Welcome to Barrow and Verizon Saga Continued....

I arrived in Barrow, AK just after 7pm on Friday afternoon, July 11 after arising in an Orlando airport motel at 3:30 am that same day. All the flights were on time but that was one long travel day 🙂 After a decent night’s sleep I went out scouting with two friends. We did a bit of photography but it was not a great morning by any stretch of the imagination. We were riding along the coast road just outside of town when I saw what I thought was a bird swimming in a narrow channel close to shore.

We backed up the van and as I suspected, it was a drake King Eider, a bird that I have been dreaming of photographing for many years. We grabbed our lenses, made a few distant images from behind a snow pile, and then began to approach the bird. We kept ahead of if by running through the soft gravelly sand for more than 3/4 of a mile. It seemed like two miles! It turned out that the bird was totally tame and though it was gorgeous, we soon realized that it was injured, most likely having gotten winged by a local hunter. This realization however did not dim our excitement. At times I nearly collapsed from the effort, and at other times, I was so beat that I was shaking as I tried to steady my lens. It was a great start to the trip.

Verizon sent us a new modem that arrived on Thursday but, after another 3+ hours on the phone, we still could not get on line. On Friday they finally did send a technician who did some testing and announced that the new modem was bad and that he had encountered several like that over the past few weeks. They sent a new modem that arrived today (Monday). After yet another hour on the phone it turned out that we still could not get on line with either computer. Jim called them this afternoon (it is four hours earlier here in Barrow) and was told that they would not be sending a technician because the problem was with our computers. They stated that they would be doing another 24 hour test. Miraculously I got through to their escalation team and got to talk to a manager who promised to have a technician at my home tomorrow morning.

If you would like to order something from the store please call Jim at the office. We apologize to those who have ordered 7D or Mark III or IV User’s Guides or Digital Basics and thank them for their patience. They will be sent as soon as Verizon gets us back on line.

I will be back soon 🙂