Saturday, May 14, 2011

Lawn mowing in the winter

Blogger is back up now, and I see that my post from day before yesterday has re appeared too.  But the comments that were on it are long gone.  I can't remember what comments were there, but perhaps if someone had questions they wanted answered or needed to stress a point, they will re comment today.

I did type out a post last night, and save it on the editor on Linux.  That way when the system came back up this afternoon, all I had to do was copy and paste the post into blogger.  It is amazing how we take this service for granted, until it is gone......

Today, winter came back to Kansas again.  At least it isn't cold enough to be freezing or snowing like the folks up in Canada reported a couple of days ago.  But it is barely 50 tonight, and we still have the furnace in A/C mode from it being 90 a couple of days ago.

I went out and mowed the yard with Loyce this morning, and had my shorts on.  That caused me to drive rather fast on the John Deere, because I needed to get back inside.  But I did run the string trimmer for quite a while and the blower, and so forth.  But when I put the motorcycle back into the garage, I wasn't tempted to take any joy rides.  At least not in shorts anyway.   I usually won't ride in shorts even when its 100 outside, so there is no reason to do it at 50.

Tonight I just flipped on the gas log fireplace and we are allowing the warmth to help out the room. We haven't used it much since we have lived here, because it doesn't put out much heat, it is more ornamental.  And the big TV is in an enclosure above it.  The TV is not supposed to have heat on it, so we just don't use it much.  That one is one of those, what were they thinking deals.

Last week I attempted to order a new camera body for my older big SLR camera.  Digital cameras are like computers in that they are outdated very quickly.  The old one is a Nikon D70s from the spring of 2005, just 6 years ago.  It is a 6 megapixel.  That was huge at the time as the point and shoots were 2 and some were 4.  But now point and shoots are at least 12.

And as you know, we purchased a Panasonic last summer that was 12 mp, but it lost its display about November when we went to Arizona.  You can kind of see what you are taking a picture of, if you imagine about half of it.  The camera must have been bumped or banged somehow is all we could determine.   We were just sick over it, but decided not to order another one of the same thing.

I had planned to order a Nikon D90 at some point, but now that it is two years old, and it is only 12 MP  Nikon has moved on to the D7000 with 16 MP.  But that thing is seriously expensive, so we balked.  But here in April, they came out with a replacement for the D5000, a D5100.  It has the 16MP  sensor of the 7000, but is designed like the 5000.  And it has more of the 5000's price.  So I broke down and ordered the body.  For now I'll use the old lens.  It is more of a consumer camera, where the 90 is a little more professional.  But for me it will do all I need, or have the expertise to use.

I had hoped that is would come thru by the end of this week, but alas I had to call the company out in Boston that I ordered it thru.  I used the google shopping widget to order it and find this company.  And they must just be an order desk because it is to be drop shipped from Nikon.............. In Hong Kong!!

They gave me the tracking number, but the package hasn't left China yet.  I wonder how long that is going to take.  I used pay pal to pay for it because I didn't trust this company too much.  I can only hope that was the right thing to do.  No one stateside had just the body.  They all want to sell you the worthless kit lens that comes along with it for about $125 more.  But there were kits here in the US.  But then I was being frugal again...   That usually gets me into more trouble than its is worth.

Retired Rod

4 comments:

  1. Bought my D90 'body only' from a recommended link on Ken Rockwell's photography site... http://www.kenrockwell.com/index.htm

    Adorama... http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?utm_source=rflAID021866&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=Home&utm_term=Home

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  2. Our Panasonic is still going strong. I'm using it now as Gordon got another point and shoot by Fuji that shoots raw format.

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  3. Good luck with your new camera. I'm sure it will arrive in due course. It's really tough trying to keep up with all the new camera and phone mods. Staying 'current' is pretty much impossible now.

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  4. I'm sure you will like your new camera....I love my D5000. I don't think its too bad of a job to replace one of those display screen's. I see them for sale on eBy all the time... But its probably not worth the effort. Good Luck on the new Nikon!

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