Check Out The Insides!

Well, I've gone through my SECOND digital cameral now. Is it because I use mine daily, and (carefully) carry it everywhere in my purse in it's case? I've had this camera for just over a year; it replaced my first digital camera when it got dropped on Halloween of '06 and the zoom lens part wouldn't go back in.

Luckily, Jeff surprised me with a new camera the very next day (even had it over-nighted from the internet!) so that I wouldn't be camera-less for long.

So this trusty camera lasted almost exactly one year. On Halloween night (what's up with Halloween?) I was lucky to catch pictures at home with Reese & then pictures of Jessie & Reese at Denise's house. But as soon as we got in the car, I tried to turn on the camera & it was not working. WHAT?

A few weeks back, I had been scoping out the latest & greatest in tiny digital cameras with more features than my current one (like image stabilizers & more pixels) & dropped a few not-so-subtle hints to Jeff that I'd love a new camera for Christmas.

I think the Powers That Be in the camera realm must love me, because sure enough, the very next day, a box arrived from UPS. It was my Christmas present. But Jeff gave it to me early because I would be without a camera for over a month. I assured him that YES this camera still counts, and I was GLAD to have it early because I could charge it up & have it ready for Christmas morning. I can pretty much rationalize any early gift :)

So....we decided to take the broken camera to Wolf Camera to see if they could fix it.
Cost of camera: $150
Cost of repair: $130
You do the math. It didn't make sense to have it fixed when we could just buy a new one for almost the same price.

The nice kid behind the counter offered to open it up in the store (the $130 was the charge to ship to back to Cannon to fix). The worst that would happen is that it's still broken. The best would be that he could fix the camera himself.

Anyway--when I went back to the store, I was handed a clear plastic sleeve with the camera in two pieces & about 50 elf sized screws, and an apology that they couldn't fix it.

No biggie! We came home & turned it into a project. Reese has been fascinated for two days now with all the inner workings of the camera. We were all surprised at just how many parts were stuffed into such a small housing!

We did find one battery type thing that gave a little shock (Reese said it stung him like a bee), so that's removed. But Reese has really enjoyed trying to fit the pieces back together, figure out what is up/down/front/back of the camera, & finding all the minature screws & springs hidden in the camera.

I finally had to give Reese a little white basket to keep all the parts in, because they were just going to get spread everywhere....I could tell. And establish the rule that the camera parts stay on his little table in the kitchen.

Maybe after the camera loses it's novelty, we'll put out something else to take apart. When I taught first grade, I always had a bin with an old appliance (toaster, phone, etc) and some basic tools. The boys obsessed over dismantling the items to see what was inside. Anyone got an old toaster?