My new toy

So, let me back up a week and a half.  This story occurs at Red Lobster when Mia was in the midst of a temper tantrum from 'Nam.

THE temper tantrum which caused my handbag to be knocked down onto the floor, and said child being removed from the restaurant kicking and screaming being held like a football.  Not pleasant.

Well, apparently I didn't check under the table well enough to get everything back into my bag, because my camera is no where to be found. Sigh.  I hadn't got around to putting the pictures from the camera onto my new computer, so I've lost pictures from when Jeremy left and Mikey's awards etc. In the grand scheme of things, it could have been worse. It's only a month when not a lot of significant things have happened, and it's not like when one of the kids wiped every single picture off my computer.  That sucked!! Unless I had posted a picture onto Photobucket or Facebook about 2 years of the kids life was gone. Fortunately, I could get a lot back. or I stole pictures that other people had posted of the kids. Sucky, but could have been worse.

So because I'm going to Darlington, SC tomorrow for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Race...AND we have pit passes so Mikey might be able to meet some drivers, I thought it would be beneficial to get a new camera.  I'm now the proud owner of a Fujifilm Finepix S1800.  It wasn't what I was originally going to get, but the explanation as to why I got it leads me to another story....

My history of cameras isn't good.  It's worse than my track record with jewelry. And there's a reason why people don't buy me jewelry!! They know better!

So, the week before I left to go to Sweden back when I was 17 it was the school ball.  That's the equivalent of Prom, but Forms 5 - 7 could go (Now years 11 - 13 or the last three years of high school for you Americans).  Well, when we were getting our pictures taken, someone dropped my camera. I didn't discover that it was broken until I got to Sweden, and naturally I was very upset.  So some family friends - the Hewetsons, sent me a new camera and that was just the bees knees! 

That camera lasted me a good while.  I'm quite impressed actually that it survived my college days which were centered around drinking. Bravo!  Now, I must have had it still when I was in Korea because I remember getting pictures developed, but I don't remember what happened to it to be honest.

I upgraded to a digital camera when I was in Korea. Now, that was a cool camera because you could turn the lense around and see the screen as you took a picture of yourself.  Others must have thought it was cool too because some doushebag stole it at a bar on the Army Base we were at on New Years Eve.

It was replaced by a Sony for my birthday/Valentines gift just before we left Korea.  Again it lasted well, until it had a fight with sand and decided not to be able open and close it's lense. 

So Jeremy got me a Kodak just before he deployed the first time, but that camera just didn't like me.  It took crappy pictures and the batteries lasted two seconds.  In fact, to get it to work, you had to remove the batteries, turn them around just to take one picture.

So I upgraded again to a Canon which was a little complicated to use, but it took great pictures.  That camera had a fight with a jar of salsa at Mia's 1st birthday party.  I did send it in to get repaired hoping that they wouldn't find the salsa....but they did and the camera went to camera heaven.  So I was forced to use crappy Kodak again until Jeremy got me the Nikon Coolpix for Mother's Day last year. It was decent, but the indoor pictures weren't great. And as I explained before, it was laid to rest at Red Lobster never to be found again.

As I was looking at camera's today and feeling confident that I had researched thoroughly, I saw the Fujifilm camera.  It was a great price, great reviews and feedback from the customer service people - pretty equal to the one I was going to get (A Canon SD1300 for the record which was the same price).  But the benefit here is that it's chunky!  I can put it around my neck and if it gets knocked onto the floor I'm more likely to see it. Plus it offers a few more features than a regular point and shoot camera, so I'm pretty happy right now.

So bring on tomorrow, and here's to lots of pictures of me and my family in our happy racing world! (And a few blessings for the camera that it can survive its owner.

PS. I remember what happened to the camera I got in Sweden.  It got covered in water at the Full Moon Party on Koh Panang, Thailand.