OK, I'm an idiot. They warned me when I bought the lens. They warned me when I bought the tripod. And yet apparently I don't listen.
For the second time I have attempted to shoot night time shots and discovered after shooting for 2 hours that I had failed to turn off the VR function on my Nikon zoom lens. This discovery came at about midnight and my batteries had just expired. Arrgh. I had a couple of nice shots I'll have to reshoot.
I nominate myself for stupid move of the week.