I recently bought a new camera. I don’t need my old one any more, and really its not very useful to me anyway. It has a few problems, so i want to find a new home for it. Make me an offer and its yours. If your interested in it read this whole post! Remember Caveat emptor from way back in high school civics? It applies!

So, here are the stats:

Nikon D70 Body only (no lens)

battery, charger, strap, 2 1 gig compact flash cards (more on these later), nikon capture 4 and camera control, manual.

The problems:

I don’t know exactly what is wrong with the camera. It has some sort of issue writing to the memory card. It takes pictures fine, but they are corrupt when copied from the card to the computer (and sometimes you cant copy them at all, its like the files don’t exist, or the memory card cant be read). It actually seems to work fine on my mac, but not on several PCs I have tried. So, there is something wrong, but it might be that if you have a mac it wont matter. The two memory cards that are included might be bad (well…one I am sure is bad…I even wrote bad on it). However, it still has the same problem with a brand new card. So, bottom line is that you cant really use it to just take pictures with and copy them to your computer.

The Good:

Other then that (sort of critical!) problem it works great. Its old and well used (honestly this camera is a testament to the durability of the D70, it has been through a lot of years as a camp workhorse camera which means heat, humidity, dust, water, ropes courses, hiking, thousands and thousands of pictures…it served me well). It has some wear on the body, but nothing is broken. I had the shutter rebuilt several thousand pictures ago, but i have not had any issues with it recently.

So, why do I think anybody might want a camera that does not write to the memory card? Well…there are lots of people who like to make things work. If that is you then perhaps you can figure out what is wrong and how to fix it. Or you might need some spare parts for your old D70.

But really there is something you can use it for. It still works fine if you shoot tethered to your computer. If you have a computer that will run Nikon Capture and Camera Control 4 (it works on XP, i know it does not work on newer mac os, im not sure about vista and windows 7) you can plug the camera into your computer by USB (you will have to get a USB cable…its just one of those standard digital camera small USB plugs) and when you take a picture it will copy directly to the hard drive. You can actually control the camera from the computer, which is kind of freaky. So, for example if you wanted to do a time-lapse of something you can hook the camera up to your computer and tell it to take pictures at a specific interval. Or if you sell stuff on ebay or something and want to have a camera set up for product shots it would work for that as well.

So…i know that there are very few real uses for this camera, but i figure if somebody out there has a really specific need and my trusty D70 can have a second life its worth a blog post.

If your interested make on offer and its yours, just email or leave a comment or whatever.

For a long time I have thought that it wold be fun to learn how to throw pottery on a wheel. It’s kind of amazing that you can get some mud and suddenly it becomes a bowl. Turns out its a bit harder then that (goes more like this: get some mud, put it on the wheel, can’t get it centered, finally get going, mess up, start over, repeat. Make something you like, wait for it to dry, trim, wait for it to dry, fire in kiln, glaze, fire in kiln, hope it does not crack). I have been taking classes for a several months. I have actually made some real stuff:

I am really enjoying learning to throw, the process is good for me. It’s creative and does not involve a computer, its something i can practice and hopefully get good at…and its kind of like being a kid again.

There is actually a lot to write about the place where I am taking classes: 3rd Street Clay Works, it is a unique place with a lot of talented people. Ill write about it sometime….but for now I have other work to do. There is a post on my other blog about some marketing ideas for the studio if your into that kind of stuff.

By the way, 3rd Street has a retail gallery, if your looking for Christmas presents and want some unique handmade stuff you should drop by. The address is 1001 East 3rd Street, Tulsa. Say hi to Jeff (the owner), im sure he would be glad to give you a cup of coffee and talk a while. He might even convince you to come play in the mud.

I don’t want to live a life of fear. In general I don’t. I do have parts of my life that have fear. I fear rejection….i fear that people dont think well of me. Sometimes those fears lead to a fear of trying new things, particularly things I don’t think i will be good at. It also leads to fear of challenging peoples actions and ideas.

Of course events can lead to fear. Our car was recently broken into, a couple of CDs are gone, and a couple hundred dollars for a new window. But now every time I park somewhere I am wondering if somebody is going to break in again. Today i parked in the exact same spot where it got broken into last time. I had just picked up a new wireless router and it was in the back seat. My first thought was that I should bring it inside so it would not get stolen if somebody broke into our car. Thats crazy! Two weeks ago I would never have thought of that. but now its on my mind a lot. Its a small thing, but i dont want to live life looking out for the next bad thing that is going to happen. I want to assume the best of the hundreds of people who drive through our parking lot everyday.

I left the router in the car…but i have to admit I am kind of worried about it.

Yesterday i walked out of the office at church to find this:

So..yeah…somebody just walked through the parking lot in broad daylight and smashed the window of our car. The pay off was huge for them. Im sure whoever it was will enjoy The Stringcheese Incident and The Listener  CD they took. And that tape deck adaptor from 1996 will come in handy!

This kind of stuff is super frustrating…time and money gone for nothing. I mean really, i would have let you listen to my cds if you had just asked!

The best part is that we did not even make it a year before we are having to fix (and pay for!) our car because somebody was mean.

I am looking on the bright side. While filling the police report I noticed that we need to renew our tags this month. If somebody had not smashed our window i might not have noticed. Then we would have gotten a ticket and thats not fun.

This is my trusty D70. We have been through a lot. This camera has take thousands of pictures. It has survived a lot of trips up the poles of NLR’s ropes course. It has taken pictures of five years worth of NLR campers and family campers. It has taken pictures of my friends and their kids. It has been hiking, splashed, dirty, cold and dusty.

Unfortunately it (mostly) does not work any more. So, i got a new camera. It’s all fancy, more pixels, shoots video, and faster. But, I do feel like I am replacing an old friend (i know…it’s kind of lame to call a camera a friend) and I hope the D70 will forgive me for replacing it. It’s been a good 5 years.

Yesterday i thought it would be fun to go on a bike ride (just to set the stage, we live on the second floor, my bike lives upstairs in the laundry room)…so i geared up…shorts, shirt, helmet, shoes, gloves, sunglasses. Walked out the door, got to the bottom of the stairs…no bike. Really, i walked downstairs without my bike…to go on a bike ride. So I went back up to get my bike. Water is nice to have on a bike ride so I grabbed a water bottle and filled it up. Walked out the door back downstairs, still no bike. At least I had my water bottle now. Back up the stairs. This time i made it out of the house with my bike…but really…i walked all the way down without my bike 2 times….in all my bike gear….to go on a bike ride.

There are a lot of talented people i the world, I am honored to know a few of them.

It’s awesome to see people who are doing what God created for them…i might right about that later, but for now here are two you should check out.

First is Cass Harris

I talk about Cass a lot on this blog, but he has some new music out. Listen to this one:

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You can download some of his music free at www.cassharrismusic.com.

Next is Freewater, which is our friends Jared and Lauren.

Check out this video:

You can find there music on their label’s page.

By the way, if you like their stuff tell people about it…thats the best way you can support them.

Remember how all I’ve been talking about lately is the Indie Emporium?

(It’s Oct. 29th & 30th…and tickets are now available!!! Click here for details.)

Well, I’ve decided what I’m going to purchase if I make enough at the IE.

This beauty: Paper Source Letterpress Machine

Just thinking of all the awesome cards I could make with this is super-exciting.

I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve been busy (read: taken over the living room floor) creating cards & trying to build up my inventory in preparation for The Indie Emporium later this month. I am SO excited to be able to participate this year!  Some of my recent fun crafting finds have been vintage postcards.  Like these:

(Please forgive the quality of the pictures!!!)

This one is Pikes Peak in CO.

And check out the back!

Did you catch that date, friends? Aug. 24, ’08. That would be 1908. This card was mailed 102 years ago!

This one just makes me laugh:

Do you see what I see? Right on the edge of this gold printed design…is a big reindeer butt! (Does anyone else think that’s odd?) This one was mailed in 1909. 101 years ago.

These cards are old! And I’m really excited to turn them into newfound treasures for someone at this show.

I created this as part of my Final Project for our CQ Missional 10-month internship. Today marks 1 year of living in Tulsa for us, & that seemed worthy of a little reflection.

It’s nearly impossible to sum up a year like we experienced in mere words…that’s why I used pictures for my Final Project. I wanted to mark today as special, so after church I walked across the street to Chimis, paper in hand, & satisfied my craving for Mexican food. And as I walked back home I was struck by a couple of thoughts.

1) I LOVE seeing the skyline from that Chimis parking lot. Love it. It’s maybe one of my favorite views of the city.

2) One year ago, after a long day of moving all of our belongings to the city, we went to dinner with some friends at Chimis. I remember feeling very odd that after a very normal moment of, “Hey-let’s go grab some dinner,” we just walked across the street & were at a restaurant. “Hey-let’s go grab some dinner,” usually involved a 15-minute drive into town. Walking home from that meal felt like we were staying at a hotel somewhere on vacation. Where you settle in to your room, and then walk across the street to a restaurant. And today, as I made that same walk, it felt fairly “normal.” I kind of like that.