I was at an organizational retreat yesterday acting as the facilitator.  I found a neat event to do if you are trying to have an ice breaking event or do a little team building.  More on that later.

Anyway as exercise unfolded I was taking some occasional photos to preserve the event and then the unthinkable it happened.  I took a photograph and as is my habit I looked at the LCD screen and nothing but black.  I checked my settings to make sure everything was okay and took another one, still nothing.  I pushed the menu button to see if I had inadvertently done something wrong and no menu screen.  Oh NOoooooooo!!!!!

After 106 days the iconic Nikon D3 was kaput!!  Needless to say my day took a sharp turn the wrong way.  But I had an even to facilitate so no time for remorse.

Later that evening a call to Nikon and at least got the process started.  Now box it up and ship it out.  Wait for the e-mail telling me how much it’s going cost and then the gulp…. Pause…. Okay!?!?! Go ahead and fix it.  Then the long wait for it to be shipped back.

Okay enough pity.  Now about that team building event.  Each team gets 20 drinking straws, a paper plate and 30 inches of 1/2 inch masking tape.  They can build any type of structure they want using those materials only.  The structure they build has to catch a raw egg dropped from a height of 8 feet.  Out of all the teams only one didn’t have a broken egg.  Then to prove that it wasn’t just a fluke they repeated the drop and were successful the second time.

Note however this is one messy exercise.  Lots and lots of broken eggs.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Friday.  Fortunately I still have the D700 so I can shoot images this weekend.  Be careful. 🙂

Please indulge me today as I finish up my week-long photo essay on the wonderful retention basin on 16th Street in Dubuque.  I ask for your indulgence because I finally break my abstinence of posting eagle images.   I have to admit, however,  they are not my best eagle images.

About a week ago I talked about the juvenile eagle that took food away from three mature eagles.  Well this is that eagle.  After he had his battles and had eaten his food he flew over the pond several times much like a victory flight.

This is one tough bird.  I wish there was some way to track him because it would be fun to see him when he is fully developed and matured.

This is one of the worst shots I have.  He was really too far away to get a good image of him.  As my friend Andreas pointed out in his blog this morning.  There are a huge number of power lines and power line structures that encase the pond.   It is very difficult to capture a flying bird because of all the power lines and structures around it.   Often times the auto focus mechanism of the camera will pick up the lines or the towers instead of the wild life that you are following.

I just hope the city, county, and state understand what a wonderful thing they have here.  The wildlife have adopted this as their home, which means it has the opportunity to become a robust nature center.  It can become a wonderful place for bird watchers,  conservationist, photographers, and nature lovers to enjoy God’s gifts to us. If we take care of it.

I hope we are all smart enough to realize what we really have here and help nurture it, promote it, and take care of  it.   I am not a true nature photographer like my friend Andreas, who studies wild life and takes great pains to capture them in their best form.  But I do appreciate and enjoy wildlife and I hope we can fully develop this area so that generations to come my enjoy it.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Thursday and be careful.