JWilsonphoto wrote:
Under the heading "there's a sucker born every minute.....", I received an email a week ago that looked a bit odd. The sender asked if I shot family reunions, of course the answer was "yes" if the price is right. The next email tells me that there will be six families, it's on August 10th, outside, in Allen. Mine is not to question why, but August 10th in Texas.............OUTSIDE! is a bad choice, but whatever. I quoted him my usual rate plus a bake my butt off surcharge, roughly a couple of grand.
The sentence structure of these emails seemed slightly odd so my ears were up. Next email comes and the guy is asking me if I'm interested, another flag. I said yes, and that I sent questions and a quote. All of a sudden an email shows up accepting my quote, yet another flag because $2K is pretty steep for a family reunion, the average family reunion. My higher end clients don't blink at numbers like that, but it's a lot for five hours at the run of the mill family reunion.
Today I get a random text from this person asking "How are you doing?" I'm going to let this play out, but I'm guessing a request for banking information is in the offing and then we are off to the races.
The general rule of thumb for this kind of thing is something like them wanting to send you a check for more than your fee (say $5,000) and asking you to provide the remainder to someone else for the party food and drink. Of course, the check you’ll get when deposited will turn out to be a fraudulent check which will result in the bank taking the full $5,000 back out of your account and leave you stiffed for the $3,000 you already forwarded.
You’d really like to mess with these idiots, but they have ways of penalizing you up to and including SWATting you. Best thing to do is to just don’t respond.
I work in anti-money laundering for a global broker dealer and we see this type of thing all the time. The money mule in the middle is the one who gets stuck every time.
Nope, just stating the obvious, they pick and choose the narrative they agree with and are steering. Not a big political statement, just an observation of fact, all the social media outlets do the same thing. I guess we all do the same thing to some degree, the difference is, I hope, that we believe we are speaking the truth, not just pushing an agenda and dismissing facts that exist, but don't help support our individual beliefs.
Admittedly it's a very complicated and circuitous mess and the truth gets harder to discern every day.
What's the photography deal with the Alliance show this year? Just got an email about the "hybrid" show. Are we going to have a good chance at getting pictures?
Let me get some clarification and I’ll get back to you. They usually have a series of briefings during the year , but that has changed just like everything else in our lives.
I’m hoping Scott Kelby can join us again this year at Alliance, he’s a riot to shoot with. Scott has a never ending stream of consciousness thing going on that even challenges my wit, he’s a treat and an all around great guy.
I’m told that it will be similar to last year, with a couple of significant improvements (more on those later). The photo pit has finally been moved to show center, so that should be considerably better. What show center is in the new layout is not clear to me yet. We should have some graphics indicating the different box boundaries fairly soon.
I guess what the variant does between now and then will have some effect on the structure, but it's almost August so decisions have to be pretty much set in concrete in the near future. Reading between the lines, they must be getting cooperation from Amazon again or there wouldn't be much of an air show. I really won't know what our boundaries are until I get to sit down with Russell Royce after he has been briefed. Matt Byrd has a favorite quip, "Flexibility is the key to air power........." , he uses it when we're up against the wall and we don't have any idea what's next, then we smile and get it done.
I've been ruminating over underwater housings. My plan has been to get the Nauticam housing for the R5 when it is released, then the R3 appeared on the horizon. Still unclear about resolution, I'm kind of back to ordering the R5 housing because I want the 45MP resolution. All the housings are pre-order at this point, but if I waited for the R3, certainly I'd be another year out. The R5 would be a great camera, and lighter than the R3, but battery life might be a consideration because the cases don't allow for the battery grip. Aquatech has a hybrid dive/sports housing that is pretty cool, but it's limited to 33'. Realistically, for most of my shooting, that would probably be sufficient.
The city of Temple abruptly kicked the Georgetown crew from hosting the Central Texas Airshow. I think it was a
"Hey, you guys built something nice, it is time for us to take over" kind of thing. I don't think Beth Jenkins was happy about it. There is no telling when or what kind of show there will be. I think Temple suggested the airshow would return in 2022. Nothing in stone yet.
Don’t you just love it?! The airport manager in Tyler fought tooth and nail to hobble the organizers of The Rose City Airfest. The whole thing became his territory vs the organizers and the mayor. I think it’s a pre requisite that you have to be a narcissistic bonehead to be an airport manager for a governmentally owned airport. Most of them have been on the governmental dole for the majority of their lives so they have no clue how capitalism works, it’s all OPM as Maggie Thatcher would say.
We actually have a couple of good guys at McKinney now, but they were handed a mess of decades of mismanagement. Years ago I put together a group to buy a big parcel of land on the airport, the airport manager recommended that the city not sell it because he was going to get a pile if cash from an upcoming bond issue. The measure failed by a huge margin and we all told them to pound sand when he came back to us. No clue whatsoever as to how real business works. I did get him “retired” shortly after that debacle.
I’m told that it will be similar to last year, with a couple of significant improvements (more on those later). The photo pit has finally been moved to show center, so that should be considerably better. What show center is in the new layout is not clear to me yet. We should have some graphics indicating the different box boundaries fairly soon.
Ah, ok. I actually kept my head down and didn't attend last year. Hopefully it'll be a good view .
Ray Swindle wrote:
The city of Temple abruptly kicked the Georgetown crew from hosting the Central Texas Airshow. I think it was a
"Hey, you guys built something nice, it is time for us to take over" kind of thing. I don't think Beth Jenkins was happy about it. There is no telling when or what kind of show there will be. I think Temple suggested the airshow would return in 2022. Nothing in stone yet.
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Sheila just came out of surgery, full knee replacement. I'll be doing a lot of post processing in the coming weeks.
Prayers for the pain she is going to experience. Be sure she has and takes laxatives for the pain killer miserable side effect...one for prevention and one for when it didn't get prevented. Other than that Susan came through it just fine.
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Under the heading "there's a sucker born every minute.....", I received an email a week ago that looked a bit odd. The sender asked if I shot family reunions, of course the answer was "yes" if the price is right. The next email tells me that there will be six families, it's on August 10th, outside, in Allen. Mine is not to question why, but August 10th in Texas.............OUTSIDE! is a bad choice, but whatever. I quoted him my usual rate plus a bake my butt off surcharge, roughly a couple of grand.
The sentence structure of these emails seemed slightly odd so my ears were up. Next email comes and the guy is asking me if I'm interested, another flag. I said yes, and that I sent questions and a quote. All of a sudden an email shows up accepting my quote, yet another flag because $2K is pretty steep for a family reunion, the average family reunion. My higher end clients don't blink at numbers like that, but it's a lot for five hours at the run of the mill family reunion.
Today I get a random text from this person asking "How are you doing?" I'm going to let this play out, but I'm guessing a request for banking information is in the offing and then we are off to the races.
Jim, a couple years I got an email from an email address that looked like my boss' email account, asking me to wire $50,000 to a company. I knew it was fraud so I played along, I pretended I would need documentation for accounting records and bank transfer, the "boss" and I went back and forth a couple times via emails, I told him the money would be wired in two hours, two hours passed, he asked me to send him the wire confirmation, then I emailed him a PDF page that read "GO FXXX YOURSELF".
Thanks guys, she's resting in our bed. Going to be a tough couple of weeks from what I understand. Her Dr. said she'd be back to her 6 miles a day if she stuck to his regimen. She's in great shape and she is a rule follower (opposites attract Ya know!) so she'll be fine.
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