To find, to lose, to find and lose again - my India take vanishes into digital ether; I search, I plead

I shot only one frame all day yesterday and this is it - two ravens through my car window as seen through the drive-through line at Taco Bell and this is how I wound up there:

I had it my mind that when I could, I would sort through my India pictures and put together some sort of package on Soundarya to share with the family. I did not know where those pictures were and I dreaded the search to try to find them.

Behind and to the sides of my computer monitor, my desk was a clutter of hard drives, cables and wires - a couple of dozen hard drives, in fact - some of them plugged in, some of them not. I had once known where everything was on those hard drives, but over time, in the constant juggle and shuffle of digital information - moving images from this drive to that, then erasing from here, etc. etc. etc., it had become a tangle of confusion.

I came up with a system in my head to finally get on top of it, but to do so would require that I remove the harddrives from the enclosures they came in so that instead I could just insert and take them out of hard drive docks at will.

I checked with an expert and he said, yes, this would work - I could just remove all those drives from their enclosures and this would free them up for use in the docks.

So I did, and it took me a long time, because once I would figure out how to take one sort of enclosure apart, the next would be completely different and I did not have the right tools.

To simplify a complicated story, by the time I finished, I discovered that six of my harddrives were of an earlier design and would not seat into the docks, so I could no longer read them. Plus, two harddrives would seat and spin, but would not sign on to the computer. So I made four trips back and fourth to Machous were Bruce helped me reconstruct those that needed reconstructing and tried to help me bring the two that would not read back, but they had gone bad and could not be brought back.

During one of those trips back and forth to Machaus, I stopped at Taco Bell and picked up an order for myself and another for Margie, who was not feeling good.

In my office, I carefully searched every drive that could be read - and was horrified to discover that my India take, #2, when Melanie and I went to the wedding of Soundarya and Anil, could not be found.

Although I blogged the wedding, to this date I had not found the time to go through the big majority of the thousands of photos that I took afterward. I know there are some good pictures of Sandy in there, along with many other things from those times that Sandy and Anil were off by themselves and Melanie and I were traveling elsewhere with Vasanthi, Murthy, Buddy and Vijay.

All this now appeared to be lost, vanished into digital ether. If I could not somehow find them, then all I woud have from that trip would be the few low-res images, mostly from the wedding, that actually appeared on this blog.

I searched and searched and searched, venturing into the shadow areas. At one point, I thought that I had found a set, for I did find folders for those dates - but the folders were empty.

They are only photographs and their loss is a tiny and insignificant thing in comparison to her loss - but still, photographs are all that is left. I sank into despair. My body shook and my hands trembled.

I realize that what I am about to state is going to sound really corny to some, but it is how it happened, so I am going to state it. Not knowing what else to do, after a day-and-a-half of searching but not finding, I said aloud, "Sandy! I need your help! You've got to help me."

After I spoke the words, I suddenly noticed one of those tiny, portable, black plastic hard drives that you can buy at Wal-Mart, sitting beneath the computer tower on my desk. I always take two or three of these into the field with me, so that I can make duplicate copies of everything that I shoot as I move along. After I get home, I dump the images into my big harddrives and then erase these little ones, so that I can take them back out into the field the next time I go.

I picked up the little drive and plugged it into the computer.

The India take was all there.

Coincidence, my brain tells me. My heart wants to believe otherwise.

The truth is, I do not know. 

I now have the pictures, but Sandy is still gone.

Even as I type this, I am loading those pictures into my Lightroom editor. This is the very first image from that take - it is Melanie as we wait at Ted Stevens International Airport to board the first of the four planes that will fly us to Bangalore.

And here we are, Melanie and I together, reflected in the window of the underground train that shuttles passengers between various terminals at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Now we have left Chicago, enroute to Mumbai.

And here we are, in Mumbai.

In Mumbai, we saw a sleepy little girl.

Now we ride the shuttle that will take us from one Mumbai terminal to another.

Through the shuttle window. What you don't see is the heat. Despite the late hour, it was stifling hot. We are about to board the flight to Bangalore.

Now we are at Murthy and Vasanthi's in Bangalore, where I fell asleep. It was Sandy who woke me up - Soundarya Ravichandran. After I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I took a picture of her and this is it. The next day, she would wed and would become Soundarya Anil Kumar.

I now have many pictures to sort through and edit. This barely begins it. It is going to take some time and I do not know where I am going to find that time.

I know that I promised that I would not let this blog dwell where it seems to be dwelling, but one does not just turn away from an experience such as this and suddenly find that it is over.

Still, it is my commitment to now get back on track and to blog about other things. After I have a picture package ready to share with the family, perhaps I will put up a few more up here.

I suspect that this will take me about one year.

View images as slides

This Volkswagen and Taco Bell is not the post that I have been working on, but a shallow substitute

I don't quite know what to do here. I have just spent at least four hours, maybe a bit more, working on a 20 image post that I had titled, "the day that I dropped by my brother's house to visit the ghosts of my parents." Text wise, I had worked my way through 10 pictures and still had 10 to go.

Not only was the effort taking up more time than I can afford, but it was creating a great deal of text that was plunging deeper into some aspects of my life and musings than I suspect many readers would care to go.

It's all material that I must write about, but maybe I am getting a little ahead of myself and this is not the right moment.

Anyway, I do not have the time to finish it today.

So I am going to drop it. Maybe I will pick it up again tomorrow or later, maybe I won't. Maybe it will just sit in the draft section of my blog - unpublished, unread, never viewed. 

Instead, just to get something up today, I now post this picture of a Volkswagen parked near the Taco Bell that sits about one block from my brother's house, where the ghosts of my parents reside - at least in the form of artifacts that play with my mind and memory.

As I have already noted, I am back in Wasilla, but, even if I never post what I have been working on, I want to introduce readers to my niece, Julie, and her family. They came to the wedding reception, which Rex and I missed, but not to the functions that I attended and photographed.

I did pay them a visit, however, and I did get photos of all, except for Riley, who had just suffered some dental work, felt like a chipmunk, and refused to be photographed.

And Melanie - please do not get upset with me. I did not eat at this Taco Bell. I was too stuffed to do that.

Maybe next time.

Kalib jumps up and down; a flight of fancy about the Yankees and the Cubs

I had taken Margie out to eat at Taco Bell and when we came home and turned into the driveway, we saw a strange sight through the front room window: the silhouette of Jacob as he jumped up and down.

We entered the house and saw that what he had been doing was mimicking Kalib, for Kalib had learned to jump. Now, he was busy honing his new skill.

This was really not a situation for the pocket camera, but rather the EOS 1Ds M III, but the pocket camera was in my pocket and the Ds III was not.

I thought about running into my office to grab it, but if you want to photograph a toddler jumping, you had better do it while he is jumping, which he might not be after you run to your office to get another camera.

And anyway, sometimes I just find it fun to see what I can get with the pocket camera when the situation is all wrong for it. Canon has just released two new pocket cameras - the G11 and the s90, both of which are supposed to be greatly improved in low light.

So when I get that check I mentioned last night, I am going to be really tempted to buy one. While I would not use a pocket camera when I am doing paid-for work, I love the pocket camera. Yes, when I use it I miss the super wide-angle, the big telephotos and the motor drive, but there is something that is just plain fun about using a camera with a limited lens and that you can only get a shot off every couple of seconds.

It adds challenge, I guess.

But really, Billy? For Kalib's first big jumping episode?

He shows off for his grandma, who is very pleased.

He observes as his dad demonstrates the possibilities.

Of course, I had to tell the world. So I got into the car and drove straight back to Taco Bell, got in line and soon saw this New York Yankee fan in my rear view mirror. I had no idea who he was but when I saw him pull out his cell phone I quickly punched the button on mine labeled "cell phone nearest to you" and sure enough, I got him before he could even make his call.

"Hello?" he answered, puzzled.

"Kalib jumped today," I said.

"Who the hell is Kalib?" he asked. "And who the hell are you and how the hell did you get my number?"

So I told him I was driving the red Escape that was waiting in line for tacos right in front of him and that Kalib was my grandson.

"Oh," he said. "I never would have guessed. You look too young to be a grandfather. I thought maybe you were 31. Well, congratulations then. Hey! Did you see how the Yankees cleaned up on the LA Angels of Anaheim? I think they're going to the series, I think they're going all the way. You think?"

"When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Mickey Mantle," I answered. "I wanted to go all the way, but it didn't happen. My parents kept dragging me off to church. That's why."

"Oh," he said. "I guess you really must be a grandpa, then. And what do you mean? The Yanks went all the way with Mantle! Seven times! It didn't matter if you were in church or not! The Yankees still won! God always watches over the Yankees."

"Well, I'm a Cubs fan now," I said, "and they never go all the way." He hung up.

LA Angels of Anaheim?

I called this lady and told her, too. She was so ecstatic that she began to hop around like a rabbit. I tried to photograph her hopping, but the pocket camera can be a little slow and so this is how I wound up catching her - right between hops.