Da Goddess

First images from the festival…this is Buddy Guy.

Until July 14, you can donate to Soldiers’ Angels and help Valour-IT raise money for laptops for wounded troops. This is an extremely important cause. Voice activated laptops allow the wounded to stay in contact with family and friends as they undergo lengthy procedures and recuperation that keeps them, oftentimes, far from home. This technology gives them a little peace of mind, which promotes healing.

I’m not on any team this year other than that of the wounded warriors. So, please, donate — either to one of the branch teams or to SA Valour-IT in general. It’ll make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

My dear friend, the Doctor of Chaplin, was on fb offering up Google+ to his friends and I, of course, had to be the only person to stop by and say something negative. Why do I do this?

WHY?

I’ll tell you why.

I’ve long been a late adopter of new social networking toys. I only started playing with Twitter as a means of keeping up with two people. I began texting just last year as a means of communicating during a festival when phone conversation was impossible. Facebook was a means to an end when my dear friend moved far away and gave up blogging. I’m all over Facebook now. I text in my sleep. Twitter…eh, still working on that one.

And then there’s LinkedIn. Been there for a while, but don’t much care for groups on there (I belong to one and it’s a non-starter in my eyes). Foursquare or whatever it is? Nope. GetGlue? Not on your life. All the other stuff I don’t know about? I’m happy not knowing about it.

In fact, I think the more social networks one employs in order to stay “in touch” or “in the know”, the less in touch or in the know one is. It’s simply too much. Too scattered. It’s taking 24hrs a day and spreading them into the thinnest of coatings so that there’s very little “there” there. Kind of why blogging is no longer what it once was — too many people consider myspace and facebook and all these other things “blogging” when, in fact, they aren’t. Like how news is no longer about new information, but rather a reiteration of everything you’ve heard for the past two days in angrier tones and spun to be partisan in one way or another.

The kind Doctor of Chaplin then mentioned something about a consolidator, so that everything is more easily managed. Ahem. Weren’t these networks already supposed to be easily managed? The conversation went a little something like this (okay, so it went EXACTLY like this):

Me: I’ve turned down every invite. Too much networking for my liking. I can barely keep up with the stuff I got
The Doc: I hear you, loud and clear. I’m sure there’ll be some sort of consolidator one of these days
Me: You’d think, but then what’s the point of having everything? it’s like buying a bunch of really cool toys, not being able to play with them all at once, and then using a trash compactor to squish them into a single object. that’s even less enjoyable! signed, parade rainer/pooper unto parties

So, while I’ve previously said never about certain things and then joined in for one reason or another, this is one time I’m pretty confident that you’ll not see me playing along with Google+

Artificial connections to people don’t bring us closer together, don’t make us more informed, more knowledgeable. It just clutters our lives and takes us away from the things that are important. We need far less Internet social networking and far more face-to-face socializing. It’s amazing how much more satisfying that is, too.

Just a few hours ago I met the Motown legend Mary Wilson. Yep, that’s right. My friends got photos with her, but I didn’t. Currently in a “no photos, please” phase after seeing all the images from Portland.

How blessed am I to have such wonderful friends that they put me in places where I meet people I’ve long admired? I really have been lucky in the friend department. Started long ago with my blog buddies and has snowballed from there.

Excuse me while I have a moment.

Pam, Patti, Jan, Mike…I think I see jewelry in your future! Necklaces made from your pet’s

I actually really like the fingerprint on the heart necklace at the botton best. I’d love one of those with both kids’ fingerprints, one on each side.

I’m home. Indeed, I am.

But I’m about to run out the door.

I’ll be back later with stories. No worries.

Unless I fall asleep. Which could totally happen because I’m exhausted. In a good way.

I’ll be back.

I was a good girl and backed up my files before my trip and I finally maxed out my little external hard drive. I still had about 2gb left to go and decided we’d be okay since I knew my new 2TB external had it, plus the images were backed up on a DVD. I still feel like I want to cram this one last folder onto that hard drive though.

I don’t know why.

Lately I’ve been on a redundancy kick when I’m running backups. I mean, I always do that, but it’s getting a bit out of control. I have a minimum of four archives of everything. Is that weird or what? Sometimes I find I have five or six and, really, truly, I don’t need that many copies. Especially when most of them are stored in the same location.

I know other photographers — the guys who shoot multi-million dollar campaigns — have at least twenty copies of everything they produce. They have whole racks of storage, including off-site fireproof, bombproof safes. I’m not at that level, obviously, but even so, I can see why they’d go to such extreme lengths. One guy? As he’s shooting, he’s creating two backups. Then, after the shoot, the originals are with him, one backup goes with an assitant, and the other backup goes with another assistant. And they don’t stay in the same hotel just in case something happens at one of hotels. As soon as they get back to their respective places of lodging, they each create another backup and ship that to their main office. Once the backups arrive (by different shipping companies no less), more backups are made. When the images go into editing? More backups of each edit. Yep. A single shoot can generate a gazillion TB of files. Like I said, they have massive racks in various locations to store everything they do.

In a way, I’m glad I’m not a successful, big name commercial photographer with million dollar accounts. The archiving alone would drive even this OCD gal batty.

What do you do with your files?

Yes, I know. It’s stupid to write up a bunch of posts to publish while I’m gone. I mean, I could just leave the place unattended and it’d be like when I didn’t have Internet. But see, I DO have a connection, so I’m posting. Because you deserve to be as bored as you were before you got here.

What shall we talk about today? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I know! I’ll post a couple photos and we won’t have to talk at all! Genius, I tell ya. Pure genius.

Did you see these? Some of my friends were playing over a club one night and, of course, I took my camera. I was glad I did, too. Great music. And I think I got a few good shots. These are three of my faves.

Love that shot! But more importantly, I love what the editing program did. I usually don’t let the program decide what’s best for my images. I fuss and fine tune, making all the adjustments myself. Except this time, I hit “suggest settings” and loved what happened. It looks a little grainy and retro and I like that. It fits the vibe of the guitarist. As well, it made him look kinda buff, which is funny because he’s tall and really thin. He loved this image, too, by the way. Yay! Everyone was happy!

This one, well, they were jammin’ to the Stones’ “Can’t Always Get What You Want” and having a woman on stage for a change meant that there was a cool energy going on. She was fantastic! I don’t know why she doesn’t have her own damn band. Really. She’s that good.

Here we have the owner of the club, with Tomi in the backround. I kinda dig it. Hard.

And this concludes today’s stroll down memory lane and our show and tell portion of our schedule. I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves. Please tip the waitress and bartenders and tell your friends to come visit.

Writing this before I left for Portland. Couldn’t sleep, so here’s where I ended up. Big surprise, eh?

So, I was finishing up with some emails and a few other tasks in the wee hours, when I should have been sleeping. (I’ve logged about 3 hours in the last 36. I always get this way before a trip, and also when I’m stressed, pissed off, etc.) I’m sitting on the sofa minding my own business when I feel a tickle on my toes. I looked down to see a big ass damn cockroach and I shook my foot as hard as I could to get the fucking thing away from me.

Here’s the thing no one tells you about Vegas: it’s cockroach heaven! They thrive in the desert. They grow the size of Volkswagens. They chuckle openly as you chase after them with bug spray or a baseball bat. Everyone here has a fumigator that comes by regularly. I think we’re overdue for a heavy ass spray because this is not the first roach I’ve seen in the house. Could be the newspapers that are brought in without being shaken first, but I don’t care. I don’t like roaches and I don’t want to see one, feel one, or even think about one. Ever.

The ones that have made it into the house are in various states of dying, so I guess that’s good news. The thing is, I’d really rather have them die outside and never make it inside in the first place. That’s not too much to ask, right?

The worst part of this whole thing? Because I don’t have a regular bed and sleep on an air mattress (6 inch thick air mattress to boot), this puts me basically on the floor. Right where there might be something horrible and creepy and crawly. Any wonder my sleep cycles suck so much?

Ewwwww! *shudder*

Anyhow, by the time this gets published, I’ll be happily ensconced in Portland, sleeping in a real bed, without bugs, and without 24/7 vigilance against them. Sometimes the saying should be, “there’s no place like home…thank God!”

(And I could be saying that for a few reasons these days. Ugh.)