Also known as when good technology goes dreadfully wrong.
Also known as, the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day [week].
The D100 packed it in with ‘mirror issues at a recent work ‘Big Thing”. It’s a DSLR so it has a mirror that flips up out of the way when you depress the shutter. This is a good thing. It is a bad thing when the mirror doesn’t go back down when the shutter closes and so it went of to camera hospital to be repaired.
And it came back repaired but with a whole new problem; as in now the on board flash doesn’t work which isn’t a huge deal, actually I’m not a big fan of flash photography. (This is partly because I don’t know how to do it well and because I think it makes people look pasty and as though they just got a big fright.) Anyway, NOT having the on board flash working can still be a bit of a pain even for a non fan, so I had to send it back for more repairs which is an even bigger pain really. So I’m still shooting my 365 pictures with the baby Canon and I don’t like it, no I don’t.
Happily, even though I was sans Nikon when my last paid picture taking gigs came round my good friend Cove lent me her Canon DSLR (and (gasp) I actually liked that one. I know, I’m hopelessly brand disloyal, let’s face it I’ve tricked out my Mac so it behaves like a PC, do I really care about any kind of Canon/Nikon loyalty?? No, I have Nikon because my first camera was one and I don’t want to have to buy new lenses to suit a new body…)
So, there I am with a wad of pictures that need tweaking and editing and burning to discs for the women’s dept so what do I do? I burn them onto my back up hard disc, an external one that I carry everywhere. My safety net, my portable life and I leave them there because I have a v busy week prepping for another ‘Big Thing’ at work and I plan to manage those photos and send out my month’s invoices over the weekend.
But that wonder drive, that hard disk I always have with me… that portable life, is the one I dropped off the arm of the sofa onto the floor.
That drive was the one that was still going at the time.
The one that wasn’t going when I picked it up.
Fuck Fuck Fuckety Fuck. (Sorry, it really was a bad day… some days there are just no other suitable words.)
It’s days like those in which your life flashes before your very eyes and force you to sift through your mind to try and recall exactly what it was you lost.
And then you start to breathe again, because you have all your photos on disc as well as hard disc because you are a pragmatist and a practical girl and because most clients commission disc copies. So you make 4 for them and one for you, just to be safe… So the hard drive really was a back stop and an easy access archive.
And then you remember those blog illustrations you spent ages working on and you are crushed because when you finally found them on that drive you were relieved, knowing that they did still exist somewhere but as you’d searched everywhere for them another time and you knew that the HD was the ONLY place they were, but they weren’t business pix, they really were just for fun so you figure, you might just about get over it eventually.
But even so, you spend hours surfing Google to see if you can find the originals.
But they are.
[Sob]
Gone.
Then you remember the last lot of pix you transferred to the drive were a commission, worth a bit of cash and you remembered that you…
Don’t.
Have.
Them.
Anywhere.
Else.
And you know the client is going to
Be.
Very.
Upset.
And you feel absolutely certain that you wiped them off the SD card before you returned the camera to its owner but you email her just to be sure and ask her to check to see if there are photos still on the card.
And then you hear she’s lent her camera to someone else to shoot this latest Big Thing.
And so you panic.
And then you get her email saying that, no, you didn’t wipe the card before returning it and she didn’t give it to the latest photographer and so the photos are safe. A miracle of epic proportions considering how much of a pedant you usually are about leaving things in better shape than they were when you borrowed them…
And you thank your lucky stars and offer up a bit of a praise because you know that deep down…
Jesus loves you just enough to save your sorry arse.
(And no, I still haven’t finished Harry. I’m up to the bit where Najini nearly kills…)
Day 52 – My Turn
I’ll be back online when I’m done.
Given my Harry reading history that won’t be long…
Boy Action
Ha! That got your attention!!!
Meh… There is none. Sorry, I’m as ticked off about it as you are, probably more so. This is particularly depressing because I cuddled Henry and Brad’s baby today. Sigh. A v cute one who went to sleep quite comfortably. [Does Want.]
Sigh.
Anyway, in other news, I have tickets to Crowded House in November, I haven’t seen them before, actually even though my dad used to play golf with the Finn Bros dad and even though I served Tim Finn when I worked at the bank (yes I KNOW he’s not in Crowded House – but couldn’t resist the name dropping opportunity) it was my sis who got the signed copy of their first album . I’m delighted they’re back performing and am the proud owner of their latest work and I flog it to death at work at the moment… Bah Humbug iTunes making me spend all that money.
Meh, it’s worth it.
Anyway, Shoe and I are going to the concert, and as I’m a bit nuts I bought 4 tickets figuring a group is better than a couple and as I’m not part of a couple figured that 4 is even better than being alone. Anyway Shoe is the world’s biggest CH fan and she was a natural choice to go with. So what to do with the other 2?
What to do? Heh… invite boys; because, let’s face it, it does get boring always doing stuff with the girls. So we’ve invited Burper and Carlo, sterling Kiwi blokes who won’t spend the night trying to make me believe the CH are actually an AUSTRALIAN band… EVERYONE knows they’re a Kiwi band… just because both Paul Hester and Nick Seymour were/are Aussies EVERYONE knows that as Neil Finn is the front man and the principal songwriter he has a bigger vote… He’s a Kiwi thus CH is a Kiwi band, so there.
Anyway, It’s Dee and Shoe and the boys (who haven’t yet accepted the invite… likely because of the $95.00 price tag but who in faith will understand what an utterly irresistible opportunity it is and will of course, say yes) going to Crowded House on Nov 5th.
Hurrah.
Day 48 – Line Up
Well, after 2 weeks of madness I’m back home alone (Chino excepted, of course). The poor washing machine has been making up for its two weeks off by working overtime today. I’ve done 3 loads and still haven’t finished… Amazing how things get away from you when you aren’t paying attention…
It’s been quite a week with Helen’s passing on Monday with much vital hanging with the family (she was my little squire’s precious Nan) and her memorial service on Friday which was as fraught with tears and laughter as one would have expected for such a character. The church was near full which was a testimony to her life and popularity. I’m still a bit shell shocked, as are we all, that she’s gone.
This weekend should see me head down over my laptop finishing a couple of web projects I’ve got on the go at the moment. I’ll get there… just attending to things like neglected blogs etc…
I got my D100 back from the fixeruppers this week [insert big sigh of relief] and have been loving having its familiar weight in my hands… until I tried using the flash and found it to be dead… [insert big sigh of frustration] so no doubt in the fiddling around with it to fix it’s mirror issue they’ve buggered up its flashability… gah… of course, I can’t take it back until I’ve got the Canon back from the office… else there’ll be no decent 365 pictures… see what a slave to it I’ve become!!!!
Anyway, this is a pathetic excuse for a post just to procrastinate from what I’m meant to be doing. I’ll do my best to have something more interesting to tell you next time.
But for your own sake, please don’t hold your breath.