The week that was.

How many days is it until spring?  Something under 50 I think,  but I’m not going to start any countdowns.  I suspect the result would only end in disappointment, since we could have a “late frost” or some such thing.

Hey, it’s Canada where,  if you’re not happy with the weather,  just wait a day or two.  Mostly.

We’ve been kind of dodging the wintery bullet up until this point,  so when they  (you know,  “they”?) are calling for a snow storm for later today,  I figure we’re about due.

Looks like I’ll be needing to use the snow brush after leaving tonight’s Super Bowl Party.  *grumble*.  Haven’t really had to do much of that so far this winter, mostly since the Merc stays in the garage whenever there’s a chance that I might have to scrape a windshield or brush off snow.   If you have a garage,  why would you choose to fill it with junk and then park your car outside?  In our case,  that’s the reason I built the shed.  But that’s kind of a smug thing to say.

 

Do as you please.

I don’t think I have much else to offer.

Well except that,  in other “news”,  the lens on my Nikon decided to bite the dust.  Just refused to move.  No idea why. 

I think I’m done with Nikon.  Sad to say.  The D40 has at this point probably taken upwards of 12,000 photos,  so that’s all fine and dandy,  but within six months of buying the thing (this would be Easter of 2009) it decided to crap out.   Had to send it back to get repaired in Mississauga.  That’s right.  Even though Nikon is “world wide”,  any warranty issues need to be dealt with in the country from which the camera was purchased.   Just remember that when you see a “sweet deal” in a foreign country.

In my case,  we were living in the Netherlands,  and the camera ceased to function on a trip to Slovenia.  I had the little Canon as a back up,  thankfully.

Anyway,  it’s never worked right since.  Quite often the lens doesn’t want to “talk” to the body,  so it won’t fire unless you detach and reattach the stupid thing,  and then the other day it just froze up.  It’s really now only so much glass and plastic.  Maybe a little gold on the contacts.  But mostly, junk.

 

Speaking of junk.  I thought I had another piece of it on my hands about mid week,  when I thought I’d do a little practising out in the shop.  As with anything that takes a modicum of skill,  cutting dovetails whether by hand or machine,  is something that you have to keep at,  or you get rusty.  Or at least I do.

So this abomination  dovetail jig that I have was giving me trouble.   It mostly needed some lubrication.  Plus,  one of the treaded rods looked as though I had dropped something against it.  Thankfully I have a set of taps and dies,  so it’s all good again. 

Which means of course,  it took me what seemed like most of the day to come up with two little storage thingies that I thought I’d conjure up for one of Travelling Companion’s sewing cabinet drawers. 

Just for something to do.

 

These pictures were taken pre lens crap out,  by the way.

Here’s what I was getting afterwards.

 

See anything?  Me neither.

After that,  it wouldn’t even do that.

Anyhoodle,  I do have another Nikon lens,  but it’s off an F70,  and it doesn’t talk to the body.  So that means I have to try and focus the thing myself. 

You can see what then happens.

 

Like that’s a good result.   *sigh*

I can’t see a blessed thing without glasses on,  and even after I’ve taken the photo and checked on the back of the camera (with my glasses on) I really can’t tell how it’ll turn out. 

Until I put it on a much bigger screen,  like the computer,  say.

 

I did get this one,  but that was a pure fluke.    Just outside our bedroom window.

So,  things that I want to take pictures of, I can’t.  And stupid things like stupid squirrels, turns out just fine.  mmmm.

I know I’ve bitched about that camera in the past,  and have threated to buy something new,  and still I’ve been sitting on my hands.  You may recall my previous grumblings along those lines.  You may ALSO recall that I’m somewhat parsimonious. 

Look that one up. 

I think there’s a picture of me,  right next to Scrooge McDuck.

 

Well OK, maybe I’m not *that* bad.  

 

My preference would be to support one of the local camera shops,  such as Duncan and Wright,  rather than ordering from say, Amazon.ca.  But that’s a matter of whether they have what I'm looking for,  and just now after perusing their website,  I’m not holding out much hope.  

 

So keep those sticks on the ice.  Hope your team wins.  Doesn’t matter too much to me at this point,  since I was too low in the pool standings (even though in the top 10%) to have any chance of being in the money.    I’m leaning towards Seattle. 

Just putting it out there.

 

Talk amongst yourselves.

 

Thanks for stopping by.