That lightning – great photo, bad shock.  It totally killed my computer.  I spent the better part of Saturday running here and there trying to resolve the broken beast’s problems – after 4 hours the upshot was that I needed a new computer.

Here’s what you gotta know about protecting your machine and your data.

Did you know that those surge protectiors – even the expensive ones – are really one-time use devices? If they do stop the bolt from the blue, they won’t stop it a second time around.  After the fact, the manufacturer kindly let me know.

Did you know that even though you back up your data (I have mine on 2 redundant drives and an online back up service – Carbonite), created by Windows XP, if you need a new computer you’re forced to use Vista – you can’t buy XP anymore.  But Vista won’t play nice with XP drives!!!! It’s taken me the rest of the weekend to open about 6 client folders, there are hundred of images in each and each time I tried to open one I got “you don’t have permission to access this file…” “You aren’t the owner of this file…””You need to elevate this action…”  Yikes – evey file I have is now so locked down I can’t even move it to a USB stick! REALLY!!!!

I am appalled that they can actually sell this shite.  Bill Gates you are an evil evil man!

I won’t even talk about the joy I had trying to reinstall my software…

Well, sorry for the rant. But take heed if you think you can painlessly upgrade to a new computer (for whatever reason) because your old XP HD is still working fine so you can just plop it into the new case, or add it as a USB drive. hahahahaha.  Not gonna happen.

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My friends Tammy and Boyd own a bar and blues club.  I was visiting them there several weeks ago about photos and their website, when Tammy introduced me to another of their friends, Don.  Don looked and me strangely (which is not an uncommon occurrence for me!) , and then said …“Hi Karsh!”

OMG, turns out we knew each other –  “Karsh” was what he used to call me because of my penchant for snapping photos all the time.  But I hadn’t been called by that nickname in a very long time. Naturally he asked about my photography and if I was still into taking pictures.  We had a great chat and then to make the world even smaller, we found out that we are both attending the same spring party in a few weeks!!! He made me promised I would dig out some of the old pics from the “Karsh” days and bring them to the party.

I don’t want to bore you with the 1980’s equivalent of a Facebook page, but I did manage to dig up some of the old party pics.  I’ll post them soon.  I think this could be the start of something!!!! (hehehe).

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…don’t seem to care about the aesthetics of winter or the countryside in which they play.    So I generally view these guys as a big pain…  BUT following the concept of "going with the flow", and "if life gives you lemons, make lemonade"  I came to the realization the the madmen on their snowmachines might actually prove useful to me.

You see, the tracks they make in the snow turn really hard when it’s this cold, and it’s just like walking on the sidewalk, making my ventures intgo the wild with camera in hand a whole lot easier.  So despite the cold this weekend I am going to be trekking along the gift of a fine track and see where it takes me.  I know there are some great photo opps in there somewhere.
 
Thanks guys!!!! (you may turn outto be my new best friends)

Have a great weekend – zoom zoom zoom (70-200mm zoom)

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