Lesson Learned: Never Put Your Eggs in One Basket

It is said that you should never leave all of your eggs in one basket. The cautionary proverb is intended to warn you that should the one basket get damaged or stolen, you will be royally screwed since everything you depended on was in that one basket. On particular Thursday late afternoon, my one basket of eggs went missing-most likely stolen. Well, replace "basket" with "messenger bag" and replace "eggs" with "work equipment." And by work equipment, I mean one netbook, one digital camera, and one fast SD card.

The first thing I did upon realizing this: I cursed up a storm. It did not really help me locate the gear, but letting out my anger would prevent me from acting in anger. It also got me several angry stares from the people around me who were otherwise engaged with reading their books. I then remembered I was in the library. At least the swear storm got a librarian-and security-to me so I could tell them the situation and ask for their help before being escorted out for the day.

Lacking insurance for the equipment and deadlines approaching, I hastily went on a quick voyage around the city's electronics store looking for suitable replacements. First, it was bad losing the stuff in the first place. Having to shop for it was salt on the wound. Each visit to a store and browsing for the exact same model brought back fond memories of using my missing gear. Given that my equipment was two years old, most stores no longer sell anything resembling and force me to upgrade even though my stuff was still good and reliable to this day-minus not being in my hand. The list boiled down to the following:

Netbook
Missing: Acer Aspire One ($299)
Replacement: Samsung N150 ($279)

I like netbooks for their ease of portability and use. Though I cannot watch DVDs or play anything more complicated than Plants vs. Zombies, the word processing, web page developing, and photo storing capabilities made it great for work. When I bought the Acer, Windows 7 was still a finalized idea and the 6-cell battery cost an arm and a leg. Now it looks like the Samsung netbook includes Windows 7 and a 6-cell battery. In addition to being a somewhat better brand name, the Samsung netbook is definitely a better buy for my Internet browsing needs. That reminds me: If my netbook was stolen and the thief managed to hack past the intro password, he/she/it would have access to my passwords and accounts. Great, one more thing to worry about.

Digital Camera
Missing: Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS ($249)
Replacement: Canon PowerShot SD1300 IS ($149)

As a photographer for anime and sci-fi conventions, I tend to rely on point and shoot cameras that I dubbed sidearms when wading in the middle of the convention grounds. They are lighter, faster to draw, and less obtrusive among crowds. I chose a pink PowerShot because it stood out among the gray and black cameras so all I had to do to get a subject to look at my camera was shout "Look at the pink camera!" What I did not like about the PowerShot cameras were that it took special batteries instead of the AA batteries that were easily replenished at corner shops in worst case situations. I ended up with three replacement Canon batteries for this sidearm. Now that I was missing my sidearm, I was stuck with those three batteries and my main goal for a replacement was finding one that also took those batteries. Sadly the SD1100 IS was obsolete and I would have to pick up the 14MP SD1400 IS model that was priced the same. As much as I like the upgrade from 8MP in the SD1100 IS, 14 MP was just too large for me. My Nikon DSLR is only 10MP and I would feel stupid having a sidearm that is more powerful than my primary. And the store only sold the SD1400 IS in plain black or hideous orange. Then I spotted a PoweShot SD1300 IS. I was annoyed that it took a slightly different sized battery than the SD1100 IS. But the 12MP vs 10MP was a bit more favorable than 14MP. Also, the SD1300 IS models they had were pink and on sale at only $149 that included a 2GB card and pink case. I guess no one else was crazy enough to buy a pink camera except for me.

Memory Card
Missing: SanDisk ULTRA SDHC 4GB Class 4 Flash Memory Card (Free)
Replacement: SanDisk ULTRA SDHC 8GB Class 4 Flash Memory Card ($24)

With a 15MB/sec writing rate and a more solid construction than some bargain cards, the SanDisk memory cards are great for my Nikon DSLR. I fondly remember this particular missing SD card because I won it as first prize in a YouTube video contest that I did not remember entering. So losing that card meant losing that feeling of victory as well. Then I saw the 8GB version of the Ultra card and went with that. Other cards of higher class were also available, but I already trusted this brand the most.

So, the old gear totaling about $550 versus the new gear totaling about $450 and that is not counting the recycling fee, taxes, and accessories tacked on to the old gear meant that my treasured old gear was obsolete and more expensive compared to the newer faster gear, which does feel like adding lemon juice to the salt that was already on the wound.

But probably the real insult to injury was when I carried all of my new tech home and found on top of the pile of laundry I was actively neglecting one messenger bag that suspiciously looked like the one I was missing containing one netbook, digital camera, and SD memory card. Luckily most of the stores I bought the replacement gear from do not have a restocking fee for unopened merchandise.

I decided to keep the new pink camera though. It was a suitable upgrade.