Technical Challenges of the ‘Forever Traveler’

I read somewhere that the crew of the Deadliest Catch replace their gear — camera, mics, the whole set up — every season. Apparently, I must travel as hard and rough as a camera crew in the Bering Sea during crab season, because I can’t seem to go more than six months with replacing something.  In nearly three years of travel, here is my death toll:

2008: two laptops

2009: one laptop

2010: one macbook

2011: one laptop

I’ve also had to send in my Canon 40D for repairs twice, I’ve dented a $1000 lens, and since upgrading to the Canon 7D I’ve recently gotten a mysterious error that may or may not be the death of another camera.

My travels also like to eat other gear:

2008: Powershot dropped into a beer and Drew killed his buzzer by plugging it into a European socket

2009: Blackberry lost in Mexico, Powershot dropped and exploded into pieces

2010: Flip video stops recording sound and we gave away our last Powershot (yeah we liked the brand, even though they only last six months)

2011: my iPhone finally died

The sad thing is that I know there are probably a half dozen things I can’t even remember breaking.

Recently my friend Troy flew from the US to India to visit us.  He asked, innocently enough, “Can I bring you anything from the States?”

Seeing as we had bought TWO Macbook Pros and iPhone 4 in Thailand, we knew that the cost of buying electronics outside the US is usually a 10-20% markup — or as much as $400 on a single item.  If we had bought those things at home, we would have saved $600-$750.

So be careful when you ask, “Can I bring you anything from the States?” because the answer is always: how big is your carry on?

1- Canon 14mm f/2.8L II USM lens (yay!)
3- Hard Drives 2TB (super yay!)
1- lens filter
1- cleaning kit, lens cap holder, cleaning cloth, cleaning pen, blower, lens case and a new camera bag

Data storage is a nightmare

Okay, so I should have learned this lesson last year, when 24 hours before my 2 TB external hard drive arrived, my crappy little Dell died and I lost about six months worth of photos, including everything from my pregnancy (luckily the baby’s birth was still on the flash card in the camera).  I backed up everything, got a Macbook and then set out to film a documentary. The only problem: 2 TB is not enough for a documentary.  We’re running out of space and we still have two more continents to film.  Also I’ve been secretly — and believe me I am so loathe to admit this — still using my 17 inch Dell.  UGH!  I know.  I should just use the beautiful Macbook Pro I own, but I really like writing on a big screen, where I can see everything and just, well it’s just nice.  My mac is only 15″.  The second issue is that I write ebooks!  I use Microsoft office — and the Mac version is just horrible.  I know.  I know.  But this all leads me to this little fact:

Troy brought us (3) three brand new 2 TB external hard drives (an extra drive for our data and two to back up our primary storage).  I unwrapped them.  I admired them.  I did not use them to back up my PC, but instead put them on the shelf.

This week my PC died.  Two ebooks, written, not released on it.  Le Sigh.

In fact, see that little banner on the top of my website?  That’s one of the lost ebooks.  Now I’m at the mercy of Indian PC techs to recover my data and I’ll probably have to buy a little Asus to finish my work.  Should I start taking bets now on how long until I chew up my next laptop?

Wait, what was the point?

So with my track record of destroying gear, plus the high likelihood that I’ll continue to burn through TBs and TBs of data, and the fact that at this moment you can’t just upload and download a few thousand gigabytes on most internet connections — what happens next?

If you’re a photographer or a blogger or a filmmaker with lots and lots of digital materials (aka a digital hoarder), where do you put them?  In 10 years will I have 27 hard drives in a suitcase?  Should I just buy a server and wheel it around the world with me?

Also, Dell, why do you have to suck so bad?  I mean, come on!

In all seriousness, if you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them.