SONG OF THE WEEK
Jason Wade-You Belong To Me

As of today, my camera is officially broken in. Look what it can do!



I'm very please with the results. More here.
The wait was totally worth it. My camera is everything I ever dreamed it would be.
I have to be careful though. It could end up being a danger to my health. It's now 5:00 AM and I'm not even close to going to bed. I've been sorting and editing photos for hours now. I was pretty shutter happy today. Almost 400 photos. I'm not even close to done
Ah, the beauty of digital film.
I'm getting way excited for Lake Powell. We leave in six days! I can't wait to see the neat things I can do with my camera there. The whole trip last year, everywhere I looked, "Oh man, I wish I had a camera. That is so beautiful."
This year that will not be the case. Hopefully they will turn out awesome cause I'm really looking forward to sharing them.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

It happened. I have proof. More later.

This is my latest piece of mail.
I'm not sure how excited I should allow myself to get. I will admit though, on first glance it is pretty impressive.
I suppose first things first. I owe all my success to Aubrey. Without our your, "Hey, you should enter this photo contest" email, this would never have happened.
I showed it to my dad and of course his first reaction was, well they probably send one of those to everyone who enters in hopes that you will send them money.
That is possibly true. They want me to spend $70 on a book that has my photo in it. I'm sure it'll be some little 2" thumbnail image, but to have my photo published. What an honor.
I'm pretty sure I just bought a new camera and I certainly don't have an extra $70 to spend on some book.
I'm holding out for the $10,000 grand prize. I guess we'll see.


(They're not very easy to read. Click for full detail.)

I have news.
It is not good news, however, it could have been much worse.
Come this morning, I still was camera-less. We finally broke down and called DigitalCorp.
Where the crap is my camera?!
"Oh, it looks like your PayPal transaction has not been processed yet."
(WHAT! @!$#@*)
"Um, we're really sorry. We'll send it out today. It'll be there by Friday, we promise. We'll throw in an extra battery so you won't be too mad."
Hmm. Well, I don't have my camera. I won't have my camera for four more days.
However, I have a promise of receiving it in four days. And an extra battery. I almost bought an extra battery the other day. Now I don't have to. They cost $40. That's something good.
Still, I want my camera yesterday.

Ten days have come and gone and still no camera. I'm starting to think it was all a dream.
A really cruel dream.

I'm getting very impatient. It has been five whole days and still no camera. I wasn't expecting it to come today, or even tomorrow. But I've never had a week drag on as long as this one has.
I'm praying to the camera god's to speed things up. For mine and everyone else's sake.

SONG OF THE WEEK
Natasha Bedingfield-I Bruise Easily

It is finally happening. I'm so excited I can't even contain myself. After months and months of obsessive longing, the time has finally come!!!!
My camera is coming! It is in transit as we speak! I'm so freaking jittery and excited I can't sit still. A week to ten days has never looked so long in my life.
I keep having that dream where my camera and I are spinning in circles in the middle of a field with a gentle breeze and wildflowers growing everywhere, happy music in the background.


Kind of like this, only picture a D40 dangling by its neck strap.

Em, I saw this and I totally thought of you.


Amelie _ plateada
Originally uploaded by Plateada

It's things like this that make me feel better after days like today.
It helps me realize that I don't have to be perfect, because well, I'm not.
And look! No one else is either.


(Click to view large. Then you can really see what I mean.)

SONG OF THE WEEK
Michael Buble-Everything

I got yelled at yesterday. I was at work and got yelled at by a stranger. It's been a while since I've had someone yell at me. I hear yelling all the time. It's just usually not directed at me.
I would like to point out that I did nothing wrong. I would like to make that very clear. I'm sure you all will agree with me.
Mr. Thick-middle-eastern-accent-and-strange-curly-hair was quite convinced that he had located a wanted felon featured on America's Most Wanted. He proceeded to tell me all about being threatened with a gun by said felon and how Mr. Thick (that's what I'll call him) knows it was him by his tattoos.
"I'll never forget him," he said. "His tattoos are ingrained in my brain."
Ok, sure. I believe you. There's just one problem.
All said felon-spotting and gun-threatening occurred in Provo. This isn't Provo.
This very clearly is Orem. It says so in big letters stuck to the building. It says so on every sign in the lobby. It says so on the patches sewed to my shirt. It says so on my shiny badge. It's pretty obvious.
When trying to explain the problem to Mr. Thick, he promptly replied, "I don't see the problem. Provo is right next to Orem. What's the difference?"
Um. Huge difference.
I politely explained to Mr. Thick that he would need to speak with Provo.
"I already went to Provo. I waited for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. I couldn't wait any longer so that's why I came here."
Sorry, dude. Go back to Provo.
I also gave him the phone number for AMW. I mean hello? Have you ever watched the show? They flash 1-800-CRIME-TV every two minutes.
That didn't satisfy him.
Mr. Thick began to get slightly upset. He proceeded to ask me why I didn't care about getting this man in jail. He wanted to know why I wasn't helping him keep our country safe. What did he have to do to get some help in this matter.
I already told him. Go to Provo.

I am proud to report that I got all of my laundry put away this morning.
See? I'm not as useless as I thought.