Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Back in 2005 I went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to do some volunteer work. Within the first week my camera was stolen. Being that I was volunteering in some of the communities there, I spoke with some people about it. They said that all digital cameras are worth money, but none of the film cameras are unless it's an SLR."

That's one UGLY camera - but it certainly serves the purpose of making it less worthy of being stolen. I don't know if I could do this to any of my equipment - I'm one of those people who really tries to take care of his gear and I get upset if my laptop gets a scratch on it. Guess I won't be volunteering in the seedy part of Brazil any time soon...

I know I just started as a Contributing Editor on Digital Home Thoughts, but Jason is such a slave-driver, I already need a vacation! LOL! Actually I've been planning this trip to Washington DC for a few months now (I made it a personal goal to travel more this year, and DC was one of my top picks).

Getting through security at the airport was a little bit of a hassle since they make you remove your laptop from its case and take your shoes and jacket off, but it was relatively painless; I was surprised they didn't ask to open my backpack with all the electronics I'm bringing along. After making my way through security and into the main terminal area, I noticed quite a few people using laptops, I wondered...could there be free Wifi around? I turn on my laptop, and lo and behold, up pops a free access point run by Sacramento International Airport. The funny thing is I had spent a few hours this week at a failed attempt to get my laptop to share my Dash's internet -- I never thought to check whether the airport has Wifi access *smacks forehead*!

So for the next two weeks I'll be staying with some friends in DC and touring around all the historical sights while taking tons of photos in the process. Here's the technology I plan to bring:

• Gateway Laptop (used to offload photos every night and to keep me connected to the intArwebs, I might upload my "better" photos to Flickr every night as a backup method)
• Canon 10D DSLR Camera (512 MB CF card, 3 extra batteries, telephoto lens, medium zoom lens, and prime lens)
• Canon SD870IS Point-And-Shoot Camera (it's small enough to carry wherever I go, plus it has a wider-angle lens than my 10D!)
• T-Mobile Dash (to use as a phone, plus I checked my flight status on the way to the airport)
• Nintendo DS (for fun if I get bored)
• PSP (for even more fun if I get bored of the DS)
• iPod Nano 8GB (1st gen)
• Philips In-Ear Headphones (I'm curious to see how well these work on the plane)
• An Old-Fashioned Book (in case all my technology fails ;) )

Am I as geeky as Jason? And am I forgetting anything? I guess it might be a little late to ask this since I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my plane to leave within the next few minutes...

Tomorrow, I’m off to Japan for two weeks for a real, business-free vacation with Ashley (I'll be back in action on April 7th). It’s going to be awesome! I tend not to get excited about vacations until right before they happen, so I’m just starting to get excited. I’m all geeked up, bringing:

• …the XPS M1330 laptop for photo and video processing (gotta’ have some grunt for processing those raw files)
• …the Fujitsu P7010D for watching movies on
• …my Proporta battery for keeping the Fujitsu lasting that 11 hour flight
• …the Nikon D300 + four lenses (including my new ultra-sharp 24-70 f/2.8) + 32 GB CF card + 3 x 8 GB CF cards
• …the Canon SD 850 IS (with 8 GB microSD) for snapping casual pics and for videos (damn I wish it did HD videos - I don’t want to bring my Canon HV20)
• …two Zunes 8’s (one for the wife, one for me)
• …one pair of Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 EB’s
• …a TomTom GPS (without maps, just for finding our way back to our starting point GPS coordinates - was going to bring the HP iPAQ GPS, but it crashed and that didn’t make me feel very confident)
• …iGo Juice with several adaptors, PPC Techs Lil Sync Cable, Lil Sync Mobile USB Power Pack for charging everything
• My T-Mobile Dash, not to use as a phone, but to look up our travel schedule
• …a few assorted adaptors and cables