2 minutes (laziness) = 3 weeks (lost data)

Yesterday I inadvertently placed a bluetooth handsfree set on the palm rest of my work’s laptop. On the back on the BT set are some fairly strong magnets to hold to the visor clip. When I palced it down, the drive area started to make a moderately loud chunking noise. Didn’t think much of it at the time and then the laptop went dead.

Apparently, the strong magnet bent the drive’s arm thus making it pretty much gone. The real stupid thing was just before it happened I had gotten a coffee and was going to back-up then but decided to do it at the end of the day after more data entry. Boy, should’ve done it, huh? Not only that, I found that I last backed up 20 days ago. Normally I back-up every couple of days.

I used a drive from an extra external drive to replaced the dead one. As of now, it’s been restored back to Oct 6th data-wise and I figure a week or so to re-enter the lost data.

2008 Blue Angels

This year’s Blue Angels show brought me to two new locations. One I thought about more recently and one I dreamed about for years. The recent one was pretty good and made a new friend.

Thursday – Survey flights and some practice. Got some good shots and the place wasn’t terribly crowded. They started with four planes and the two solos. After about 15-20mins of nothing, we thought they were done and we left and got some coffee. I then went back to work to get my car and saw them flying again. So I dashed back to where I was shooting (running maybe 1/4 mile while being out of shape) and got back just in time for a practice sneak-pass.

Friday – full practice. Using the more familiar Canon system now though not the 1D Mk II I usually use, I decided to use the new 50D and a 100-400. I had called earlier to have the guys charge up the battery and I topped it off while killing time. So, when I get there and shoot maybe 20 shots, weak battery! Fortunatley, my new friend Dave was there and he allow me to use one of his spare batteries.

Saturday – Showtime! I’m at my dream location of many years. Gorgeous view of Alcatraz and the bay. I decided to go back to the Nikon D300 and 70-300VR. I also brought a video camera just for fun. Well. I wasn’t quite what I envisioned. Great to just watch but visibility was a little limiting.

Sunday – Encore performance. Back to my no longer “secret” spot but required a pass to it was almost as good a being secret again. Getting there was hell between the Niner game, Italian parade and the Fleetweek crowd but we (Dave and I) managed. I brought the video camera again. Last night while reviewing the footage from the day before I had 40mins of battery life. As I was setting up, I had 5mins! Aarrgh! Not a battery issue again. I figured I just got be careful and time it right for the sneak-pass which what I brought for. Checking my script which was nearly perfect on Friday, they jumbled their routines alittle. Leaving was another matter. Originally, I thought if I can’t get to the parking lot I could park at my sister’s which was about 7 blocks away. Well, it took about 20mins to a 1/2 block and 45mins to get into moving traffic.

Summary.

• Canon is a my choice for the Blue Angels. I find the focus works better. The Nikon when it hit a dead spot would go to the closest point and stay there for a couple of seconds.
• On Saturday and Sunday I used a Nikon 70-200/2.8 because it had a focus limiter and a Nikon 2X converter. However the limiter shaves off a scant 1 meter meaning it will now focus from 2.5 meter to Inf instead of 1.5 meter. Why bother! The Canon 100-400 I’m use to using is 6.5M to Inf.
• There were no good sneak-passes and I missed Friday’s totally.
• My dream spot being eye-level, many shots of the planes have them against land and they get sorta lost vs a blue sky.

See this year’s photos here.