My camera is back.

I heard that there was a camera place that would deep clean my camera. Someone I know that owns the same camera said she sent her’s off to be cleaned. J & I went down to the camera store to see about it. The communication was just not there, so I went to the culture lady and she wrote what I wanted in Japanese for me.

With my note in hand, I marched back up to the camera store. This time the Japanese man spoke a little English. One thing I though was amusing was that he wrote perfectly in English the answers to my questions. He told me it would take 2 to 3 weeks and it would cost about $50 bucks. I left my cell phone number with him; actually J’s number because I forgot how to look up my number.

About a week and a half later, J gets a strange call from a woman speaking Japanese. The next day they call back with me present; J say I got that same weird call yesterday. I checked the number it was the camera shop. J & I go down to get my camera. The only words the lady could say was clean and no credit. She put my camera in a bag & handed it to me. I guess no credit means no charge for the services.

It was perfectly clean and free. I don’t know why but it was.

Finally Made It

I finally got one of my pictures in Flickr Explore. Flickr rates your photos somehow and places them in the 500 most interesting for that particular day. I made it for July 15, 2007 #405 for this picture.

The Incasing Begins

It’s official. They started to wrap our building with scaffolding. They had to start on our side first. That figures, right? They made it all the way up to our fifth floor. Seeing they got started, I figured I better get start too. I spent my day getting everything we need out of the storage and clearing off the patio. Except for the plants which are staying until the last minute.

B was enjoying his new camera & spent his time taking pictures. I think I have a step by step aerial photo story of how scaffolding is put up. So I thought I would share how talented my little guy is.

Happy Father’s Day.

I hope all the father’s had a great day. We didn’t do to much for Father’s day. We had lunch at a Korean restaurant. (It seemed just like a Japanese restaurant to me.) The food was good, admist our almost burning the restaurant down. The thing is you have to cook your own food on a round grill build into the table. The waitress brings you a plate of raw whatever (in our case beef/chicken/vegetables), then you grill it. We were already fairly hungry. I think we put a little to much on the grill. We had flames starting shoot above the table top. A waiter came over to help extinguish the flames & he changed our grill cover. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to go there today. I bought J a new camera, a 7.1 mega pixel that is very small & fits in his pocket. He was using our old 3 mega pixel, which we kindly donated to B. He was very excited to have his own camera. Good thing its digital, B is taking pictures of everything.

Just say NO to Wal-Mart Online Photo Store.

I have had so many problems with trying to get the online store to cooperate with the local store here. Weeks ago I sent pictures online to be printed out by 1 hour photo. When I got to the store the photo lab was down with no expected fix date. I was told they could not refund my money (prepaid online) & to call Wal-Mart.com. No problems getting a refund. (Then I submitted the pictures to Walgreens.com for 1 hour without any problems.) The mousepad I ordered from Wal-Mart took 10 days past the due date. But it finally came in (after calling millions of times).

So I decided to have my aquarium photo contest pictures printed when I picked up the mousepad. I sent them 1 hour photo prepaid from my computer. This is what I got: Do you have the copyright? Me: What copyright I took the pictures? Them: (With attitude) You could have of gotten these from National Geographic for all I know. Me: How do you expect to prove that they are mine? Them: (Looking at each other like they did know what to say.) Put them on a disk & bring them back up. Me: How does that prove that they are mine? Can you just refund them? Then the clerks argued back in forth for a minute, then called the manager to see if I could get a refund. She said yes but I had to go up to customer service. I get done shopping then head to get the refund. I find a after Christmas return line. I thought I’m not standing here I’ll call Wal-Mart.com from my couch & get a refund in less than a minute. And that’s how it worked out.

I was not will to put the pictures on a CD drive back to Wal-Mart (15 miles) just to get my pictures on paper. I can submit the pictures on CD to the contest & not have to leave the house. I’m not using Wal-Mart Photo ever again. I’m not sure but I think I got a compliment out of the deal. At least my pictures are as good as National Geographic. Do you think they will give me a job?

My NC Aquarium Contest entries.