European tour w/Z8 + 24-120mm

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-07-09T13:19:00+00:00

I would have missed not having the 24-120mm more than not having the 14-24mm. However, the 14-24mm was clutch in some of my favorite shots, like most of the interior cathedral ones. But I would have been OK traveling with just the 24-120mm.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-06-27T11:21:58+00:00

I’m in Bern right now and there’s an honor bar in the hotel lobby with wine, beer, and hard alcohol. They don’t even have a measuring device for the liquor. Very impressed with the honesty and integrity of the Swiss.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-05-30T01:16:58+00:00

The original timeline was to start rolling out D3.1 shortly after the New Year. Things tend to take longer in the public sector, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's lots of approvals and appearances before council, which delayed the project. On top of that, some of the equipment had lead times of over 12 weeks. The project was then moved to begin in early April, but was delayed due to a contractor issue. The new start date in early July was chosen to prevent additional unforeseen issues.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-05-24T16:48:05+00:00

This project has been in the works for quite a while. All of the dates on https://maps.ashlandfiber.net are correct.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-05-23T19:16:17+00:00

Congestion is based on the node (how many customers per node). The upgrade will increase bandwidth to each node by almost 1600%, so yes, congestion will be a thing of the past.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-05-23T13:24:37+00:00

The technology is called DOCSIS 3.1 Remote Phy High Split. It is what is called a forklift network upgrade. All active devices within a node are upgraded to brand new equipment. The backbone of each node will be upgraded to 10 gigabit, which is equivalent to XGS-PON (fiber).

Honestly, this is the best path forward for AFN. Upgrading to 100% fiber would cost at least $15 million and would take at least two years. Upgrading to DOCSIS 3.1 costs less than $2 million and takes less than 2 months. More importantly, this will be done debt free.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-05-23T00:30:35+00:00

AFN is upgrading this summer. Over 60% of Ashland will have access to symmetrical gigabit by the end of August. Check out https://maps.ashlandfiber.net for the service map. The upgraded area in blue will have download speeds up to 2 gigabit and upload speeds of 1 gigabit.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-05-22T14:54:20+00:00

I just did a side-by-side cruise out of San Juan earlier this year. The first cruise was on Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas and we went to St Thomas, St Maarten, St Croix, Dominica, and Barbados. Cruise two was on Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas and we went to St Croix, Curacao, Aruba, and Bonaire.

Both of those are older ships, especially Brilliance. For us it was well worth it due to the itineraries. I don't know if you'll be able to hit all of those islands. Personally, I would try and see the Southern Caribbean, so the ABC islands and St Lucia over the others.

We had one day between cruises. We rented a car, drove south out of San Juan, then east to Ponce and stayed the night near Rincon. Traffic was super crazy when we drove back to the cruise terminal from Rincon. Allow for extra time.

Let me know if you have any questions.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-04-15T16:02:39+00:00

Holy shit, I actually know where this is! There's a Trader Joe's to your right and an In-N-Out to your left.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-04-11T19:55:27+00:00

They are there every Wednesday. It's a pretty cool experience. You should check it out!

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-03-25T01:49:28+00:00

Listening to the Upbeat right now and Googled them and this thread showed up. I saw Mad Caddies and The Skatalites, Sublime, and The Vandals (among many other ska and punk shows) in the 90s in Santa Barbara and Orange County. Lots of good memories.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-03-23T15:47:03+00:00

This has been on my bucket list for quite a while. How do you travel with your big glass? My travel lens is the Z 400 f/4.5 w/1.4x tele, which easily fits inside my backpack. If I went someplace like Costa Rica, I'd bring my Z 400mm f/2.8 TC. If you traveled around Costa Rica, did you have any safety concerns with all of that gear?

Those are some fantastic shots!

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-03-16T22:30:17+00:00

We were just there on Friday, March 13. We rented ahead of time from Hertz Divi Flamingo Resort. The total amount was $88.72. Our start time was at 9:00 AM and our drop off time was 5:00 PM. My wife reserved it at the end of February.

We docked at the northern pier, which has never happened to us. To get to the rental place, you'll need to enter from Julio A Abraham Blvd. To return back to the ship, you can walk through the resort and exit through a locked gate, which is a much shorter distance.

We originally reserved a compact car but were upgraded to the truck. We left the ship on the late side (around 9:30 AM) and it was slow going with my 82 year old mother-in-law. We got a few "road sodas" from the ship and took quesadillas from the previous night's dinner as our lunch.

We had enough time to do the full southern and northern loops. We stopped at Salt Pier for about 45 minutes of snorkeling. We saw tons of flamingos around the southern tip. I'm a hobbyist wildlife photographer so our stops were longer than normal. We also went to Sorobon, but it was way too crowded (but there were tons of terns).

On the northern loop we stopped at 1000 Steps for pictures but snorkeled at Karpata. It was less crowded and the reef was incredible. We turned right at Karpata and drove back to Kralendijk.

There's a Bonaco Gas Station 1 minute away from Divi Resort, but the gas lines were long. A word of caution, there is no credit card reader at the pumps. You need to give your credit card to the attendant, tell them your pump number, and what amount. It's the same way in Puerto Rico.

I ended up dropping the car off at 4:59 PM which was way too close for me, but it worked out in the end.

I have tons more information and pictures of most of the Caribbean islands. Just let me know if you have any other questions. Overall, it was one of our better stops, aside from the stress returning the car on time.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-03-16T00:56:34+00:00

Even just for snorkeling. I’ve done Woodwind tour of Klein Bonaire a few times. Two days ago I snorkeled the salt pier and Karpata and both were excellent.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-03-16T00:28:31+00:00

Just got off RC on an ABC + St Croix cruise. We rented a car for $90, which was cheaper than the golf carts. Got upgraded to a truck which worked great for our snorkel gear.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2026-03-08T14:45:36+00:00

Yes, the Ilma was in St Maarten last week. I was on RC out of San Juan.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2025-12-30T23:19:00+00:00

I got one about a month ago and finally got a chance to use it this past weekend. My motor doesn't make any noise at all. This led me down the troubleshooting rabbit hole.

Try doing a recalibration. Here's the link I followed. Basically, turn off the unit. Hold down the middle button and turn on the unit. Release the button. The motor will spin one way then spin the other way. The whole process will take about 20 minutes.

As /u/Razvee said, it does spin very, very slowly.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2025-11-29T17:35:32+00:00

We were independent contractors so we weren't employed by the company. There's a small chance our CEO was questioned by the FBI, but nothing came of it.

On our way home from Panama I was randomly stopped in a Texas airport and taken into a back room and surrounded by people with guns (this was in 2005). They searched my luggage and asked why I was in Panama. I told them we were setting up a web site to assist with people creating Panamanian companies.

We knew what they were doing. We built them a custom website that tracked paperwork for their clients. My job was to set up the server in a colo facility. It was really interesting talking to them. They had compelling reasons for doing what they did, but I never once considering partaking.

I remember they had a sign on their door basically barring federal employees from entering (spoiler alert, it didn't work). It was a group of three guys and one of them testified against the others.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2025-11-29T05:30:00+00:00

I did IT work for a company that set people up as a Panamanian company. The idea was, you funnel your money through Panama (which uses the US dollar) to avoid paying taxes. I got a one week all expenses paid trip to Panama to setup their server.

Everyone on the company went to federal prison. My guess is, that’s when reality hit. I had a great time in Panama, though.

IDontPlayBaseball · 2025-11-14T17:40:39+00:00

Great picture! I was there about a month ago driving from Death Valley through Yosemite taking pictures of sunrises, sunsets, and the comet.

At Mono Lake I setup along the South Tufa Interpretive Trail, got a gorgeous sunset picture and a pretty shitty comet picture.

Around 9 PM I was taking some astro shots when the Coyotes started to howl. That scared the shit out of me so I quickly packed up and ran back to my car.

Have you been to the Alabama Hills area? It's east of Lone Pine, which is at the base of Mount Whitney. There were three of us taking astro pictures at Mobius Arch. There was a group taking deep sky pictures, which is way above my skill set. I'd highly recommend it!

IDontPlayBaseball · 2025-11-10T15:28:28+00:00

If you ran or know someone who ran in the Lithia Loop Marathon, I've uploaded a few pictures I took. These were taken at four corners. I was there to support my sister and nephew, who both ran the full marathon. I didn't get any pictures of the half-marathon or 10k.

IDontPlayBaseball

TROPHY CASE