RIP Ollie

Current mood: nothin's gonna breaka my stride

My Olympus c-765 ultrazoom, Ollie, is dead.

He took a last gasp downloading photos to my computer before he died. His lens was permanently extended and wouldn't retract, respond to any buttons, or power off.

I took him in to the camera doctors at National Camera Exchange, who told me it would cost a minimum of $180, and 8 weeks turnaround from the factory. I purchased Ollie for about $230.

I took him home and did emergency screwdriver surgery. "Shit, I'm a mechanical engineer, and this appears to be a mechanical malfunction." Surgery did not have a postive outcome.

Ollie lived well. He took about 3500 photos, travelled to Michigan's UP, North Dakota's Badlands, the Boundary waters, the tops of mountains in Utah, Colorado, and British Colombia, Whidbey Island in Puget sound, the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Miami, and the desert of Arizona. He might've even taken naked pictures of girls...

No way I'm going without a camera. I was thinking about buyin a nice canon 20D, but I can't afford it with that Norway trip coming up, so minutes ago I bought Ollie's successor, SP-510 at Buydig.com. About the same price with more features. Buydig.com is also one of the highest rated online electronic stores according to consumer reports. Free Shipping!

Seriously. This year is getting expensive.....