Something of an Update

It was pointed out recently that it’s been awhile since I’ve posted much outside of my photos. There’s a plethora of reasons for that, but by and large boring.

When I’ve had spare time lately, my life has been either taking pictures or editing them. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a hobby suck me in so completely. And as I did report on here,I did win a prize for best use of color in my first and only competition to date. I’ve also had several friends ask me if I sell prints and some suggest that I should. I’m completely unprepared for that possibility at this point in time. I gave a print on one photo to my manager and his new wife, and I gave prints to another friend for her birthday. A couple of people, I set up so that they could pay for their own prints (no profit for me) via MPix. Maybe I need to start giving the whole prints thing a thought…

In between work and photos, I’ve been quietly planning out my next trip to Scotland at year’s end. I’m much looking forward to it even though part of it is a retread. Breaking my two year stint of being in hostels on New Year’s Eve, I’ll spend this one in a hotel in the Grassmarket on the Royal Mile. It’s by all reprots a kind of funky hotel with a pub on the main floor and all, but on the Royal Mile, just one steep climb from the largest New Year’s Eve party. I’ve also got my street pass reserved, so I get to take part in everything except the Torchlight Procession. For that part, I’ll be stuck in a plane on my way there.

Following the posh (for me) hotel, I’ll be back to more or less basics. I just didn’t feel up to totally forging my own trail this time, and I want to see the Scottish Highlands, so I’m booked for a six day Haggis Tour. A mini-coach with other backpackers and touring the highlands and the Scottish islands for six days. Nights in hostels. The whole yarn, just without trying to navigate the rails and buses thing.

I still have three nights and two days un-planned when I get back to Edinburgh before my flight back. Maybe St. Andrew’s this time. I’ve also seen there are day trips down to Hadrian’s Wall… hmmm… time to mull on it.

Somewhat on the lines of trip planning, I’ve been figuring out what to do with the hoardes of photos I take. For like four years now, I’ve owned a 20gig Archos, a portable hard drive that plays music and was a repository for my photos. It’s getting a little shakey, and a good day of photos for me… well, it’s a scary volume, so I started fearing that my fidgety Archos might not tide me through the trip. So, I bought a new toy, a 100 gig Vosonic. I can plug in my compact flash cards and offload photos on the fly. Like my Archos, it plays MP3′. It also plays videos, and has a great battery life. Oh, and it uses the same 2.5″ hard drive as a notebook PC, so I can upgrade it to a larger one if I choose to later! The oh wow factor with coworkers has been high. So far even though it’s mainly been an mp3 player, I’m quite happy with the purchase and look forward to having it on my trip.

I also got a new travel bag for my camera. I’m still using the more conspicuous one for day to day, but that may change after I make serious use of the new one. It doesn’t scream “camera” quite so much and it’s just generally lower profile.

And on other fronts… hmmm… I’m not jinxing myself right now, but I may have some exciting (to me) news later. Or not, and then you’ll just have to wonder what it might have been. 😉