nickjohnson
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JWilsonphoto wrote:
Good Morning/Afternoon Nick,
I'm "doing", thanks for asking! We are having a UK kind of weather week so it's given me time to post process several projects and organize my office at home. The new Pyracantha seem to be settling in well and all the rain has been a help. Planting them was a bit of a chore because the irrigation system in that bed froze, or I broke it pulling the old ones out with my Landcruiser  So there was a bit of trenching and pvc work to be done, it is all back to normal now. The amount of landscape in Texas that needs to be replaced is pretty incredible, everywhere you look as you drive around all you see is frozen shrubs. The Holly varieties survived nicely, but most everything else is toast.
I've had a number of assignments over the past couple of weeks. Tomorrow is the start of The Byron Nelson Golf Tournament, which is being held on a good client's TPC course for the first time. He asked me if I would shoot it for him. Something different and fun, "variety" and all that...........
Do you think airshows are done in your part of the world, or are you just done shooting them? Things are beginning to return to some normalcy here, at least in Texas. I've been involved in numerous luncheons and groundbreaking events, it's clear that people are anxious to put this thing behind them. I captured a groundbreaking for two new hi-rise office buildings on Monday, pretty good sized group and no one was masked up, it felt good. I remember when the powers that be were saying that handshaking and hugs were probably gone forever, I'm happy to say that was a pessimistic and inaccurate statement. Sun 'n' Fun sold 30% more tickets than they had ever sold and the attendees, by all accounts, were anxious to live their lives again, mask free. I still see the occasional person driving alone in their car with a mask on, but that is probably more because they have a particular health issue than general fear of the virus at this point.
Jennifer and the kids are expecting their mini horses to give birth in the next few weeks, and the puppies are growing by leaps and bounds. She got off her tractor the other afternoon because there was some commotion in the duck run, seems that a six foot snake of some variety got in and had her favorite duck for lunch, she was pretty sad about that,"circle of life" and all. I'm teaching her how to alter that circle a bit with a 9mm.
Hope you and Thea are having a great week!
JW
Oh, P.S. What did you build for your new computer?
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Hi Jim, Thanks for the update!
Bad though the horticultural thing has been for you, it serves as a timely reminder to we UK folks just how lucky we are to have our mild and moderate climate. Even so, some parts have had overnight frost – in May! Eek!
From my perspective the airshow situation in the UK is questionable. The Covid thing has largely stopped everything – but that will pass. Of more lasting concern is the aftermath of Shorham and other accidents. The CAA have been forced to tighten some of the rules – rightly so IMHO. So planning and assessment of display lines and boxes have come in for attention. Result is Seaside shows have been moved further off shore and show line centres / boxes have been displaced. Farnborough was apparently rendered very disappointing due to display box displacement.
Another big rule change is that a display pilot must do their annual display authorisation check, flying the same ‘plane as they are going to display. Prior to Shorham, there was an easement to that aircraft type rule that resulted in a person being able to practice and authorise in a Vans RV-8, then display a Hawker Hunter……. Given the huge performance difference I’m not convinced it’s possible to fly a Hunter display in an RV-8 – or an RV-8 display in a Hunter. Anyway, the result is that the cost model has changed, especially for those who must now practice and authorise flying ex military swept wing jets.
What with health issues and the Covid thing I’ve not been to an airshow since August 2017. I’m not sure that I can swing the 100-400 all day any more. However, when the restrictions ease I may get our to our local airfield and get a little Spitfire action. Webeseee.
Rebuilding the PC is an ongoing project. Back in 2012 ish, I built myself a box to store and edit my images – stills only. I used a very nice Dell monitor that I got in 2008 ish. With a few mid life upgrades that machine continues to serve me well. However, I’m clearly on borrowed time and the cracks are beginning to show! The back light on the Dell is fading and uneven so that has to be replaced. However I had a disk in my RAID 5 array reporting sick. Oh and my backups are not unified – that is, my storage is bigger than any of my backup disks – so backups are split across several disks. The failing disk was the last of my originals, so I’ve had my moneys worth.
So… I got a new 8TB usb drive for a backup. I then replaced the 4 x 3TB drives in the RAID array with 3 x 4TB. Getting the Intel RST software to see my new drives on my now unsupported, end of life Z68 chipset motherboard took …… a long time - as did reloading the data. Eventually I got it all working smoothly. I then fitted a 2TB SSD to act as my main work area – copy of current RAW files, Lightroom catalogue, finished images, etc. I put my Windows system drive on an SSD some time ago along with a small SSD for cacheing the RAID array. I’ve now fitted a GPU card so I can use the nVidia GPU extensions in my Adobe apps, and to drive a higher res screen. Shortly I plan to get a new screen and retire the Dell. Then it will be a new motherboard, CPU, double the memory, and an M2 Pci stick for my system drive. Yes …. an old axe that’s had two new heads and three new handles. 
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