Lessons ... observed or learnt?

Here's some theories I have about life .. take them as you will.

When you fail, or mistakes happen, or an accident happens, whatever it is, you can find yourself in one of three states;

1. You don't realise you've made a mistake or something went wrong.
2. You realise you've made a mistake  or something went wrong, but don't learn from it (and do it again later down the track).
3. You realise you've made a mistake or something went wrong and learn from it (and hopefully don't do it again).

So most times I hope I'm in state 3, learning from my mistakes as I go, adjusting what I'm doing to get the results right.  Honestly I'm my own worst critic, I'll pick holes in what I do from a 1000 yards. In fact that's why you won't see many of my photos on the walls at home.  Guarantee that with in 5 mins of framing it and putting it on my wall, I'll pick holes in it, not like it anymore and take it down.  It's an expensive exercise, and one that pisses my wife off, and I can't blame her.

So I've been going over the weekend shoots, thinking about what I can learn from them, here's the list:

Boxers weigh in

1. My SB900 quickly overheated and shut down, only about 1/4 of the way into the job.  This really was extremely disappointing.  Luckily I had my SB700 in the bag, quickly out and back in the game.  After reading, found out it's a design fault.  Shit.  I bought the flash a couple of years ago, never had a problem, mainly because I didn't use it hard out in a press situation.  So now on the shopping list, a new SB910.  From what I've read it's solved the heating problem.  The 900 will still have a place in my bag, but it won't be out in high volume flash situations.
2. Once the SB700 came out of the bag, it didn't punch hard enough around the 10 meter, so the guide number isn't high enough.  It shot well and kept it's cool, but definitely needs more grunt for this kind of work 

Fight night.

1. Now normally I shoot RAW for every shoot. Shooting with a D3 (a little old I know) but it still produces a big file.  Knowing this I dropped down to Jpeg large.  Thinking that'd be enough to get through. I took my 8gb card, x2 4gb cards, and 2gb card.  So with six fights on the card, I knew it would be hard work, lots of pics, low and behold I filled all of them.  So solution, download cards to a portable hard drive, while I kept shooting.
2. My trusty old old USB2 card reader.. not up to the job.  Got to go, intermittent connection, and far to slow.  It got the job done for sure, but not quick enough to stop me from the terminal (for it not me) desire to bash it to death in frustration.  
3. Check your ftp setting to your client and the connection to said server prior to actually needing it.  Got the setup to the event wifi, but couldn't connect, oh shit.  Luckily I had my mobile wifi with me.  Not idea to use it, costing me money to transmit the pictures, but at least I could get the job done.

Triathlon

1. Got there nice an early to check out my area to shoot, all good, got the right spot, tested out the gear to make sure that all was good.  But .. not so quick, athletes start coming and my SB900 over heats in the first 10 mins.  Crap!  So in the back-lit situation that I was in, this was not good.  Out comes the SB700 to the fray.  Not enough kick to get the result but got me through the day.  So adjust exposure, and angle.  The background overexposed, but got there in the end.

So there you have it.