Sunday, December 21, 2008

Instrument Proficiency Check

Since I am supposed to fly at least some members of my family to Florida in a week, and since the last time I've actually flown an airplane was last August, I thought it might be a good idea to spend some time flying with an instructor. Flying an airplane is very much like riding a bicycle. Except that it's a longer fall to the pavement. Still, having an instructor along occasionally to criticize you while you fly is not only the law, it is also a good idea. It keeps the instructors amused, and it's great for deflating the typical pilot ego. Deflating the typical instructor ego is a bit more difficult, but fortunately isn't my problem.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Connection Redux

Doesn't it figure?

AT&T insisted that I spend $80 getting a new DSL "modem" since they were certain the one I had (made by ActionTec) was causing my connection issues. The unit they sent me is a Motorola 2210. After receiving the new unit I configured it for use in my environment, then set it aside waiting for an opportune moment to make the swap. The next day, magically, all my connection problems went away. I've had over a week of solid uptime with 0 drops, still using the old ActionTec. The Motorola is still sitting in my office, unplugged.

Magical little boxes: they can fix a problem just be being in the same house!

Thanksgiving dinner

It was a delicious meal, made all the more pleasant by sharing it with friends.

The turkey breast and legs received a spice rub treatment consisting of sage, rosemary, thyme, and minced garlic, mixed with some grapeseed oil to provide it some body. This was rubbed underneath the skin several hours before roasting. The turkey was then roasted in a gas grill, over a drip pan filled with chopped onion. I also included a tray of water next to the turkey to provide moisture during roasting, and I basted everything with the grapeseed oil periodically during cooking. The bone-in breast took about 2 hours to cook, and the drumsticks were done sooner.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Thanksgiving planning

For Thanksgiving this year I am planning a very traditional meal, adopted for our small gathering (4 adults and one child).

We will start off with some cheese and crackers to nibble on while finishing the meal preparations: Cheddar Harlech and Robusto.

For the main course:
Bone-in turkey breast and turkey legs, cooked with a spice rub and grapeseed oil
Mashed potatoes with turkey gravy (and a mushroom gravy alternative)
Traditional green bean casserole
Fresh sweet potatoes in a candied sauce
Bread cranberry dressing
Relish tray
Yeast rolls
2007 Willamette Valley Vineyards Pinot Noir

For dessert: homemade pumpkin pie with whipped cream

Connection headaches

Over the past week my DSL connection has been giving me multiple headaches. When I initially switched from Earthlink to AT&T I discovered that the old DSL "modem" didn't work with the new fast connection. Rather than wait several days for AT&T to ship me one of theirs I went to Fry's and bought whatever they had. This was probably a mistake. Although it worked adequately for a few months, these past two weeks has been especially bad. After several rounds of phone calls and field repair by the AT&T engineers, the conclusion is that my DSL "modem", made by ActionTec, just isn't cutting it. The suggestion is that I should replace it with something AT&T likes. The new device just arrived so all I have to do is make sure it is configured correctly and drop it in place. If I have any connection problems after that, they can't blame my equipment.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Guatemalan Food

Tonight I did something a little different for dinner: I prepared some Guatemalan dishes for my family. Guatemalan cuisine is similar to Mexican, but generally the dishes have more subtle tastes, they are not as spicy, and in some cases they are sweeter. So tonight I prepared: tacos de Guatemala, rellenitos de platano, and torta de maiz.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Atlanta gas shortage caused in part by EPA

The Atlanta Metro area is required by the EPA to sell a low sulphur fuel which supposedly burns cleaner. This is "boutique fuel" and isn't made in large quantities by refineries. So when refining capacity decreases, so does the supply of our "boutique fuel". This is also why they can't just truck gas in from other areas. Well today, finally, the EPA has given the area a waiver on the low sulphur fuel, allowing stations to sell standard stuff. Unfortunately we have so much pent up demand that I think it will be a minimum of one week before we see a comfortable level of supply. More likely it will be two weeks. This was a completely forseeable and avoidable crisis, triggered by a hurricane but exacerbated by our slow thinking and acting, dimwitted bueraucrats, both at the state and national levels.

Here are the stories:

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2008/09/21/atlanta_gas_pumps_low.html

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2008/09/22/atlanta_gas_problems.html

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Recycling Electronics: Goodbye to the Mac 4400

One of the local waste companies held a computer recycling day today. Anyone was allowed to drop off any computer equipment and most electronic equipment for recycling, at no charge. We always have some old computer equipment lying around and I feel guilty just throwing it out to clog our landfills. So I loaded up the car with some old stuff and drove it to the event. In addition to the broken MicroTek scanner and the old Sun workstation I dropped off our old Power Mac 4400.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

It is definitely getting worse

I drove by a Kroger on my way to drop my daughter at school. This Kroger usually has gas in the mornings. Last week waits varied from 5 to 15 cars. This morning there were no less than 70 cars waiting in 2 lines to get gas. I talked with the manager (who was out in the parking lot) and one of the drivers. Wait time seems to be 45 minutes. By far this is the worst I've seen since the whole nonsense began. We didn't go far last weekend even though there were things we wanted to do. We stayed home instead to save the gas for the daily commute and errands. Now an official with AAA South is saying it will be another two weeks before we see normal again.

Oh and it seems our governor can't be bothered with this, since apparently he is out of the country.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Gas Crisis may be over

I'm seeing good signs today. Better than good: great signs. On Monday I posted that lines were the longest I had ever seen them: 70-100 cars deep with waits over 45 minutes. Tuesday I still saw lines but not as long. Yesterday the lines were very short, perhaps 5 to 10 cars, but I still only saw one in 7 stations with gas. Today, for the first time in almost 2 weeks, I have seen a station with no line. In fact, I have seen several stations open and selling gas with no lines. The Kroger by my house has consistently had gas almost every morning and has consistently sold out of gas by 1 pm. Today even at 1:30 they were still selling gas and there was no wait. Two stations near my house that have been without gas for 10 straight days were selling gas today. So supply is nearly back to normal, and the lines have almost completely disappeared. I am relieved. I should be able to fill up my wife's car tonight or tomorrow morning.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Gas Shortage: Day 16

It's been 16 days since Hurricane Ike made landfall at Galveston, Texas. At first the fuel crisis in Atlanta seemed to be minor: a few stations were out and prices were up, but generally fuel could be found and there were no lines. But as the days progressed fuel supplies dwindled. More and more stores ran out and fewer were being resupplied. There are no official percentages that I can find indicating how many stations have gas, but I know that in my area the percentage did not improve during the week last week. If anything it grew worse. Very few stores have had gas: on my average day I would see one in 7 with gas. Last weekend I was able to get gas without waiting. Last Wednesday I waited behind two other cars (10 minutes only because the SUV in front of me had big tanks) but two days ago (Friday) I waited over 15 minutes in a long line. And Friday afternoon I saw gas lines much worse than the one I experienced that morning.

Demand was up significantly yesterday as nearly 250,000 people drove to or through Atlanta on their way to various college football games. I have not ventured out much this weekend, but I did pass by the 4 stations closest to my house and they were all empty. Personally, we are set until Thursday. All of our cars are full or nearly full and only one has to endure a long commute.

So why did this happen? And why is it so much worse than the few days of shortages after Hurricane Katrina? Here is an article from the AJC that provides some insight:

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/09/28/gas_shortage_explainer.html

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Ruby on Rails

Over the past month or so I've been playing with Ruby on Rails. I've decided I really like the environment and developing in it has been (mostly) fun. It is very powerful and makes accessing database information wonderfully easy. Of course I first had to learn Ruby, which turned out to be a pleasure all on its own. The last object oriented language I did any serious work with was C++, which is a really cumbersome language that tends to make some object oriented programming techniques far more painful than they ought to be. So it's been great to be able to use a language that as designed from the beginning to be object oriented.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Brother, can you spare a gallon?

On the eve of the landing of Hurricane Ike I checked the tanks in all our cars to make sure we had plenty of gas. I added 10 gallons to the Jeep that night anticipating that we might have shortages as we did the week after Hurricane Katrina. Well the shortages didn't appear right away. Last week most stations had fuel although the prices were a bit higher.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Upgrading FreeBSD

I decided it was finally time to take care of our old FreeBSD server and get it running something supported. This box is the main server for our household. It processes mail, provides network services (imap, dhcp, dns), houses photos, music, video, and acts as a web server for the house, including a calendar and addressbook. So it's a rather important box for our family and when it is down it is missed. In fact, during this latest upgrade my wife asked me at least 6 different times either "can I get to my e-mail yet?" or "can I get to the addressbook yet?"

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Dead Lexus

So we all piled in to my wife's Lexus this morning, running late as usual. Put key in ignition, turned to start, and nothing happened. The first stage of grief (as in "Oh Good Grief!") is denial, and while lingering in that stage I tried to start the car again. And again, and a few more times just because denial is such a blissful place to be. Of course my repeated attempts to coax electrons out of an empty battery were completely futile. We quickly grabbed all our stuff and piled in to my daughter's Jeep, then proceeded on our way, adding at least 3 minutes to our tardy time.

This evening I went out in to the garage to resuscitate the dead Lexus. Battery juxtaposition was such that the easiest course of action was to push the Lexus partway out of the garage. My wife got in the driver's seat, turned the ignition on to unlock the steering wheel, then went to put the car in Neutral. The shifter wouldn't budge. I asked "Is your foot on the brake"? "Yes" came the reply. Of course I didn't believe her. But of course she was right. Even with the brake pedal pressed as far as it would go the transmission would not come out of Park.

Like most modern automatics, this car has a safety interlock between park and the brake. You cannot shift the car out of park until you have the brake pedal depressed. Unfortunately it seems that this interlock actually needs power in order to unlock the transmission. No power, no unlock. Well, this kind of makes life a challenge when you need to push a car with a dead battery.

I finally pulled the Jeep in to the garage and got the Lexus jump-started. Then I drove the Lexus around for about 20 minutes to charge the battery. I found this entire event to be extremely stressful and therefore I required nourishment, and since I was driving around anyway it sure seemed like a stop at Cold Stone was appropriate.

We are still not sure why the battery discharged. We suspect that the headlight "auto" setting did not turn the lights off when it was supposed to. We have had problems with this before, but always caught it before the battery drained. So from now on we don't trust "auto".

Tomorrow we get to see if the battery can still hold a charge.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Fay Targets Florida

My parents, who live in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, left their home about a week ago for an extended road trip. They travelled to Minneapolis for a high school reunion and are planning to go on from there to Denver for a wedding. They are stopping in to visit us Labor Day weekend on their way home. So they will be away from home for about 4 weeks. Before they left my dad put up his hurricane shutters. These consist of corrugated metal panels which are custom cut to fit over every window and exterior glass door. They are quite ugly but they are the best protection against the high winds of a hurricane. He tells me that his neighbors thought he was nuts for putting them up before the extended trip.

As of today Tropical Storm Fay is 350 miles southeast of Key West and forecast to take up a northerly heading that will take it across Punta Gorda and on up in to the Tampa Bay area on Tuesday. It is also forecast to reach hurricane strength before making landfall. A hurricane watch is now in effect from the Florida Keys to Anna Maria island at the mouth of Tampa Bay. Somehow I don't think the neighbors are laughing anymore.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Angel Flight Crashes

It has been a troubling summer for Angel Flight organizations across the country. Angel Flight, for those who don't know, is a collection of volunteer organizations which provide free transportation to medical patients in need. Volunteer pilots provide the transportation in their own airplanes or in planes that are rented. The pilots receive no reimbursement for their time, fuel, or operating costs. The patients and those travelling with them pay nothing. Most planes used in Angel Flight are small (4 or 6 seat) single engine propeller driven airplanes that operate as "General Aviation". Pilots tend to be those (like me) who obtained licenses for recreation rather than for an avocation.

Friday, August 8, 2008

We did WHAT?

We just bought a house. Or, rather, we bought the idea of a house. Or, rather, we bought the promise of the idea of a house. The house itself doesn't really exist yet. It's only there on paper. In fact, most of the neighborhood doesn't exist yet either. But we put a deposit down and signed a contract to have a house built just for us. Now some folks may wonder why in the world we would want another house when we have a perfectly fine house already. Well, I'm wondering that too. Is it a vacation home? No. Is it in a different metropolitan area? No. Is someone changing jobs? No. Does it put me or my wife closer to work? A little bit. Are the schools better? No, they're about the same. Is it smaller or less expensive? No, actually it's a bit bigger. Is it on lots of acreage? No, the lot size is about the same. Well, then why would we do this? Primarily because we want to. But also partly because we like "new" and we don't like what has become of the area around our current house.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Trip Report: Clearwater, FL

The Route

At the end of the year 2007 we flew down to Clearwater, FL to visit relatives. We had four in my Mooney: myself as pilot, my wife in the right seat, and our two children were in back. I filed a route from PDK to CLW, a trip that I have flown many times before. The route I always file is ATL V97 PZD V35 DONHU direct. This route goes directly over the top of Atlanta Hartsfiled, then down to Albany, then Cross City, then directly towards the Clearwater area with a landing at the small field of Clearwater Airpark. The last leg goes out over the Gulf about 8 miles offshore. Some might be surprised that I can get permission to fly directly over Hartsfield, but I have flown this route many times successfully. I file IFR at 9000 feet. Upon departure, Atlanta puts me at 5000 feet and sends me right over Hartsfield. We get a great view and we save some time. Our destination was CLW, Clearwater Airpark. This is a small uncontrolled GA field with one runway and lots of helpful people. It is our destination of choice whenever we fly to the area. However, it has some hostile neighbors, nighttime restrictions, and no instrument approach (not even GPS). The runway is lighted but takeoffs are prohibited after sunset and landings are only allowed until 9 pm.

Outbound

We left PDK on December 29 at 4 pm, a little behind schedule. I calculated an arrival at 6:30 pm—about 45 minutes after sunset with plenty of time to land before the deadline. I used the portable Garmin 396 GPS navigator to keep track of our position and also to keep tabs on current weather conditions. We encountered some weather around Thomasville but it was very easy to steer around it with the 396. About Cross City with the sun setting I checked the weather at St. Petersburg (PIE) as it is the field closest to CLW. I was dismayed by what I saw!

METAR KPIE 292253Z AUTO 23005KT 7SM SCT003 21/21 A3008

A scattered layer at 300 with light winds and no spread between the temperature and the dewpoint, just as night was falling. It was the classic setup for fog. We were still 30 minutes away and I could only watch as the weather deteriorated. 10 minutes later the layer had become broken and I was pretty sure we would not get in to CLW. As we descended in to the area I still saw clear skies, but as we got closer to Clearwater I could see the blanket of fog. Approach asked me what I wanted to do (the dreaded "say intentions") and I requested the ILS 17 in to PIE but I would keep watching for a break in the fog. As I intercepted the localizer I could see breaks in the fog and I thought that maybe we could get lucky. I requested a vector towards CLW to take a look, and approach gave me a vector. Then he asked me "do you know what a cruise clearance is?" I responded, "I've read about them, but have never gotten one." Then he cleared me "Cruise 1700". Cool!

Searching

The layer of fog covered CLW but there were breaks visible in it. Just to taunt me it ended about 2 miles north of the airport. Had CLW been 3 miles further north it would have been in the clear. Using the 396 as guidance (with some help from the controller), I circled the airport and looked straight down in to blackness. "That must be it" I thought. I clicked on the airport's CTAF frequency and watched the runway lights come on. "Yep, that's it." Although there were some holes in the clouds I did not feel good about being able to see the runway on any sort of final approach. I continued north away from the airport and as I looked over my shoulder I could see the runway lights disappear in to the clouds. Although I was able to see the runway looking straight down, the slanted view that I would need while approaching for a landing was blocked by the fog. So I told approach that we could not get in and that we needed to divert to PIE. I hopped over to Clearwater CTAF and asked the folks in the FBO to tell my father (who was waiting there for our arrival) that we were diverting.

We weren't the only ones to get caught by the fog. Lots of planes were diverting to PIE and we had to get in line for the approach. Once we intercepted the localizer I looked ahead and could see lots of street lights. I could even catch a glimpse of the beacon at PIE. But when I looked where I thought the runway should be I only saw blackness. We intercepted the glide slope and started our descent. Then the runway lights appeared out of nowhere. Then they disappeared. For the rest of the approach the lights played hide and seek as the low clouds moved. For a time we could see the beginning of the runway but not the end. It was a very weird experience. At 300 feet, of course, we had a clear view and we touched down without difficulty.

The FBO

After landing the tower asked us where we wanted to park. I hadn't been to PIE in a few years, but the last time I was here my FBO of choice was Air BP. But tower gave me some bad news "They were bought out by Signature." "Well, then, I guess its Signature." We were cleared to taxi to the Signature ramp, but as I approached the lineman was giving me baton signals that I had never seen before. He looked like he was waving me off or directing me further down the ramp. But as I looked in the direction he was waving all I saw was grass. I couldn't go back out to the taxiway without a clearance so I really wasn't sure what this guy wanted me to do. He eventually told me to stop, and held me there until a jet on the ramp departed. Then he waved me in and parked me on the ramp. Even before my wife got out of the plane, a man came out of the building and yelled at the other linemen "get that Mooney out of here, we have planes coming in." My wife managed to get one of our daughters out of the plane but we were not given any time to unload or even ask questions. A tug was immediately hooked up and we were moved off the ramp. The plane was towed all the way to the other end of parking, a very long distance from the terminal building. After we were parked and out of the plane I asked for a golf cart to get all the luggage back to the building. "Oh yes, I will bring one out right away." 10 minutes later there was still no sign of a cart, so my daughter and I grabbed everything and walked. He finally caught up to us about 100 yards from the building. When I complained to him about being moved off the ramp ("We didn't even have time to unload pur luggage") he responded with "well we are very busy tonight." "In other words," I said, "we don't burn kerosene." "Oh no sir, even our jets are being moved off the ramp." But that excuse fell flat as I looked over at the ramp and saw several jets unloading their passengers and luggage.

Once inside I complained again to the lady behind the counter and I was given the same excuse: "we are very busy tonight." But none of that excuses the rude treatment and the feeling of being second-rate to the bizjet crowd. So, putting that behind me, I started dealing with other things I know about Signature. I asked "What fees are you going to be charging me?"

"We charge $18/night for parking," she responded.

"That's it? No other fees?"

"Yes sir, that's it."

"There's no ramp fee or handling fee?"

"Oh yes, well there is that too if you don't buy 7 gallons of fuel."

"I specifically asked you what fees I would be charged and you didn't mention that one! That's exactly what I'm talking about when I ask you about fees: I want to know all the fees. Why would you leave that out?"

She had no response for that. So I ordered 5 gallons per side. I would have make it 3.5 per side but I was afraid they would only put in a total of 6.9 then claim I didn't take on 7 gallons. I am not a big fan of Signature Flight Support.

The Tour

There was no way I was going to leave the Mooney at Signature for longer than I absolutely had to, so we planned to relocate it the next day from PIE to CLW. In the meantime we visited my family, including my brother, his son (my nephew) and his grandson. My nephew is an A&P with Mesa Airlines and is very much in to aviation, although he is not a pilot. His son is 10 years old and I see him very infrequently. So I asked them if they'd like to go along for the ride. They both readily agreed. My father dropped the three of us off at PIE Signature. Much to my surprise the line crew had brought my plane up from the back 40 and parked it on the ramp to prepare for our departure. We took off from PIE and headed due west to the coast, then turned south. We toured the coastline at 2500, then ducked down to 1000 as we got close to the southern end of the peninsula to get below Tampa's airspace. Off the southern tip in the mouth of Tampa Bay is an amazing structure with an interesting story: the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

We flew all the way down to the bridge to get a good view. No we did not fly underneath it! Then we turned around and headed back up the coast. Once we got out from under the low shelf of Tampa airspace we climbed back up to 2500 and went all the way up the coast to Honeymoon Island. From there we turned inland and headed towards CLW. For the landing I had a direct crosswind with some gusts, along with some wind shear on short final. But the landing was successful and good enough to impress my nephew.

Clearwater Airpark

I can't say enough good things about these folks. I have been flying to CLW for years when I visit my relatives. They have always been great! In the midst of a busy city the place feels like an old-fashioned sleepy country airport. On rare occasions they don't have room to park me, but I almost always get a spot on the pavement. They recently tore down the old terminal building and put up a temporary one. Supposedly they will be building a new permanent building soon, but who knows when that will actually happen. The "temporary" building is actually quite nice and much better than its predecessor. It is a clean and comfortable facility with a wonderful staff. It isn't cheap, but it is less expensive than nearby PIE. Parking is $15 a night with the first night waived with a fuel purchase. Compare that to Signature which charged me $18 a night and the threat of an additional charge if I didn't buy fuel (and their fuel was much more expensive, too)! I love going to CLW. They're just awesome.

The Return

For our return trip I filed my usual route from CLW to PDK. This is not the exact reverse of the route down. It is: CTY V579 VNA V362 MCN V323 HUSKY direct. Although I know from experience that Atlanta will take me over the top of Hartsfield on the way out of PDK I also know that they won't do that for me on the way back in. There are set traffic corridors for the Atlanta area to make life easier for the controllers. Departures leave on the cardinal directions (North, East, South, West) and arrivals are brought in on the "corners" (Northeast, Northwest, Southwest, Southeast). If I filed a route that arrived from the South then approach would just give me a revised route that arrived from the southeast. So why fight it? I just file a route that takes me over Macon then towards the Atlanta area. This route is also fun because it follows I-75 for about 100 miles and we can wave to the cars as we pass them by.

Our return trip was faced with more headwinds and the threat of a wide area of occasional moderate turbulence over the entire northern half of Georgia. Unfortunately both forecasts were correct. Our progress was slow and starting somewhere south of Macon it got bumpy too. The last 40 minutes of the flight was bumpy and quite uncomfortable. Fortunately my family has cast-iron stomachs and generally doesn't mind the turbulence. But it was still not fun. The only good thing about the return trip was the absence of rain and clouds. We left Clearwater with warm temperatures and landed at PDK in 40 degree weather. For a minute there we were all wishing we had stayed in Florida. We unloaded, tied the plane down, and headed home, tired but satisfied.

Footnote

The images in this log were created by Google Earth. The airplane's track was captured by the Garmin 396, then later downloaded to a computer, processed by GPS Visualizer, then loaded in to Google Earth. The color of the flight path indicates the ground speed: red is slowest, then yellow, green, blue, and magenta.

Timing Is Everything

Timing is everything, and my timing usually seems to be bad. On April 30 2008 DigMyPics received 33 rolls of negative film from me totalling 758 frames. They were to digitize the frames at 2000 dpi and send me back my film and a DVD containing the images. An order of this size typically takes about 10 days.

On Monday May 5, at approximately 2 am local time, a fire broke out in the building that houses DigMyPics. The fire was devastating. It destroyed the building, most of the equipment, and a significant portion of the photos, negatives, film, and videos that the company was processing at the time. The fire and the investigation afterwards made their servers inaccessible, so they could not even determine who had orders still pending. They did not get servers back from the fire department (due to the investigation in to the cause of the fire) until May 23. After they restored access to their database, they were able to determine that they had 195 orders in house at various stages of processing.

The people at DigMyPics have been working like crazy since the fire trying to salvage as much as they can. Not everything was lost, and some things that were damaged could still be salvaged and at least digitized. By June 2 they were able to determine that, of the 195 orders, 51 have been fully recovered and another 28 have at least something recovered. They are still working on the remaining orders trying to match them up with the media they have been able to salvage.

I received word towards the end of May that they have found at least some of my images on the server they got back from the fire department. But so far I have not received details on how much they have or when they will be able to cut me a disk. I do not have any hope of recovering the original negatives at this point.

If you go to their website now, http://www.digmypics.com, you will only see text and a few pictures of their recovery efforts. It was a tragedy that took many people's precious memories. But the good news is that no one was hurt and the fire was contained to the one building.

I am very appreciative of the folks at DigMyPics and their continuing efforts to salvage what they can. They were certainly under no legal obligation to do so, and could easily have walked away from the whole mess. But they understand these are our memories and in many cases cannot be replaced.

In my collection, the following topics are missing and feared lost: Branda's wedding, Mom & Dad's 50th wedding anniversary, my 35th birthday party, family trip to Vegas and the Grand Canyon, Cindy's etiquette class and banquet, Ryan's (my nephew) first birthday, Becky's surprise birthday party, Cindy's 10th birthday, Christmas pictures from 1999, 2000, and 2001. In many cases I can still locate the photos, and digital images can be created from those. But it is much more difficult to correlate the photos with dates and events, and the resulting digitized images aren't as good.

If I had sent the order out two weeks earlier (like I wanted to) it would have been completed and back in my hands. If I had procrastinated another week, the order never would have arrived and the negatives would have been sent back to me.

So now I have to find a different digitizing house for the remainder of my negatives. And next time I think I may send out smaller orders.