Aiello's Gear-Uselessness Principle

If you're not familiar with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it can be summarized thus: looking at something, to figure out where it is, makes it go faster; measuring the speed of something doesn't tell you where it is. Thus you can never know both where something is and how fast it is moving with infinite precision and accuracy.

Gear behaves in a startlingly similar way. If you take a piece of equipment with you, you effectively guarantee that it will not be needed - and therefore will be useless to you. If you don't take it with you, you are sure to arrive in a situation in which it will be helpful (if not necessary). Something about the inclusion/exclusion of the piece of equipment alters its necessity, just as observing something alters its speed.

I hereby name this "Aiello's Gear-Uselessness Principle" under the (unresearched) claim that I am the first to postulate it thus.

Here's an example. Yesterday, Tracy and I took the tandem up Ivy Creek (David decided he didn't want to go along). It had rained the day before, so we were confident we'd get further up the creek than previously. I also decided that, since the water was going to be high and flowing faster, there was a better-than-average chance of mishap (i.e., flipping the boat), so I opted not to take my camera (I've still not gotten a dry case for it, and my dry bags very clearly state that they are not dry enough to entrust precision electronic devices to their seals). And it was cloudy when we left, so I figured I'd not have much light for it, anyway.

Of course, when we got there, there were no clouds. It was sunny, windy, and basically gloriously beautiful. The redbuds and dogwoods were blooming along the banks of the creek. We followed a tributary a ways that, normally, isn't navigable in our boats - it was especially pretty. And then, on the way back (we got further up the creek than previously, but several fallen trees blocked us, and we didn't feel like carrying the boat past them), we saw a beaver.

Now, seeing beavers isn't terribly unusual. What was unusual is that this one let us pass within four feet of him, while he chewed on a stick and watched us. It was incredible: they're generally very skittish. I don't think I've been closer than 20 feet or so from them.

And I didn't have my camera. It was dark then, and my lens isn't terrible fast (f4), but still. I could have cranked the ISO speed and taken them in. Ah well. Perhaps next time.

Of course, next time, the gear-uselessness principle will kick in again, and there won't be anything worth shooting.