The Sunday Morning Report

The weekend got off to a great start Friday. I rode the Harley to work in the morning hoping for a good ride home in the afternoon. It was 35 degrees on the way in, but after my 22 degree ride a few weeks ago, nobody at work thinks much of it any more. They know that I apparently know no limits (or I'm brain-damaged) when it comes to weather. When I left work it was starting to drizzle, but it was still a great ride home.

As soon as I got home I turned on the computer while I changed clothes. I was planning to switch over to the car and go out and pick up some beer and drop Teresa's child support check off to her. When I went onto Craigslist, I spotted a deal for a camera for sale and called the guy on it. It turns out he was right here in Auburn, so I zoomed down to the ATM and up to his house. I ended up buying myself a used Canon Digital Rebel XT setup for $500. That alone would not be too good of a deal because you can get Canon's latest offering, the XTi, for not much more than that--But I got extras. It came with a nice 75-300 zoom lens (in addition to the original standard 18-55 lens), an extra battery, and a camera bag. The extra lens would cost almost what the camera would if you bought it separately. I felt kinda bad though--Sue came by and was playing show-and-tell with the lens she just bought for her camera and I stole her thunder. Still, she got a smokin' deal on the 80-200 lens she bought for only $100. The bottom line: Now we can go on photography outings together!

The camera I bought didn't come with any memory cards because the guy wanted to keep the two 2-gig cards he had for his new camera, so when I stopped by Teresa's house to drop off her check I repossessed the two measly little 32-meg cards from Sarah's old camera (the one that stopped working before Christmas). Her new camera uses a different kind of memory so these cards were of no use to her any more anyway. The only trouble is that each of them will only hold about 8 pictures from my new camera. Fortunately, there's a hot sale on a 2-gig card at Staples today so I'll hop on down and pick one of those up. That will allow me to store about 500 pictures.

Suzie came over yesterday morning and we went out for breakfast. From there we went and bought a helmet for her so she can go riding. None of the old ones I had around were worth a crap and didn't fit anyway. We also made a couple other stops while we were out. We are both looking for a new camera bag that will store our camera and the zoom lens, but so far nothing yet. She did buy herself a tripod at WallyWorld though.

It was a nice day yesterday and after we got home I spent an hour or so checking the brakes on her car. None of them needed replacement, but it did create a hair-raising experience when she left later last night. It seriously scared me. Her car has 4-wheel disc brakes on it, and when you pull disc brake calipers off to check them the the actuating piston will creep outward and require you to squeeze it back into caliper so you can put the caliper back on. Trouble is when you do that the pedal will go to the floor until you pump it a few times and re-seat the piston and eliminate the extra clearance. We didn't do that. When she backed out of the driveway later she had no brakes. Fortunately nothing happened, but I had to watch helplessly and open-mouthed as she went backwards down the street while pumping her brake pedal. Whew! I don't ever want that to happen again. It really creeped me out. That could have easily been a major disaster!

Hey, here it is Sunday and I'm off tomorrow as well. How cool is that? I think Suz and I will go out on the Harley with our cameras and go somewhere for some picture taking. It should be a good day!