So where are the pictures?

After a nice Friday and Saturday out of town last weekend, which I posted about in my last entry, I was absolutely planning on writing a follow-up blog entry and sharing some photos from a snow-covered mountaintop and the view that comes with it. However the powers of the Universe had something else in mind for me.

I get back late Saturday night and didn't know what would await me the next day. Sunday morning I hear from my boss who says my computer at work was acting more crazy than usual. This old Windows 2000 system has been dying a slow death for months now and I knew it was only a matter of time before it bit the dust. Well, Friday, apparently, was that day. After losing 95% of my Outlook Express emails in a crash a few weeks ago I had managed to recover some of my more important files and load them into Thunderbird, thinking that the Mozilla e-mail client would keep me safe from corrupt MS crap. Turns out another crash wiped out those emails as well. Monday morning I get to work trying to see if I can revive the beast, but it was treating me like a snooze button and shutting down every few minutes. It was time for an upgrade.

I order a new system and have it overnighted, which then begins the daunting task of retrieving and backing up files from a system that gives me no more than about 10 minutes at a time, and freezes constantly. It took all day Monday and a good portion of Tuesday to finally get all of my most important files onto an external hard drive. The best part though, was all the crazy error messages I've never seen before; including my favorite which popped up when I was attempting to reboot the shitbox computer, that said "You do not have permission to restart or shut down this system"

Once the new system came in I realized that it didn't like the way the network runs and most of my equipment that is hooked up to it won't work. Here it is, Thursday night, and I'm still only 75% running. It's been one full week since I completed any real work, and the customers are starting to get antsy. I managed to get something done today, but tomorrow is going to be a nightmare and I'm actually considering going back to work late tonight to try and catch up a bit more. By the way, if anyone out there knows anything about networking an Intel based Mac (Mac Mini) with (another) Winblows 2000 Professional system, please...PLEASE drop me a line either in the comments or right to my email (you can find it on my homepage) Before you start suggesting I upgrade the 2000 box, just know that it's not an option. I am running very specific software to run a very specific machine from it, and upgrading is not an option.

On top of some new nature shots I also got the chance to check out HAIL! - The Heavy Metal super-group-cover-band featuring David Ellefson, Tim "Ripper" Owens, Andreas Kisser, and Mike Portnoy - in New York City on Tuesday night. I will have photos from that up soon as well. Ya know, once the dust settles and all my machines are working nicely together again.

Anyway, I just thought I'd let you all know why there hasn't been an update like I promised.

More soon, I promise
-Rob

Out in the Mountains

Yesterday was the birthday of the future Mrs. DIGImmortal, so we decided to take a small trip. We're nature people, so the mountains in the Winter was a no-brainer. Unfortunately we're not skiiers, which kind of singles you out in a ski resort kinda town, especially when the only thing to do at night is go out and get plastered. Actually, it seems to me that there are 2 things that people do at night in a ski town: First, is go to bed early so they don't feel the aches and pains they acquired all day long sliding down a mountainside while standing on giant popsickle sticks, Second is to go out and drink the pain away. Either way, not much nightlife if you aren't a big drinker or into late night snowboarding.

Brought out the camera, as I always do when I get the chance to go someplace new. Haven't had too many photo ops yet though. Yesterday we drove into town, went snowmobiling, got dinner and had a small birthday celebration alone. Spent the rest of the night looking up stuff to do today. Hopefully there will be plenty of chances to bust out the camera and take some cool photos. That's the problem with snowmobiling, it's a little too intense to be taking out a camera and trying to get nature photos, especially when you're supposed to be following closely behind the guy who runs the place and is used to all the bumps and twists and turns that you don't even see coming until you almost tip the damn thing over. So yeah, not a good idea.

Today should be a little easier though. Doing some snowshoeing/hiking, some ice skating, and perhaps horseback riding, if we can find a place that is run humanely and doesn't also fund a local roadside zoo with a newly added tiger. See, there's the hard part when you're an animal rights advocate, it's hard to decide where to spend your money.

Anyway, have to run since it's after 10 and I still need to get ready to leave and go through checkout and all that. Then it's off into the semi-wilderness, with nothing but my wits and my camera. That loosely translates to just the camera. Hopefully I'll have some cool snowy updates tomorrow once we get back to boring old suburbia.

More soon,
Rob

New Year, Attitude, and Goals

So I'm finally getting to follow up my New Year's Eve post. I promised I'd work on updating this thing much more often, so this is part of my attempt at refocusing my energies in 2010. You'll have to excuse me if from time to time I repeat myself or just ramble. I want to make this whole social networking thing work for me this year, so I'm going to be doing a lot of stumbling at first.

Anyway, it's still too soon to tell if this year will be a good one or not overall, but I'm going to try to look at everything with a refreshed view anyway. Does that mean I'll be deliriously positive? No way. In fact, I might be doing a lot of dark work in the coming months in an effort to purge some of that negative energy. It's not art if it's not interesting, right?

I want to make 2010 a big year for DIGImmortal Photo. I've recently been talking over some of my goals and plans with my ever-so-supportive fiance, and realizing that I'm putting a lot on my plate. I'm used to it though, so it should be OK. Plus, I'm tired of failing at nothing. I walk around at times with a huge weight on my shoulders and a feeling like I'm not doing anything right. The truth is, most of the time I don't have any real reason to feel like a failure, what I'm really feeling is the pressure of paranoia and being scared to fail. Those thoughts and feelings hold me back from ever trying anything and put me into a rut, a funk, a standstill. I need to break those chains that my mind puts on me and face things head-on. This morning David Hobby of strobist.com put a link up on Twitter to a video about failure. This is the first time I'd heard of this site or this video series, but it's called 30 Second MBA. It's a 30 second video, so just go ahead and watch it and come back. I'll wait...

OK, you see? There's a very important point there. Think about it for a minute, most of the wisest people we've ever known are always telling great stories. Our grandparents, parents, mentors, bosses, etc... they all have amazing stories of what it was like either growing up, growing a business, or just plain growing as a person. They have stories because they tried things, they attempted to make changes, try new ideas, new angles. They didn't sit in one place scared for their lives and not making a move. I'm not saying any of us should just up and leave if we have something worth sticking around for, but if you've got an idea and you think it's a good one, go for it. Even if it fails, at least you know not to try it again. Better now than later, right?

I've got some ideas for my business that could possibly result in me losing time and money instead of making anything, but the point is not the money, or even the time, it's the lesson that I can learn from it. I've got some goals that may seem miles away from what I could pull off in a year, but if I don't at least try, I won't even know exactly how many miles. It's time to embrace uncertainty instead of fearing it.

2010 can be a banner year for DIGImmortal Photo if I let it be. So I'm inviting and welcoming all of you to come along for the ride and keep up with things as they progress. I hope to be able to keep the steam pumping from this engine for long enough to see most, if not all, of these ideas through. If I can accomplish even half of what I've got my eye on for this year, then I'll still have finished ahead of what I should realistically be expecting.

Deepak Chopra always says something along the lines of "In the realm of uncertainty, anything is possible" - So I'm going to try my best, and it will be hard, to embrace uncertainty and make my visions a reality.

In other news, I had to take down the Twitter feed that used to be on the right side of this blog. For some reason, all of the updates were someone else's, even though the account info in the back-end here was right, and even the preview that it shows you did, in fact, contain my tweets. For some reason though, when it would publish, it would be the updates of someone from the UK. So you can just click here if you want to follow me on Twitter.

That's all for now, I've got some ideas cooking in this noggin, but I don't want to give them away yet. I'll be back with more updates soon, so stay tuned!

More soon.

-Rob