Back from Spring Break

Vacation is good - even if you spend it at Disney World. My family and I spent the last week in Orlando, visiting Mickey and his friends. While Disney isn't my cup of tea, the boys had a great time. I managed to have some fun too, but my wife and I agree that for us, Disney is likely a one-time deal.

It was a treat to watch my youngest son take everything in. We found out that even at 22 months old he's a thrill seeker. He absolutely loved the rides, especially the safari ride at Animal Kingdom. The little guy had all the people around him laughing the whole time. On the plane home, we flew into some pretty nasty thunderstorms and the turbulence was bad enough that it knocked a flight attendant to the floor. Luke thought it was another ride and he was laughing his little head off.

My older son had a pretty good time, but I think he suffered from us having to take more care of his little brother. Sam is turning 13 this week, and he's on his way out of the Disney scene but he got to ride plenty of rides and go swimming quite a bit. He especially liked our day-trip to Cocoa Beach where he rode the waves on his body board.

I intended to take him out on a fishing trip, but it didn't work out. So I guess Sam and I have a reason to go back to central Florida.



My wife and I were thankful to be able to take the boys on a trip and get away from work for a week, but our style is more laid back as we've aged. I think we'll be in our element when we go to Michigan in the summer to a cabin on the lake.






One part of the vacation that I did enjoy was that I forced myself to leave my gear at home. All I took with me for photos was a Canon G7 with a 550ex flash and a "modified" nikon SC-17 flash cable. The cable was set to disable ttl and therefore allow me to experiment with high-speed sync. I have to say, it worked like a charm. I was able to sync my 550ex up to 1/2500th of a second when the flash was set to 1/4 power on manual mode. I got some crazy looks from people, including the Disney photo staff, as I strolled around with the G7 around my neck tethered by the cord to a full-size flash that I kept in my side pocket. The Gx series of cameras does have its issues, but the high-speed sync and video capabilities make these a decent vacation camera.