RIP Our Camera

I actually got up at 7 this morning! Amazing! It helped because Meggie had been awake for a half-hour for some unknown reason, so we both made it out of bed in time.

Had breakfast, then did our morning computer stuff. I discovered another new great Google product: personalized homepage. They've got all kind of modules you can add to your page, so I spent most of the morning going through them and checking them out. So, now I've got a pretty good home page.

At about a little after nine or so, Meg's dad called. He's at the airport, so we left to pick him up. Getting there was interesting. First, I had a panic moment, because I didn't think we had cash to go over the Walt Whitman bridge. So, I took the exit into Deptford, only to discover that I had it all along. Then, I couldn't figure out how to get back on 42 North. All of the signs were going to 42 South. I finally figured it out, and then we were back on the road. Only to get stuck in traffic at the Walt-Whitman, as they were doing construction, and 4 lanes suddenly have to merge into 2. It took some time, but we eventually got over the bridge, and easily found Dad at the airport.

After getting home, we got caught up, had lunch, and Dad took a nap because of the jet lag. I got involved in another project: making my own blinkie, using Paint Shop Pro with Animation Shop. It's the Daddy-To-Be one. I had to make one, since most of the blinkies seemed to be geared towards women. To most people this would be a hint that blinkies are a girly thing. But not me. Hey, I'm comfortable with my manliness.

Cait arrived from Gettysburg, and Dad got up from his nap, when the crappy part of the day started. Dad had mentioned that he wanted a picture of the four of us. I got out the tripod, thinking I could use the timer feature to take a picture of us. I set up the tripod, and was waiting till we were all ready to take the picture. While waiting, I was making a 360 degree movie of the room--it just seemed like something fun to do. Well, I by doing this, I inadvertently unscrewed the top of the tripod, sending the camera crashing to the ground. It didn't seem like that bad of a fall, but when I picked it up, it had turned off. I switched it back on. The lens, which was extended before the fall, tried to go back in, and got stuck, and the camera shut off again. No matter what I did, the camera got stuck at the same spot. I figured this might be a mechanical problem, so I took the camera apart. This was a little hairy, because inside the camera I found a high-voltage capacitor, which made me a little nervous. I discovered that the lens apparatus was self-contained, and therefore not repairable. I Googled some camera repair places, only to find out that it was going to be more expensive to get it fixed then to buy a new, nicer camera. So, I ended up ordering a new one on Circuit City.com for pretty cheap.

We had dinner at Peter's tonight, Dad's treat. I got one of my usuals, the patty-melt. The rest of the evening was spent researching a new camera, showing Dad our wedding video, and watching episodes from the 8th Season of The Simpsons DVD.

Okay, very tired from the early wake-up. Going to bed now (after this episode of The Simpsons