That’s right, my external hard drive that I tote back and forth to the office - a Western Digital MyBook Premium model# 5000KS has decided to bite me on the @ss this nice Christmas day 
. Luckily, it sorta works for a few minutes at a time so I can move my essential data off of there but it will make for a time consuming process. By “sorta works”, I mean that my PC can recognize the drive for short periods before the drive just disappears and is inaccessible. For you tech-necks out there, the behavior is the same no matter if I use the USB or the firewire interface. I have had some data loss, although to what extent I’m not sure just yet. Any critical photo shoots I’ve had I have burned to DVD or CD so I’m pretty sure anything I can’t get to will probably be trivial. Still, it’s a hassle to have to deal with. I went online to check the warranty status on the drive - here’s a ray of light, it expires on 12/27… 2 days from now. I went ahead and got an RMA form cranked out and also a UPS shipping label.
Anyone got a spare 500gig or larger external drive I could borrow for a week or so? Making room for 400gig on my other drives will be quite an effort. Eh… I may just pick up another internal drive and go about it that way. Grrr… I hate it when my technology acts up.
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Back then, I remember always looking forward to Christmas morning. I got all kinds of toys. Some of my most memorable toys were (in no particular order):
- A talking robot with lights and smoke coming out of its chest
- 250+ piece LEGO set
- Giant Tinkertoy set (most awesome thing EVER)
- My first bike - all I can remember is the name “Roadmaster”
- Atari 2600
- My first computer - a TI-99/4A (okay I was a teenager but it was still über cool)
- Starbird (spaceship toy that made sounds and changed sound depending on which way you had it pointed - up or down)
- Eagle spaceship - from Moonbase Alpha (I forgot the name of the actual show though)
- The game “Hit or Missile” - almost a video game, but not
- An Erector set
The bigger or heavier the box, the more I anticipated how great the present it contained would be. After all, I don’t recall getting anything really cool that was in a “light” box. The light boxes always had crap like… well, clothes. Getting clothes sucked as a kid. I was always thinking “uh, I have to have clothes anyway - why hose me on a holiday and get me something I have to have anyway”. Now, envelopes were another story. When you’re a kid, envelopes usually had money in there. I always thought of the christmas card as the thing that keeps the envelope stiff so you can’t tell for sure if there’s money inside. Somehow, I could always feel the envelope for that oval cutout that was always there so the dead president’s face would show through. That’s a skill I developed early in life. 
Now as an adult, there’s a different kind of fun. It’s being able to make these sorts of memories happen for others. As a new uncle, I have a niece I can spoil. She’s still too young to understand what’s happening but if all she remembers is my face being associated with getting cool stuff - that’s good enough for me. Ironically, several of the items I got her were clothes.
I hope all of my family and friends are enjoying a nice holiday today.
Merry Christmas people!
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…and I still can’t quite find some of the things I’m shopping for. Oh, I can find PLENTY of stuff I want, but that’s not the point. Besides the odd DVD or small knick-knack, I’ve tried to keep a handle on some of my spending through this holiday season. I did cheat a little though with my camera purchase last month 
. Remember that 2nd flash I mentioned I was needing - I got that too. The thing those two items have in common though is that I use them for work… both for my day occupation and for my other photo projects. Merry Christmas to me. Anyway, I have a few more days to find a few items I’m looking to find for others so hopefully I’ll have everything on my list checked off soon.
I FINALLY got to see the movie “Bourne Ultimatum” after missing in theaters. Good flick. I also popped my brain into neutral and watched “Superbad”. It was stupid of course, but had several funny moments in it. My IQ has since recovered after the slight dip immediately after watching it.
The winter is trying to arrive here finally. We went from the mid 70’s last week to highs in the upper 40’s over the weekend. I did manage to get my front yard raked Saturday which was a minor victory in the yard maintenance fight. Got all my leaves to the curb. I was pleasantly surprised that the city came by and vacuumed off my curb today! Great timing on that.
I’ll end this entry with a photo I took after shooting holiday card photos for a friend last week. It was a post-photo celebration of sorts.
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At a recent event I was photographing, a woman asked if I would mind taking a photo of her family. Although I was a little busy with the event itself, something about her request made me want to make time to do it for her. I first gathered them all together - the two parents and the children for a few shots then just the parents themselves. I took extra time to make sure the shots looked good despite not really being “prepared” for this kind of photo at the time. The woman hugged her kids and said bye to her husband. I thought nothing more of it at the time and went back to shooting the event. It was only later when she pulled me aside to thank me for taking the photos. She said my photos may be the last ones of her family together.
I didn’t know what to even say. Here it is the holidays - time for families to spend time together and this is happening in some people’s lives. It really does make me realize how much more thankful I should be for my family.
Sigh. I know I’m usually a little more upbeat on my blog but I just thought I’d share this in the hopes it might help someone appreciate what they have.
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Yup, to add to the weather weirdness we’ve been having, we hit somewhere just north of 70 degrees today. I was in jeans and a t-shirt - ALL DAY LONG. I had plans to be productive today and rake my yard (at least the front) but sometime last night it must have rained a little. Raking and hauling wet leaves around didn’t seem so appealing to me anymore so I put that whole plan on the back burner for now. If things dry up tonight and tomorrow, I may haul my leaf blower out and get it done, we’ll see.
I did manage to get the rest of Kyle’s wedding pictures finished and uploaded for them to pick from so that’s one more thing I have out of the way. Speaking of weddings, I *may* have a wedding to shoot next weekend that was unscheduled. Apparently, a bride’s photographer backed out at the last minute leaving her to scramble for someone. If I get the call, I definitely have to see what the situation was with the other photographer to be sure I’m not about to sign on with a “bridezilla”.
While on the subject of wedding photography, I’ve been really needing to get a 2nd camera body to use for weddings and other events. I’ve been fortunate enough to have friends that shoot also that have loaned me camera bodies in the past. The reason for 2 is to have at least 1 backup. If you only have 1 camera for a wedding for example, and it fails for whatever reason - you’re screwed. Christmas came early for me and I picked up a second camera body, so now I’m mostly set. I do need to pick up another flash unit though, but I think that might only be a week or so away.
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Jonathan sent over a few of his shots from the climbing extravaganza. Mainly 2 of me… one sitting in the parking lot leaning on the railing. I figured if I was going to pass out, it would best if I was already close to the ground. Luckily for me, that didn’t happen as I’m sure Jonathan would have gotten a great shot of it. Next was me actually shooting some of the stuff going on. Lastly, I found a wide shot of Jo, Jared and Nathan keeping Jonathan from splattering on the trail.
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That phrase was the beginning of the one of the funniest things I have seen in quite some time - and I see a LOT of funny stuff. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to photograph Jo and some of her climbing buddies doing their thing at “Kings Bluff”, a stretch of rock face that runs alongside a river in northern Tennessee. Jonathan and I took off in the morning and arrived at Kings Bluff right after lunch. We had one detour (as I fat fingered a selection on my GPS) that took us through a very affluent area just outside of Nashville. There were some MONSTER homes and barns that we could see from the roadway. I’m sure some of the homes we saw were part of Nashville’s music scene crowd - they were incredibly huge.
Anyway.
Arrived at Kings Bluff and parked. We figured we would scout where the climbing was happening so we could bring the right gear along. After finding the group we went back to the car to get our stuff. This is where I realized how out of shape I was. I was absolutely worn out from the hike there and back!?!? (Note to self - start going to the gym and work on cardio) I sat on the curb leaning on the guardrail until I got my energy back. Jonathan took off to find a location to shoot from above the climbers. I went back down the trail to shoot from below. It was nice that around the climbing areas, the trail elevation went up and down so I could actually just walk up the trail a bit and use my longer lens to shoot a climber from about the same level they were at. I wanted to try and get some other shots beside those of an ass with no head so common in a lot of the rock climbing photos I had seen. Jonathan had no luck up top so he joined me where I was. He was a trooper and volunteered to go up first to get some of those down-facing shots we were going to try for. Not being a climber or having the proper shoes, it was a bit of a struggle getting him up the rock face. He pretty much got hauled up there more than actually climbing. Once he got in position, a climber began his ascent with Jonathan shooting all the while they were coming up. Now, when the climber was just a foot or so below where Jonathan was precariously perched, a bird screeched in the distance. Right about the time Jonathan had an A.D.D. attack, he says “Oh look! A Blue heron!” As he turns to get a better look, he loses his footing - first giving Jo and a friend a good yank as his weight pulled on the rope and then spins around kicking the climber below him in the head and looking like he was trying to climb on his shoulders. All the while we’re all laughing - even the dude getting kicked as the whole situation was completely comical. When everyone regained their composure, Jonathan got lowered down and we all enjoyed another few good laughs.
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