Praha!

It is Sunday morning... and for whatever reason.. I have writers block... I will post something later, but for now.... We are all here safely, and having a great time.
Here are a few photos from yesterday.

Tina, Rob and Allen on the train to Kutna Hora

International Shows

On Thursday I am headed for Prague, so I started pulling out supplies that I will need for working in Europe.
I took a trip to Radio shack to pick up a few European Power adapters. If you are like me, going into Radio Shack is just plain annoying. Having worked there when I got out of high school, I do a a bit more tolerance than most AV guys, however, if I step my foot in the door, I just want to look around and not be bothered by any sales people.
Of all the garbage that Radio Shack sells.. I wouldn't go anywhere else for travel adapters. Scotty hooked me up with this little bit of info. The ones they sell are THE BOMB! Here is a shot of one, and they are about 10 bucks. The reason that they are so good, is that they fit snugly in the outlets over there. That doesn't seem like a big deal, but trust me, the little ones are a pain, and don't stay connected.



I will end up taking about 4 of those with me. I will probably need about 2 of them, however, it is always a good thing to have an extra or two to save someone's day that forgot to bring one.

I also found my silk passport neck case. Although I kinda feel like a geek wearing it under my shirt, it is much better than having your passport jammed in your jeans pocket when wandering around the city.
Nyquil and Dayquil tablets are a must... being sick on the road is really hard. You go into an apothecary and instantly you realize that you are pretty much completely lost. Everything is in a different language, and nothing looks familiar.
When I was in Munich and had the flu, I went into an apothecary, and looked for cough drops. I couldn't find anything that looked like cough drops, and I went to the attendant, and asked for cough drops, and she looked at me like I was speaking.. well.. English! I wanted to cry, I was so beat up from being sick... I just needed cough drops. At this point, I started hacking up a lung, and almost instantly, this German woman realized what "Cough Drop" meant, and led me to a rack where I bought a few bags of mediocre drops.

Carmex, Airborne, and a small kit of pills ranging from Advil, and Aspirin, to Muscinex and Tums. Be prepared is the name of this game.

I will also bring my unblocked international cell phone, and probably buy a local sim card once I get to Prague. They usually cost about 20 dollars and however much you want to spend for minutes. Well worth the investment to save a boat load of money on your US Cell Phone Bill.
Mag Safe airline adapter cable for the laptop so that I can watch movies on the airplane. I also have recently purchased a spare battery for the Macbook Pro. Oh, and a backup iPhone.

About 3 tons of Camera gear also come with me... At least it feels like that much weight when you are carrying it all around the city. The compliment of photo gear is:
1. Canon 40D Digital SLR with Battery Grip.
2. Three Batteries
3. Four Compact Flash Cards in a Card Wallet
4. Expo Disc White Balance Filter
5. Polarizing Filter
6. Gradient Neutral Density Filter
7. Canon 50mm 1.8 Lens
8. Sigma 10mm Fisheye 2.8 Lens
9. Canon 24mm-105mm f/4L IS USM Wide Angle Lens
10. Sigma 70mm - 200mm f/2.8 Lens
11. Sigma 1.2x Teleconverter
12. Gitzo 6X Traveler Carbon Fiber Tripod
13. Canon Battery Charger

I have tried all sorts of Camera bags and backpacks to haul this gear around as I capture photos in these cities, and so far the best option is a Tamarac Velocity 9 Sling bag. Backpacks distribute the weight well, however you have to take the pack off every time you want to change lenses and it slows you down quite a bit. The sling bag fixes that, however all that weight is being carried on one strap and after 6 hours or so, you just wish you had a sherpa. In Thailand, I purchased a knock off North Face fanny pack. I can carry the 70-200 lens in there and a few other things and just have the camera to haul around, and that seems to be a much better solution for my back, however, it is limiting as to what you can bring with you as you walk around.

For this trip, I am going to try something different. No bags of gear this time! I purchased the Gitzo Fleece Jacket complete with about 14 pockets designed by photographers, for photographers.


So, we will see how this works.

Thats about all I can think of for this trip.
The rest of what I bring with me is listed on this blog entry:
http://slarose.blogspot.com/2007/12/gig-bag-holy-grail-of-personal-bags.html

local photo shooting

Allen and I grabbed our cameras and went off around Folsom and El Dorado hills trying to capture some photos of the local areas.
Here are a few photos of what we captured yesterday.








We were not supposed to be up here... but no one was looking.. so we unchained the gate and went Jeep'n!



This is Allen's new ride... it comes with free air conditioning











These are two of the three bridges that cross the American river in Folsom

Another day in Miami

The IT contractor came back last night after we had more internet issues, and still claimed that there was nothing wrong with his system. We showed him the problem we were having with our clients VPN, and he claimed that the clients server wasn't responding. I asked him to reboot his router, and magically, as soon as it restarted... the problem was gone.
So, everything smoothed out last night and after a quick drink with the boys I went to bed around 11:00 pm.

Knowing that it was going to be an early day today, I set my 1st alarm for 5:10 am and the hotel clock for 5:15 am. Then I called the front desk and it rang for about 15 rings. I hung up and called back and about 10 more rings someone finally answered. I asked for a wake up call, and then went to sleep. At 5:10 my alarm went off. No wake up call from the hotel.... Nice!
I got up and turned the shower on...No hot water! I let it run for about 15 minutes and still got nothing. Cold showers in Miami at 5:30 in the morning are really no fun.

This morning went rather smoothly after the cold shower. A lot smoother than we were expecting.
The Internet connection seems solid for now, we uploaded the presentations into a live meeting event, and the show is rolling so far without a hitch.

Yesterday in the middle of the meeting that we were doing, the sound of jack hammering filled the room. Loud enough to almost startle the presenter.
When Evan went out side and around to see what was going on, he found a worker with a hammer drill, drilling right into the side of the room we were meeting in. Nice....

So far today, all has been quiet. I hope it lasts.

Does anything work in Miami?

So, beyond all the jackhammering that we are hearing through the walls during the meeting, the Internet connection that the hotel is providing is very sketchy. This morning, it seemed like we had Internet access, but our client's computer could not connect to the VPN. I checked the settings, and rebooted her machine about 20 times. We called the help desk and they were pretty much no help. They just kept telling us to reboot, restart and retry everything I had already done. Then we lost total connectivity in the training room. All 10 machines lost their connection to the Net.
The client took her computer up to her sleeping room, and paid the 10 dollars and was able to connect up there, so it was obvious that the network serving the sleeping rooms was a different connection than the meeting space.

We called the hotel and they sent someone from Engineering over to help. Not a good sign. If there was a problem with my toilet, I would have been happy to see the guy with the light blue shirt and the workman pants on... keys hanging off the belt loop, but this was going to require someone a little more specialized. So, after he left telling me that he didn't know what the problem was, and that he wasn't sure if he did anything, We had some level of connectivity back up.
I talked to the hotel staff and told them that they needed to get the network contractor here onsite now... not just now.. but NOW!!!!

They came down with a cellphone and I talked to him for a minute and explained the problems we were having, and he told me he was in Fort Lauderdale (just great...) and that he would be here at 1:30 pm. The meeting was starting at 1:00 pm and at about 12:57 pm, we lost the connection again.

We started the meeting without the internet, and finally the contractor arrived. He said he was going to do some testing on the router, and about 20 minutes later, we were back up.
When I finally talked to him, he said that the router had been up for over 30 days, and that there was nothing wrong!
I guess he doesn't consider that the bandwidth we are paying for, not working... is something wrong.

Lies lies lies... Nothing was wrong, and he did nothing.. but it magically starting working again once he arrived...
I am not saying I am a computer guru.. but I wasn't born yesterday.

I asked if he was going to re-boot the router tonight, and he said he was planning on it.
Then I told him that he was going to have to be onsite tomorrow during our computer training, which he said he would be. So, we will see if he actually shows.

Miami Florida

I had a 7:29 am flight out of Sacramento and a connection in Washington DC to get down here to Miami. A pleasant day of flying. I got upgraded to first class which allowed me to use a couple of upgrades that were due to expire, so that was a good thing.

I landed on time at 8:30 pm and took a cab to the hotel, and ran into Evan and Eric, so we had dinner at the bar and I called it a night. I got to bed around 11:30 pm and slept till almost 9:00 am today.

We had to meet one of the Trip Directors in the office at 10:00 am and set up a printer for her. After that we found that the rooms were available for us to setup. This seems like it would be a good thing, however the hotel told us that the rooms wouldn't be available till after 4:00 pm and we had everything scheduled to arrive at 4:00 pm or after. Things such as labor, power, computers... you know.. everything that we needed to do the job.

So, Evan made some calls, and moved things up... we loaded in about 2:30 or so. The load in was from one parking garage, across another, into a tiny service elevator, and then down a service corridor. With the humidity in Miami at almost 100 percent, we were covered in sweat.
But all is going well, and we will be done early today, so that is a good thing!

Right now I am configuring 10 of the 20 laptops that we have for a meeting tomorrow.
Thats about it.

Yosemite

I am headed to Miami on Saturday for a show and thought I would use the time off this week for a day trip down to Yosemite national park. With the doors off, and the half bikini top on the Jeep I took off around 8:45 am and only got about 3 miles away before I realized not only was I cold, but with no doors on the jeep, it was going to be a bit of a rough day with the wind buffeting me all day. So, I put the doors back on and with a quick bite at McDonalds, I was off again. The road to Yosemite from Folsom is very slow. It is really windy and it starts out very rough. All along the trip there are little "Old West" Gold mining towns with populations of anywhere from 150 people to 900. Very interesting and beautiful ride.
I stopped at Jamestown Harley Davidson to see if anything struck my fancy, and then headed the last 70 miles to the park.
Right after James town there is a beautiful body of water that for the life of me I can't remember what it is called.
But I took a couple of shots there.







It is 70 miles from Jamestown to the park, but it is also another 24 miles from the entrance of the park to the valley floor. So, it was a long trip to get into see the "Good Stuff." After finally making it, you shoot through a tunnel carved into the side of the rock and when you pop out, this is the view you get.





From this point, it is still about 13 miles down to the valley floor where you can sit at the base of El Capitan and Halfdome and just stare for hours at the massive rock. Sitting in front of these rock faces is a very calming experience. It almost feels like life is in slow motion. You don't think about work, home, bills, the stress just floats out of your body and all of a sudden, you realize things like,man that sun is hot, and wow.. am I hungry! So, here are a few images that hopefully give you a 1% idea of what it is like at this amazing place.


Yosemite Valley

Along the road on the valley floor is a gorgeous creek bed




Half Dome is tremendous!


The Mighty EL CAPITAN!


I took about 300 photos in about 4 hours, so, I have to process a lot before I can post them.
On the way home it was pretty incredible. With all the mountains that you have to go over, you could watch the sun set in front of you with a beautiful orange and purple color, and then by the time you got over the next hill, you got to see it set again! So, yesterday, the sun set three times here in California. Here is a shot from the last one... it is not very good, but I just pulled the jeep to the side of the road and shot it out of my hand with no tripod and it gives just a peek into what I saw at the end of the trip.