At long last...

Once upon a time, I got a huge bonus from my employer. The huge bonus just happened to coincide with the release date of a really nice digital SLR camera. This digital camera was the one I'd dreamed of owning since the first time I heard of digital photography. This was the last camera I'd ever want. So I bought it. It's still the last camera I ever want... when it's working.

Sometime last spring, it started having problems. I'd take these pictures, and I'd be dying to see how they turned out, and I'd pull the memory card and pop it into the computer, and WHAM. Corrupted photos. At first it was just one or two. But it kept getting worse. Take a cool picture. Go back to look at it. Nothing. Soooo depressing.

Especially the time I went Gene Logsdon's farm so he could show me around and generously spend several hours chatting with me. You should see the awesome photos that I don't have. In my head at least, I got some beautiful shots. What I actually ended up with were two or three throw-away pictures and the rest were toast.

So I called the manufacturer, and they gave me some line about using the wrong brand of memory card or something. I dutifully got one off their "approved" list, and... same damn problem. More tech support calls, more suggestions. No dice. Finally I boxed it up and sent it to them. (Aside: I've already sent it to them once a couple years ago for a somewhat similar problem.)

The good news was that a couple days after I sent it, I got an email from the service center saying they'd fix the problem for free.

The bad news was that the necessary part was back-ordered. So after a week of waiting, I asked them how much longer. They told me one more week. Well, it took a month.

But as of today, I have it back. And I am very happy. We have a little pocket digital that can take decent pictures under favorable conditions, but it's just not the same.

So get ready for some pictures. Of what? I couldn't say. But I'm sure I'll find something...

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