Stupid Tax

In our family we have coined a phrase called "Stupid Tax". Stupid Tax is the amount of money you have to spend to rectify something you did that was stupid and you should have known better. Such as driving your vehicle on a beach that you haven't tested the firmness of the sand, the tow truck fee to pull you out would be stupid tax. I'm sure you get the idea.


So let me tell you about my latest venture into the realm of stupid tax. In this current heat wave I woke up Tuesday with a migraine, it was a beaut and so I took the day off and lost much of the day to quiet, cool, dark places. On Wednesday I didn't need to start work until 12:30pm, so after I dropped Beth off at the library, I thought I would work some more on the pictures I took in Ireland.

Now to explain a few things first, I have a DSLR camera and I take my pictures in RAW format and convert the keepers to .jpeg for show. As the camera is digital, I probably took close to 4000 original images before I started paring numbers down to what I am happy with. This takes a fair amount of time and I was well into working in to the second week, in fact I really only had 4 days of images left to check over, delete the unwanted and convert the rest.

So I had just finished the next days worth of pictures and was in the process of converting 183 files to jpegs when I got a message that said my hard drive was full and it couldn't save the last 30 pictures. Well as this was actually my C: drive I new I had room on my D: drive so I copied over the last 4 files (days) to my D:drive. Having done that I went to delete the 4 files off of C: to get more room until I could figure out where I was going to store these pictures in the short term.( Long term storage is in an external hard drive networked to the laptop ) I then looked at the files on C: saw that four were highlighted and promptly hit delete. Now this was 11:45am, I'm 15 minutes from leaving for work and my head is still a little fuzzy from the day before, a message pops up that says the recycle bin is full did I want to permanently delete these files. (can you see where this is going?) I said yes and 30 seconds later the files are gone and so are the other 10 days worth of pictures  as I have just permanently deleted my total camera file and not just the duplicate files I had intended to erase. In a word $$&^$^#*&*%!

Now I am in panic mode, I start emailing the world about what I have done and what I should do, I have 10 minutes to try and think this through and wait for replies and I can feel my blood pressure just start to climb. After 3 minutes of WTF and what should I do, I remembered a few things I was taught 20 years or so ago. Most of you computer geeks, nerds and specialists will undoubted be shouting to me as you read this that things aren't really deleted, they are just stored differently until overwritten. (yes that is a simple explanation sheesh). So I jump on this thing called the Internet and start up whit the statement " I just permanently deleted  files how do I recover" and all kinds of information pops up. Taking the next 5 minutes or so to check out what I would consider credible sources, I came across a free program that was highly recommended. So I down load the program on a stick, fire it up, low and behold it showed me that indeed most to the pictures, I had lost are there. Wahoo. Careful not to download anything on the laptop, I put things to sleep and leave for work 15 minutes later than usual and arrive, swipe in with about a minute to spare Whew.

So Stupid tax, the purpose of the blog. You might think that the stupid tax in this case is the frustration, time lost and time to recover( they recover at a much slower pace than deleting) time to re-sort and possibly rejig these pictures and you would be right except there is another cost or two.

Let me go back a step or two, after I fired up the program and it told me files were recoverable I then went to work. Upon arrival at home I went to start recovering the files. WELL it seems that the program is only free if want to see if the files are there if you want to recover them you must by the PRO version at $39.99us. Now there is no point in knowing that the files are there and not being able to recover them and I could have waited until morning and run down and picked up Larry's copy of a similar program but I pushed the STUPID button and i didn't pay attention to the STUPID message so $39.99 didn't seem to bad a tax to pay for this stupid persons mistake. The other cost is I did loose some pictures. As I write this blog and I have recovered over 1100 images and even more .cr2 (RAW pictures) but even in the short time I took to grab the program and stop downloads I have maybe 10 pictures or more that were either of poor status and unrecoverable or had already been over written and I am still looking for one complete day. That might be the hardest tax to pay.


Bill

Ireland Day 17 "There is no place like home"

Today we packed our bags and got ready to fly back to Canada. Well truth be told we packed them last night when we got in from Waddington. We were up at 5:30 so we could have the car packed by 6:30, we needed to be out the door and at the airport by 7:am. We got our boarding passes, said good bye to Geoff and Alison and went through security. Well we were all worried that with the souvenirs, crystal, gifts, shirts, shilelagh and duty free liqueurs that would be over our weight allowance. Our stuff weighed in well under the limits except for Wes' which was only a couple of kgs over. It is a good thing that they didn't weigh our carry ons, if they had we have all been over our weight limits. We boarded and headed home.

Over Devon

 Good bye UK

 We had a "duh fire truck" moment on the way home, this inscription on the wing is visible from my cabin window and really can only be seen while we are in the air. So walking on the area was problematic

Two weary travelers

A winter type coating at 35,000 feet

Hello Canada

Somewhere just west of Montreal, at this point offered Holly a parachute and suggested she jump here and not have to deal with flying back to this point from Toronto after landing. ( well maybe I suggested she just jump never mind the parachute)

 Thunderstorms starting to build over Ontario

Touch down in Toronto

It was a good flight rested but never really slept and we arrived almost a half an hour early. Sagan and Josh were on hand to pick us up. We drove Holly to Billy Bishop airport for her flight to Montreal and we got on the QEW and headed home, first to drop off Wes then on to 26.

Ireland was beautiful and meeting up with family and sharing in the trip made it that much more enjoyable, learning about our roots was fascinating and the airs how a blast, but Dorothy Gayle was right "There is no place like Home"

So I sign off on this travel blog at 9:06pm EDT or 2:06GMT which what our bodies are on. Good Night.

This blog is dedicated to Megan Ells who gave up her room so Holly and Wes had a place to lay their,heads and she had to put up with her sister Sara while we were away. Well done Megs, your sacrifice was much appreciated and I love you. ( and the others too so don't get jealous of Megs)

Uncle Bill

Ireland Day 16

I suppose I should change the name of the blog now that we are back in GB, however as the purpose of the trip was to visit Ireland and really we only had 4 days in GB, then I think the name shall stand.

Today was an early day, we were on the road early so we could try and beat the major crowds going to the Air Show at RAF Waddington. We started following the route mapped out by Google but as we neared Lincoln the organisers had signed planned routes into the base. We followed the signs came towards the base from the south and soon we were in a 5km long entrance line up to get in. Now shall mention that only Geoff and I are going to the Airshow, the others are heading off to tour a local "House". As this line was moving a foot a minute we looked for a better way in to get dropped off. We got out of line for regular entrance and followed the coach and handicapped  signs. We entered the park unchallenged and clearly they hadn't thought a lot about kiss and ride areas as there was no place to pull over. We finally met a marshal who directed us to stop anywhere get out and the others would follow on through the parking area and exit. So Geoff and I jump out, Alison takes over control of the car and off they go and we look for a place to pay. WE turned around and realised we have been let off in the middle of the static area and there is no one to take are money, we have just gotten in to one of the largest military air show in Britain if not the world for free.

Most of you know I have worked security for air shows for a number of years and let me tell you they certainly do things differently here. There is no sterile box, the roads around the base are open during all of the flying, (and the one road is at the end of the main runway and a lot closer to the runway than Robin Hill road is to the end of 15/33 in London), helicopter rides continue during the show,and  planes are roped off but there is no one to stop you from crossing the ropes. The other thing that was different was the number of concessions that were there was over whelming, shops, demo teams, food, drink, ( you can buy a beer, wine or mixed drink and carry it around with you) recruitment teams, new car dealers and mobile home sellers.

The flying starts at 10:30am and finishes at 5:00, there couldn't have been more than 45 minutes of pauses during the whole show. The aircraft that I saw static and flying were for the most part  a first time thing. I never thought I would see a UAV up close let alone a Typhoon or a SAAB AWACS plane. (the following photos are a quick snap shot of the show and are not necessarily the best of the 1289 pictures and video I took)

There were 78,000 people attending on the Saturday and there was easily that today if not 100,000. The weather was 29 by noon with open skies and beautiful for a show. Now not surprising I am typing this in the dark having the keyboard lit up by the glow off of my face and yes I had several application of a SPF45 sun cream on.

We left the show a little early to beat the crowds and Alison had a hell of a time getting to us as the police kept diverting way from the base and the road she needed to pick us up at. We did eventually meet and headed back to Crawley.


We stopped in Huntington for a lovely meal at the White Hart

then settled in for the two hour ride to Crawley. As we went over the Dartford Bridge we had a lovely sunset view looking up the Thames to London and down the Thames to the sea.

up to London

down to the sea

 Well it is late again and we have one more early start, need to be at Gatwick for 7 as we have a 10 o'clock flight out, fortunately it is only a 10 minute ride.


Cheers

Ireland Day 15

Today was a day to spend in Liverpool. We got up and had a big breakfast of eggs, rashers, sausage, hashbrowns and toast, along with Café Americana. Beth decided to provide the mornings entertainment.  Beth orders her eggs over hard or as she likes to say "like hockey pucks". when they arrived on sourdough bread she proceeded to cut into them. Unbenounced to her they were cooked in butter and fairly greasy, so as she cut into them the eggs slipped off her plate , off the table, hit her lap and landed on the floor. Oh would we have known so we could have videoed the episode and tried to wen the $10,000 prize. We then headed for the Albert Docks.

Once at the docks we had a brief look round while we contacted our cousin Lynne and her husband Geoff. They live about an hour south in Wolverhampton and agreed to come up to Liverpool to spend the day with us.

Beth and I took a stroll down to the Mersey to see what kind of boat traffic there would be. Although we saw tugs, a few freighters and the ship building yards we were surprised at how few pleasure craft there were and how few ocean going ships that could be seen. The Mersey seems to be about as wide as the Detroit River but with currents and tides it seemed to move a lot faster than the Detroit River.

After sorting out meeting times we went in to The Beatles Story, a museum about the origins and life of The Beatles.

The museum was well done, it told the story of The Beatles right from John and Paul meeting, through the Quarreymen, to Beatlemania

and finally to the break up in1970. The audio tour provided was narrated by John's sister and was well done. After the main tour they gave an up date of the four lads from Liverpool ending with the death;s of George and John. This is a must do for any Beatles fan.


After the museum we met up with Lynne and Geoff and took a bus tour of the city. While waiting for the bus we walked around the Albert Dock Area. Liverpool has done quite a bit of reno work on the docks filling old buildings with hotels, restaurants, museums and posh shops. Some of the more interesting things were a ping pong table set up on an old boat ramp

 and floating apartments for rent in the basin.

. 

These examples, the Joker, the Yellow Sub and the Titanic were available for  25 pounds per person per night.  Busking was not as common as I would have thought but as we got into the city more and more buskers appeared on the pedestrian malls. 

 The bus soon arrived and we were on our way.

We started though the old gates to the city from the docks

 by the Mariners Cathedral

 We saw some fine old buildings and interesting eateries, although this one probably needed a name change.

When we got back to the starting point we stayed on for a 1/2 turn longer and got off at Matthew Street. Home of the Cavern. The original Cavern building was had its upper floors demoed and the cellar caved putting in an underground that never happened.  Near the site of the first Cavern is a wall with the names of all the acts over the years that have performed there starting with The Beatles.

Across the road a reproduction of The Cavern Club was built were musicians of all stripes from major players to unknown still play to the public.

From Mathew street we walked by a lovely old church that was bombed out during the war, today many a couple book weddings there as it supposed to bring good luck unless of course it rains.

Liverpool has become quite the place to have HEN PARTIES. These are similar to Stags only the women from the bridal party go out to party one last time. If we saw one Hen Party we must have seen a dozen. Usually the bride to be wears some kind of "I'm an idiot" proclamation on her outfit or head and the rest of the group have "I'm with her" outfits. From the church we continued across town to the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral

Unfortunately we only had about 15 minutes before it closed for the day, hardly enough to do it justice. From the Cathedral we walked to The Quarter, a restaurant were we had another lovely meal. After dinner we said good bye to the Wolverhampton Cousins

and then good night to Liverpool.

Tomorrow off to Lincoln were "I feel a need for Speed" and a much needed jet fuel injection.