The Seagate HD I ordered for the ministack arrived yesterday, so I was able to get that installed and running last evening. I moved my g2data directory again, so it now resides on the new drive. Speed seems OK this morning. Tonight I plan to connect my keyboard to the mini so I can restart it in single user mode and run AppleJack on it. I don’t know that that’ll give me any big performance boost, but it’ll be nice to have things cleaned up. The mini, ministack, and another external FW drive are sitting on top of my PC enclosure right now, and I’m thinking that’s a fine place for them.
Two nights ago there was a gorgeous full moon. Leah and I were just getting Ava ready for bed when I happened to catch a glimpse of this big bright orb hanging outside the window. I grabbed my camera and ran up to the campus of the high school where I could get an open shot. Alas, the A70 — for all its great features — really isn’t equipped with a zoom that will get a good picture of even a really, really big moon. I didn’t want to waste the run I’d made in my GAP flip flops, so I decided to try out an idea I’d seen in a flickr photo set.
The idea is to set a long exposure and then throw your camera up in the air. “Camera toss.” Inventive name, no? Anyway, the HS campus was a perfect place for a toss, as there are lots of lights, but not a lot of ambient light. You end up with a lot of nice distinct light streaks of different colors, lengths, and thicknesses. For the shot shown here, I set the A70 for a two-second exposure and gave it a good throw, spinning it as it left my hand.
On the first couple tosses, the camera landed back in my hands hard enough that it powered off with the lens extended. For a couple seconds I thought I’d finally reached the point where I’d need a new camera, but a power cycle brought everything back to normal (except for the image I tried to get, which never made it to the CF card). This relationship with the A70 is really becoming a battle of wills. I had been thinking of replacing it before it gave out, but now I’m more inclined to see just how many images I can squeeze out of the thing before it simply dies, huffing and wheezing, in my hands.