Except for Windows 7 Starter Edition.

I had packed my little Acer netbook — which runs Ubuntu — into checked luggage. I thought it would be okay. But netbooks cannot fly. At least not this one. When I took it out of the protective case, it had died. A paperweight.

Unfortunately, with all of the photography work, I have to store the images somewhere. And I can use really, really expensive portable storage devices for photography or I can use a cheap netbook with a portable hard disk.

I picked up a nifty little netbook from a Best Buy here in Arizona. A Toshiba NB255 netbook.

Sadly, it runs Windows 7 Starter Edition. What a mess. Aside from being crippled — unable to even change the wallpaper on the desktop — it dies on anything other than basic web browsing. I know. It is a netbook. It is not supposed to be a performance machine.

To load and preview a 25MB RAW image takes well over a minute under Windows 7 Starter Edition. To do the same task on the old machine — which was a lower performing machine — took less than a few seconds under Ubuntu.

I do not have time to put down Ubuntu on this box until I get back home. Although I have learned two things: do not pack netbooks and do not run Windows 7 Starter Edition on a netbook.

Lorraine scored a first class seat on the Toronto-Denver leg. We had used our points to fly front of the bus but the first leg did not have 3 open seats. At check-in, the gate attendant was kind enough to offer the one remaining open first-class seat. Maybe United is not such a bad airline after all.

Our arrival time is around 12:30pm — west coast. All in, about 11 hours of travel time. Long day. After we check-in to the resort, I suspect we will crash poolside for the balance of the day.

Oh, and wake up at 3am tomorrow morning. It will take a few days to adjust to the time zone change.

Lots of questions.

I was on my feet for another 90 minutes or so responding to a battery of questions from the class.

The whole experience brought back memories of the years I spent teaching. I so enjoyed the dynamics of an actively engaged class. It has been over 25 years since I left the classroom. I’ve had a number of opportunities to act as a guest lecturer over the past 25 years and I always thoroughly enjoy the experience. That said, I do not recall a class quite so attentive and focused as this one. Very active in the Q&A session. And some great questions.

The weather will be hot in Arizona. During the hottest part of the day, we will stay close to the resort pool. Or inside an air conditioned building.

Fortunately for me, landscape photography is best performed very early in the morning or very late in the day. Less heat. The desert sky will also be more varied this time of year with cloud cover dropping in from time to time. I hope to see some new locations on this trip and I hope to capture some great images along the way.

We have been busily planning the trip and getting ourselves organized. Packing lists, budgets.

However, as much as I try to pack lightly, I fail miserably. Photography requires camera bodies, lenses, tripods, batteries, storage cards, laptop. To maintain electronic communication and to take advantage of digital media, the iPad and iPhone. Wandering and driving around requires a GPS. I have to take along cases, cables and chargers. Clothes and shoes for hiking, biking, exercising, swimming and walking. Reading glasses, sun glasses. And more. Hard to keep the luggage below 50 pounds.

But the memories will last a lifetime. We will be doing a few special things over the course of the week and a surprise just for my youngest son.

Really looking forward to the trip.

I created software programs on long lengths of yellow paper tape with punched holes. After login, I would bring up the compiler, stream the paper tape, and wait for the output to be printed on the teletype. And, whenever I could grab time on the TWX-35, I would play a game. The very first computer game I ever played.  A moon landing simulation. Captured and presented on a typewriter style printhead no less.

Ah, yes. Those were the days.