revjim.net

March 17th, 2008:

not a good day

I took today off as well knowing I would want to spend some time with Jess and Celeste to make up for the weekend as well as getting my bags unpacked, all my equipment cleaned, and my images at least mostly processed.  It’s not starting off well.

First, I realized that my mobile blogging method wasn’t working and, what’s worse, that it was leaving HUGE posts filled with gibberish in my journal. I still haven’t figured out why it broke or what it’s trying to do. I think I’m giving up.

I’m also fighting with metadata between the 3 different applications involved with managing my large photograph collection. Lightroom isn’t always updating the XMP on disk, my other applications are expecting that it will, there’s constant conflict between the two, and everything is just not fun.

On top of that, I think my data/backup drive enclosures are screwy. I’m regularly having to unmount them, power cycle the enclosures, and then remount the drives to get them to be responsive. I’ve also seen a few bits of corrupted data here and there. Not good.

Once these problems start to weigh on me, all the problems I’ve already pushed aside start to show their face in my mind again.

I need to get to Wolf and get my long lens repaired. Without it, I don’t have one.

Somehow, another of my commonly used lenses managed to break yesterday as well. The zoom ring no longer functions. Thankfully, I have two prime lenses and a wide angle zoom that I can use in place of this lens, though it isn’t as convenient. I need to contact Sigma/Competitive Camera and see if it’s still under warranty from Sigma and, if so, see if this damage is covered. I can’t think of anything I could have done to it to cause this. It must just be bad luck.

While I really like the backpack I bought for this past weekend, it’s too large and too rigid for my uses as a daypack/travel pack. I end up keeping 80% of my gear attached to the straps and belt of the backpack and the actual pack itself remains mostly empty. Lugging around a huge backpack that’s mostly empty is just silly. It’d be great for a warm weather overnighter, so it might be worth holding on to. I’m just not sure. I might have to go back to REI and see if I can find something else I’d prefer.

Jess and I were supposed to take Celeste for a nice walk by the lake early this morning, but Jess isn’t awake yet and I don’t have the heart to wake her myself. Even if she was awake, I don’t know if I could pull myself from this data nightmare knowing it was left in this very vulnerable state.

I hate it when all these little things just stack up until I feel like I’m going to collapse.

Friday Recap

(due to a glitch in my mobile blogging software you’re just seeing this now. It was originally posted on 2008-03-15 at 5:48am)

Left decatur around 8am. Arrived at hotel around 2PM. Lots of stops along the way.

After getting situated in the hotel, we went to the canyon. Half of the group hiked down into it and photographed a broken building as well as the views from the cliffs.

Then we hit Cadillac ranch which was crazy, and hilarious, and yet very cool. I might go back there tonight and try to light it up with strobes.

Then we had dinner with some Amarillo photographers. There were 19 of us in total. Met a really nice guy named mark. Got back to the hotel around 10:45 and crashed.

We’re meeting mark this morning at 8am in the canyon. He’s going to help us draw out some wild turkeys and some deer to photograph. Then around 10am we’re going to hit a trail Mark told us about instead of doing the guided tour like planned. Then we’re going to get a quick lunch then hit the lighthouse trail. Then we’ll do some driving around, then dinner, then maybe Cadillac ranch again.

All in all, a good day for yesterday and an awesome day planned for today.

It’s Sunday

(due to a glitch in my mobile blogging software, you’re just now seeing this. It was originally posted on 2008-03-16 at 8:15am)

Aside from the aforementioned broken lens, yesterday was awesome.

I photographed wild turkeys and even managed to get a tom to eat right out of my hand.

I saw lots of beautiful birds and even got to photograph them thanks to a kind soul from the amarillo photography society for lending me a nice long lens. I don’t think Jess is going to like him too much since he pretty much sold me on getting some even longer glass. We’ll see what the photos look like.

We made the 6 mile trek in to the lighthouse rock and back. It was beautiful we even managed to catch the moonrise on our way out which made for some great photos. I’m a bit sun-fried this morning since I didn’t wear any sunscreen, but it’s nothing too bad.

Most of the day, including the walk to the lighthouse rock, was spent a couple of amarillo area photographers including a 75ish year old man who could easily run circles around me both in hiking and in landscape photography. He even brought a fully restored corvair for us all to marvel at. What a great guy. I hope to keep in touch with him via email.

Here in a bit we’ll be heading out for Dallas with a planned stop at caprock canyon state park. I hear they have some beautiful trails there and I’m really looking forward to it.

Email, text messages and phone should all now work again, thanks to being out of the canyon. More later…

Early Morning C-SPAN

(due to a glitch in my mobile blogging method, you’re just seeing this now. It was originally posted on 2008-03-15 at 6:15am)

I’ve never watched C-SPAN this early in the morning but… Is this program for real? There’s a guy reading news articles directly out of various newspapers. The camera shows his hands holding the article he’s reading. The interesting passages are highlighted and he moves his pen across the page pointing at the words he’s reading.

Really? That’s a program? I’m in the wrong business.