Toivo's Thoughts

The only thing more difficult than taking a good photo is finding a bag for your photo gear.

Fine, that's hyperbole, but I've long been looking for a bag that meets my needs. In particular the challenge is to find a bag for "adventure travel" or hardcore touristing; it needs to not only carry my camera gear, but also a jacket and other layers, lunch, water, maps, souvenirs etc.

The best backpack I had found was the Lowepro Primus AW (AW is Lowepro-ese for having a rain cover, All Weather). It has a great carry system with a proper hip belt, sternum strap and load lifters. It also has a relatively large non-camera compartment, and a tripod attachment. It has served me well on multiple trips to Japan and elsewhere, but a few annoyances remained: the built-in tripod carry system was entirely inadequate for a medium-sized tripod (Gitzo GT2541 with Benro B0 ballhead). Its non-camera compartment was still too small, in particular it was too small to handle an A4 / Letter sized object.
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I found a neat Flickr group for my home town, and figured it's a rather good way of showing it off! Go look at pretty pictures!

Vince asked me to join him in a photo mission to the University of Tampa today. Despite having lived in Tampa for quite a while now, despite it being a virtual landmark, and despite me driving past the campus several times, I have never actually been there.

Most of the campus is neat, small and nice, but the historic main building is definitely worth a visit. Alas, the Florida weather came upon us and prevented any useful outdoor photography. Definitely worth returning to, though!

Following that, we stuffed ourselves with sushi. Tokyo Sushi now has three pages of special house rolls! That, and a really cute new waitress.

Pictures

The first try at the launch found me stuck on SR-50, until I found out that it got scrubbed. So, scared by the record crowds, I went out a bit early today, leaving Tampa around 3:30 am. I got to Titusville around 5:30, at which point I was able to get a good parking spot and a decent seat; almost all the waterfront spots were already claimed by then. Getting there early enough for an afternoon launch would be an exercise in heat stroke.

The crowd, based on the sample of people around me was delightfully new, this was the first launch for almost everyone. Very excited too, oohing and aahing and applauding.

The girl with the horn apparently is the great-granddaughter of Charles Lindbergh, starting an early aviation career.

The three condos now occupy a big stretch of land which was part of the park before, so the available viewing area was cut in half. Also, the pier was closed for a change, so a lot of people were cramming into a much smaller space than before. And crammed it was!

Returning from Titusville went surprisingly well once I cleared the immediate traffic, though I got stuck on SR-50 for another time. For future trips, I'll probably try to settle for the Beeline instead or find some different route.

I also had lunch with Chris, and spent some money on tea and books at Barnes and Nobles. I'm glad I didn't consider going to the Blue Room tonight; I had trouble staying awake driving back at 2 pm! (AMP to the rescue.)