The Obsessive Photographer

It was a quiet night, finally. Our son was in bed, there wasn’t anything going on and I was already in my P.J.’s. I was tired, thinking of going to bed early and get a long nights sleep for once (I’m a night owl by nature). Just have to take care of a few chores before sneaking off to bed. I took our dog out the front door for her last walk of the night…that was pretty much what changed my grand plans.

There was a good size storm raging over the Gulf of Mexico, about 20 miles to the West. Overhead it was clear and still, stars sparkling brightly. There was no sound of lightning, just some random flashes. I saw them out of the corner of my eye as I stood there. Then I saw a big, single bolt…lost behind the house across the street.

Hmmm. Wish I hadn’t seen that. Maybe it was a fluke, the only big bolt to come down. Wouldn’t be able to capture it anyway with the houses on the other side of the street (I normally shoot off the back of the house where I have a clear view over the lake).

As I was trying to convince myself I could let this one go another huge silent bolt streaked down from the top of this beautiful thunderhead, with additional bolts lighting the cloud from the inside.

Dammit.

OK, the only way I can get this is from my roof. I couldn’t…could I? My wife will surely think I’ve lost my mind. Oh, what the heck…if she doesn’t know I’m crazy by now she probably should get confirmation. I’m doing it.

I rush inside like a tornado, hurriedly grabbing gear. Camera, check. Tripod, check. Wireless shutter release, check. Remote, check. My wife looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “What are you doing?” she said.

“Shooting some lightning in front of the house” I said, “from the roof.” I added quietly, turning as I said it, maybe she wouldn’t hear me.

“The roof? Do you really think that’s a good idea?” she said, quickly adding “storms happen all the time…” she said, kind of singing the last couple words, as if to emphasize how loony she thought I was being.

“Big storm…good stuff…be back in a little while” I said, rushing out to the garage before she could protest.

I grabbed the ladder and headed off like a pack mule around the corner of the house. Moments later I was straddling the peak of my roof, looking over the neighborhood toward the storm in the distance. The worlds largest and happiest lightning rod.

As quickly as I was up there the storm was generating beautiful bolts every 30-45 seconds. It never ceases to amaze me how large and clumsy my fingers are at moments like this.

So I get set up and start shooting, it doesn’t take long to score.

Every dark cloud has an electric lining

I was biting my nails hoping this one would turn out…I think it did.

Nature's Balance, Dual Strikes Over the Gulf of Mexico

And one more:

Running Man in the Western Sky

I sat up there for almost an hour, time melting away with each click of my camera.  My neighbor came out to let his dog out.  I sat up there, quietly, just hoping he wouldn’t look up and see me on my roof in my pajamas.  I wasn’t quite sure what I would say.  I laughed at myself and just kept shooting.  Each time I was ready to pack it up another bolt would streak through the sky, prompting “just one more shot”.

Finally I decided to call it a night, packed up and went inside.  As soon as I uploaded the photos my wife had to acknowledge my idea wasn’t so bad after all.  In fact she wants me to enlarge and frame the second one above.  OK, so far so good

I posted the first shot to my flickr photostream [link] and immediately started getting views, great!  This morning I got up to find the following comment from my Mom on my photo:

“I sure don’t like you sitting on the roof, I don’t want you to be a lightning rod, all the great shots in the world are not worth getting hurt over, but that is perhaps a mothers point of view.”

So I guess I got the shots, but I still ended up busted by my mom. So yes, I was a human lightning rod I guess, but I came through it just fine.  I love you mom!

So I get around Florida a good bit.  I’m not a fan of chain restaurants and avoid them if at all possible.  I work with Law Enforcement in a support function and trust if there’s anyone who can find a good place to eat it’s a cop.  I’m usually right.

When I’m working with an agency I almost always tell them to take me somewhere unique, local.  Alright, so there’s the occasion that I’m in a small town who finally got a Chili’s in their town (no more driving to the big city to eat!) where I give in and go to a chain, but usually there’s something better out there. Besides, they are convinced their Chili’s is better than the one by my house and there’s just no arguing with a cop.

Smokin' Joe's BBQ, Lithia Florida

Yesterday I was working with the Crisis Negotiation Team for Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office out at their firing range.  South of Tampa in Lithia, Florida (a loooong way South).  The only thing I really knew was out there was a dirty old Circle K, an elementary school, a few houses and miles and miles of orange groves.  Being out in the middle of nowhere (which I don’t mind in the slightest, by the way) I was surprised when they said there was a BBQ place called “Smokin’ Joes” nearby.  They haven’t steered me wrong before, so I gladly followed behind them.

OK, so we go past the old Circle K, and the road I normally turn on and guess what?  There was stuff I hadn’t seen there before…Smokin’ Joes BBQ being one of them.  Amazing what you can find when you go down those back roads, isn’t it?

This place looked promising right off the bat.  From the hand drawn sign, to the fact the whole thing was run out of a self-contained trailer with adjacent covered picnic tables, to the smell of quality BBQ that was hitting me square in the nose, this was promising.

Smokin Joe's BBQ, Lithia, Florida

Evidently the smell that had put my salivary glands on overdrive was pouring forth out of a very large smoker aptly named “Big Stinky”.   I didn’t know just how much I was going to love that big smoker until after I ate my lunch.

Big Stinky

I walked up the trailer and the first thing I noticed was just how clean everything was.  Yes, this is outside dining…the Florida version of street food, but very carefully maintained and cared for (and I’ve seen the places that aren’t).

I looked down the hand written menu on the sandwich board and was having difficulty picking out what I wanted.  Boneless Country Ribs?  Spare Ribs? Chicken? Pulled Pork?  Sausage?  Damn, this was going to be tough.

I settled on the pork plate and got one step closer to the window to order.  Things got more difficult when the Deputy in front of me ordered the Boneless Country Rib Sandwich, which was basically a huge pile of smoked boneless rib meat on top of a couple pieces of bread.  Oh man.

I walked up to the window and saw a hand written sheet of paper with “Starr Special, with Sweet Tea $6.99″  What’s the Starr Special?  It’s chopped BBQ pork on top of a pile of rocket hot crispy french fries.  Oh yeah, that’s for me.  I got my food and chose the sweet BBQ sauce from the selection by the window and poured it over my pork and fries.

So we all sat down with our styrofoam containers full of smokey goodness and had a fantastic lunch together.  The picnic area is covered and has fans on all four corners, keeping the area as cool as can be expected.  Big Stinky is about 20 feet away, silently puffing away, filling the air and scenting our clothes with the unmistakable aroma of smoldering hardwood.

The food was spectacular.  I looked at everyone’s plates and each one looked amazing.  My Starr Special was just incredible, each fork of mixed pork / sauce / french fries pure heaven.  The pork by itself was perfectly cooked.  Moist and flavorful, with a perfect crisp smoked edge on the outer pieces.  The sauce was very good, balanced effortlessly between sweet and spicy, and providing the connection between the pork and fries.  The fries were very hot, and crisp enough not to give up their crunch under the sauce and meat.  It was a great flavor / texture combo.

Smokin' Joe's Starr Special

So if you’re up for a bit of a road trip from Tampa, head down to Lithia on Hwy 39 and check out Smokin’ Joe’s.  I know I’ll be back the next time I go to the range.  Oh, and thanks again to the HCSO CNT, who introduced me to this great place!

Wow. I feel like I’ve got a strange attachment to NASA Shuttle Mission STS-128. I’ve seen it on the launch pad during the scrubbed launch on August 25th [link to post]. I saw the launch from my house in Tampa on August 29th [link to post]. And tonight I saw Discovery, docked with the International Space Station, fly over our house just after dark.

Space Shuttle Discovery, STS 128 Docked with ISS by Damgaard Photography

We almost missed the flyover thanks to fast moving clouds.  It was 70 degrees up from the horizon, traveling Southwest to Northeast.  We got a short glimpse of it as it streaked by a hole in the clouds.  I can’t believe I got it…made a quick adjustment to my tripod and got the shot.  It was really pure luck, but I’ll take it.

I’d like to run over and catch it land when it comes back to Kennedy, that would bring the whole thing  full circle.  We’ll see!

These will NOT cure your computer.

So I got a virus, and it serves me right. I had let my virus protection lapse in my “It’ll never happen to me” mindset.

In all the time I’ve had a computer and internet access nothing has ever happened…not even a blip on the radar. So in my infinite wisdom I figured I really didn’t need it. I guess I was wrong.

My internet browser was hijacked. I could put “Kittens” into Google and I’d get a million “Kitten” links…the problem is they all went to other websites. This is not a problem if you’re looking for “Kittens” on SHOPZILLA.com, but unfortunately I just wasn’t in the market.

It wasn’t long before the whole thing started acting funky. Pop ups started advising me my machine was going to burst into flames at any moment unless I bought “Windows Police Pro”. It was incredibly hard to tell what was an actual Windows alert and a fake one. Every one that I closed down brought up two more. This was bad. Very bad.

So I did what every dude would do…blindly started poking around trying to “fix” the issue. I quickly renewed my virus protection. Guess what? Viruses that have already taken up residence on your hard drive don’t like getting the eviction notice. Pretty soon it was completely down. Crap.

Fast forward 48 hours without a computer. Here I am, frazzled, less hair, dark circles under my eyes…but with a functioning system again. It was simple, really. Here’s how it went:

I paid $95 for a house call from an “I.T. Professional” who would be able to diagnose and fix my problem in no time. He left with the system “working” after an hour and a half, took my money and the computer promptly crashed again within one hour. (mental note…get money back).

Another $69 to upgrade my virus protection suite, including telephone support (yay!)

Spent 9 HOURS (no, I’m not kidding) on the phone with software provider installing, reinstalling, uninstalling (”are you sure, sir, that you have checked the box which says REFRESH?” “Yes, yes I am” I say as patiently as possible) checking, rechecking…

Tried very hard not to cry when the [expletive deleted] Tech [expletive deleted] Support person told me they have exhausted their abilities. I would have to pay for a “Virus Removal” session for $89.00 with a [expletive deleted] Senior Tech Support Representative. That’s $253 if you’re keeping count.

Could this really be happening?

I begrudgingly paid the $89 and got my session started, surrendering my mouse and keyboard to their remote host. For a full hour I watched this guy race lightning fast through my machine…uploading and wielding programs with names like “The Avenger” (a blazing sword under the logo). Not exactly my thoughts of Saturday night entertainment.

Then it was over. He turned the controls over to my hands, nearly crippled from internet withdrawls. The fix was quick and sweet. My baby was back again, purring like a kitten.

There are many morals to this story, and I believe they’re all self explanatory. I can tell you this was a perfect wake up call though, no serious damage to anything but my psyche. I’ll keep up my protection from now on, and I highly recommend everyone else do the same. Viruses stink…bad.

Doing another photo shoot for the Art Institute of Tampa Culinary Team tomorrow…I have my machine back just in time.

Lightning streaks across the Florida night sky

More storms tonight, perfect positioning for me and my camera, my son Tucker joined me in my shoot too and my wife Kim watched from our screened porch.  He was very excited to see each image displayed in between shots.  It was funny, he wanted me to move my camera every time a flash came from another part of the sky.

Florida Fireworks

Shots like this aren’t magic, although some photographers would like you to believe they are.

If you have a good vantage point and a camera with manual controls you can do this fairly easily.  Truthfully it has more to do with luck than anything else as long as you have the gear you need.

If you’re interested you can view my earlier post about shooting lightning.

It’s been a productive summer for lightning shots.  I’ve spent more time than usual getting eaten alive by Florida mosquitoes.  For the record, the itching is all worth it!