Judas Priest, Etc

A big thank you to my friend Holly for thinking of me first when her other friend bailed on going to the JP concert.
This was my eighth time seeing the Priest, and since this is their "last" world tour, I'll probably only get to see them a time or two more.
It was a bummer that KK Downing has already retired due to wrist problems, but the new guy looked just like him and played close enough to pass.

This is what corporate boxes look like at the ATT Center. I saw Metallica last year from a similar box, and it's starting to grow on me.
At my age comfort, space, a waiter, and a restroom 20 steps away rate higher than getting slammed by the 'tards around me.


I wasn't impressed by the sound engineer, and clearly Rob Halford is due for retirement. He sounded great for the first ten songs but after that luck had more to do with the results than the soundman's feeble attempts to keep things together.
I totally could have done a better job on the vocals.
The rest of the band was like a well-oiled pile-driving machine, as always.
Hopefully Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society was paying attention--Fast does NOT equal Heavy.
(They sucked)

Thin Lizzy should have played second instead of opening.
They had like 7 huge hit songs, and sounded great.




A Beautiful Mess played in Kerrville tonight, and when we were loading the equipment into the club I spotted a Coleman cooler just like mine except for the colors:
One of the cooks or bartenders is probably confused right about now, because when they got to work their ice chest's lid was white.

I never liked my green lid anyway--this is much better.
It's the kind non-hateful prank I prefer.


For a change the club didn't have it's backyard lit-up with a bunch of halogen floods, so I was able to shoot this view across the Guadalupe river:
The stars at night are big and bright...

Taking A "Break" From Photography???

For the third Saturday in a row I found myself in Kerrville, right on the banks of the Guadalupe river.
The crescent moon rose into a gap in the trees while we were on break (lucky timing!) so I shot this:


Unfortunately, this will be the last photo from my main camera for awhile:
Apparently my backpack wasn't closed all the way, and while pulling it out of the truck my DSLR flew out and hit the street in front of our house.
It landed hard and I was really scared by all the flying pieces, but they turned out to be just the lens cap and battery.
The only damage as far as I can tell right now is a big piece of rather crappy plastic that forms the grip, which has a big rip in it and torn screw holes.
By holding the battery in manually I was able to take pictures, so there is hope.

If I can get a replacement for the broken part, I can install it myself.
If not, I can probably repair the grip piece anyway with some epoxy and kevlar fabric.

The anti-dust sensor shaker/image stabilization mechanism isn't sounding right, but I recall hearing it's a common thing with Sony Alphas that have taken a fall so I'm not going to worry until I do some research. Something about the sensor mount getting knocked past it's zone of proper travel or something. An easy fix, I hope.


I guess the main thing is, of all the parts that could have gotten wrecked, the grip is probably the best choice.
Viewfinder, LCD, lens, flash, controls, etc, are all fine, so with a little structural repair or replacement I'm hopefully going to have it back in action fairly quickly and cheaply. I'm crossing my fingers as hard as I can that insurance won't need to enter the picture and I won't have to ship the camera off for repair, although I know of a really good place with good reviews and low prices.


In the meantime I can always shoot some infrared black and whites with the F828.
And the camera in my new phone has been surprising me every time I use it--like for the 2nd pic above, which I emailed to myself for this post.
Or maybe I'll buy some film tomorrow and finally get around to playing with my father's delightful German "Kodak" from the '50s...

I have options.