiped clean have what I taped still on them.  I don't know what happened but it was quite worrying for awhile.

So, the object lesson here is to back up your stuff, make copies onto the same media format, and make copies onto other media formats.  Send a spare copy to a friend.