I am a retired IT professional with 40 years experience. I have worked in and managed data center resources. I believe in backing up everything. The system drive as well as data drives. I currently use Carbon Copy Cloner to completely backup each drive on a daily schedule. I have had to recover both system drives and data drives and if you routinely schedule your backups then recovery can be very easy. In my case I use both Carbon Copy Cloner to recover the disk image and then use Time Machine to recover any data changes from the time of the backup to as close to current as I can get. It's better to have too many backups than to have to rebuild a system or a data drive.

Twelve years ago I moved from the DFW metroplex where malls were everywhere to Austin. Wow what a surprise, Austin has only one fully enclosed air-conditioned mall. It appears that it might not survive Bidenomics. It's not just the malls that are suffering, small business are hurting just as much. Many of our stores have had to close as a direct result of inflation.

I have used both on my 100-400 and have had good luck with both. For tack-sharp images, I would highly recommend that you use a very stable tripod and a remote release because the slightest movement will ruin your image. I'm sure you're aware that your available light is also going to be reduced by either extender. If you shoot at less that 250th/sec your shutter can even create a slight vibration causing the image to be slightly fuzzy. Hand held is out of the question.

Isn't that what the US does? We ship our green house gas producing production to other countries with less stringent emission rules.

I worked for Mobil Oil during the period you spoke of. Please provide their document # for reference. I believe that they also concluded that cows produce more CO2 gas than is produced by burning fossil fuels. That is why Europe has gone mad to reduce the number of cows and will soon face both a milk and meat shortage. They have found that global-warming is a farce and that the atmosphere has been fluctuating between both cooling and heating for decades. That is why they have changed their buzzword from global-warming to Climate-change. The US has reduced the emission of green house gases more that any other country in the world. But we are a bit hypocritical since the US has now shifted most of their green house gas producing production to countries like Southeast Asia, Taiwan, India and China. We are still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, we have just moved the production source to other countries that don't control their emissions as close as the US does. Just as a point to note, the big hole in the Ozone at the south pole that was a huge scare a few years ago, has now begun closing and it doesn't appear that human intervention has had anything to do with it. Like I said earlier, statistics can prove or disprove anything.

I'm sorry, but I just can't get into this Doom & Gloom panic over climate change. If you look at the history of our planet, the climate has changed a number of times in the past. Numerous ice ages have come and gone. Numerous tropical conditions have come and gone. The poles have even swapped a number of times. All this happened without human intervention and it will happen again regardless of human intervention. We can't prevent it so we had better begin facing that fact and begin preparing to understand how to live with the change. Most of what has happened and what is currently happening can be directly associated with what is happening at the core of our planet. It is spinning like a top and like a top that is heaver at one end, it is guaranteed to flip over. That is just Physics. As the core moves so does everything else, even the atmosphere. For humans to try and change the atmosphere is like trying to desalinate the oceans. It seems to me that this whole thing is just a way for Al Gore and certain other individuals to use fear mongering to make billions. If these individuals really believed in what they are preaching they would NOT be flying all around the world spring jet exhaust everywhere. DO WHAT I SAY, NOT WHAT I DO! Who is the fool here; the fear monger or the one that gives him money? Say what you want but a good statistician can prove without a doubt that 1+1=3. Stats can be manipulated to prove almost anything.

Google has admitted that their AI search engine was primarily programed to provide DIVERSE responses to the questions that was asked disregarding reality. The programmer is white and has admitted to his bias against the white race. Google pulled down this so-called DIVERSE responding search engine and replaced it with changes that make it somewhat more reality based. Still, supplying DIVERSE responses is its primary function whether the responses are based on reality or not. This type of biased AI engine should never be a source of real historical information. For that matter no biased based source of reference material should be taken seriously. Just like Wikipedia is not a serious reference source but a collection of statements provided by individuals wanting to add their comments or references from unchallenged sources.

I saw on Fox News that even Google's AI search engine is producing images of famous men like Washington and Lincoln as black. They got called out on it and the AI search engine has been shut down until the issue can be resolved. It appears that the developer of Google's AI software is white but is EXTREMELY biased against the white race so he fed his AI software with overly biased data against the white race. AI is only as good as the data it has been programmed with. There is an old saying in the computer industry that goes, "Garbage In , Garbage Out". Biased programmers feeding biased data into AI programs will guarantee biased results. YES, this is dangerous! This holds true even for hard-back publishing. These people are trying to rewrite American history. Just check out what is being taught in schools these days.

Your absolutely right Jerry, Man has an abysmal record of correcting problems without creating a bigger problem and calling a solution. A bigger example of this happened at the end of WWII. It was called that atomic bomb which ended the war while leading directly to the development of the H-bomb. And the race was on to create even bigger SOLUTIONS.

You think Lithium is costly to produce, it is even more costly to dispose of, more so than uranium or lead. It seems that we are very good at trying to solve one problem by creating an even bigger one. I wonder what the government's plans are to dispose of the stuff when all these car batteries have outlived their usefulness. Oh that's right our government doesn't think that far ahead. Another generation can deal with the problem of disposal while they sit in the dark. In the mean time, hung-ho eliminate all fossil fuels. Convert everything to hydrogen/oxygen and use even more water. Pure madness!!

What a lucky grandfather you are to have such a beautiful granddaughter. You can be proud of your photography work with her. Enjoy every minute you have with her.

One of the best BBQ restraints in North Texas is "Angelo's Bar-B-Que" located at 2533 White Settlement Rd, Fort Worth, TX 76107. This is NOT a fancy place but the BBQ is great. They only serve ribs after 5pm. Their chopped beef is great as is their brisket. I like their baby-back ribs and finish with a chopped beef sandwich to go. It's not that far from the Botanic Gardens. Make it a day at the gardens and then finish the day at Angelo's. You won't be disappointed. Great pictures from the gardens and great BBQ; what more could you ask for. The other places you mentioned are all good but you don't want to miss the Botanic Gardens and Angelo's BBQ.

No big deal; the "dd"s are really just "bb"s backwards! Just flip and go.

You might want to look at Luminar Neo or Affinity 2.0. I have found both to be easy to use and produce very good results. They are both similarly priced and have similar punching plans.

Laptop over a tablet any day. A laptop is much more versatile while the tablet has to many limitations. The "try it and see" option can be very expensive. Stick with a good high-end laptop with a decent size screen and as much memory as possible plus a large SSD, Bluetooth, and of course WIFI. You are already familiar with the laptop so there will be no learning curve to deal with. Even though there are some Photo editing programs around that will work on a tablet/smartphone, the best ones still require a good size notebook or desktop to really perform well. Stick with the laptop and you won't be disapointed. Good Luck.