Good-bye old friend...thanks for the memories

So this sad pile of camera parts are the remains of my beloved Fuji Finepix 5000. Bought in 2004 right before my first trip to Ireland, it has served me well. I even had a few pocket point and shoot cameras in addition to it, but I always came back to this camera. The zoom and macro were wonderful and the camera was well before its time when I bought it in 2004. It's been to Ireland twice, India, Germany twice, Aruba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and all over the 48 states I've visited at some point or another. The ccd finally bit the dust and could not be repaired, according to professionals. This is what is left after salvaging parts.

I loved this piece of electronics, but it was time to say good-bye and bring in the predecessor.

Not being able to break from the clarity and macro of Fuji, I bought its upgraded cousin, the Fuji Finepix 2000HD. It has a lot of nifty features such as face recognition and a 33 frame continuous shoot. Mainly, I chose not to go with the Sony counterpart for a few reasons. I don't like rechargeable battery cards. I prefer using rechargeable AA batteries. You can rescue yourself in a snap with batteries purchased on a whim should the others die and require some alone time with the outlet charger. I also prefer the SD cards to a memory stick. Lastly, I love the one-grip feature that has provided me with a one-hand steady shot. Although I love the features of my new camera, my old one served me well. *insert horns playing "Taps".Oh and I promised to show you the results of my little yarn dyeing experiment with Wilton's dyes. So I took some Zitron Trekking and some Wilton's icing dyes I had laying around the house and came up with a fun colorway. I made some of the areas of blue darker on purpose with a more concentrated blue, in case you were wondering. I used the standard dyeing techniques used with acid dyes to see if I enjoyed playing with the dyeing part. Surprisingly, I did.

Here's the result though. Isn't it fun? I went through all these names and finally decided on "John's Hawaiian Shirt", an ode to my brother-in-law and his happy, colorful shirts. I adore Hawaiian shirts and the louder the better.

Hope everyone had a good weekend. I'm off to finish knitting a sock and watch Caddyshack. I was glued to the TV earlier watching "Top Gear" on BBC America. Next to Alton Brown's "Good Eats", this is my next favorite show. You can't beat playing ice hockey with Suzuki Swifts and an over-sized puck or shooting a rocket-propelled old Mini Cooper down the ski jump at Lillihammer. Priceless.