Well I am delighted to say that, thanks to some lobbying from my mother and the graciousness of Annette at Best Buy, I have been issued a replacement for my broken P71. Now this is by no means a testament to their superior service; if this camera ever breaks I’m sending it to Sony, not Best Buy. Their replacement plans can be very useful, but I’m not going to waste my money again on a so-called service plan. All in all though I’m just incredibly grateful to have my camera back. I can’t wait to start taking pictures again! 🙂

I’ve had what could be called a trying day, in a sense of the word, and it was not made better by my episode with Best Buy’s service, or lack thereof. I was very excited when at dinner my mother told me that a package had come in the mail today. I haven’t ordered anything lately so my mind raced to try and think what could have come in the mail. A sample for the PUG? Some books from Amazon? My camera back from the dead??? The return address had actually come off the box, but as soon as I opened it and dug through the peanuts I was delighted to see my camera. The slip of paper said they had reconnected two of the circuit boards, cleaned it, and tested it. Wonderful! Right?

The trouble started when I tried to turn it on. The problem before was that every time it tried to use the lens, the camera would just turn off. It would turn on in setup mode, or play mode, but as soon as you turn it to take a picture of any kind it would just turn off. I assume this meant there was some sort of bad connection with the lens mechanism, and whenever it tried to send power there it would short out. I was baffled: how could they send it back with the exact same problem it had before? What happened to this testing they talked about?

So I decided to go back to the store, because maybe there had been a mistake and this was how I should get my replacement, since they couldn’t/didn’t fix it. Nope. The store couldn’t have been less helpful. I eventually talked to a lower level manager, Marcus, who actually informed me to get a replacement they would have to send it to the service center four times! I’m on time number two right now, so taking the time the whole thing has taken so far, it could be well over a month before I can start taking pictures again with the digital. I can’t comprehend how them mailing me a broken unit back and me sending it back four times as a prerequisite to getting a replacement evolved as part of their bueracracy. It just boggles the mind. This has seriously tainted my view of Best Buy’s service and I will think very seriously before making any sort of significant purchase from them again, and I encourage others to do the same.

I know I haven’t been getting enough sleep when the Radiohead songs start to make sense. I just got back from taking Rene his laptop, a Compaq Armada 7800. I had the darndest time getting XP to load up on thereand spent most of last night (this morning?) having to reinstall things. But other than those diffilculties it’s really a nice machine, though somewhat old, but I’ve done a lot to make it good for college. Rene has a very early flight though, and to get it to him I had to be at his house (far North side) at 5:30 AM. The traffic wasn’t bad, but now that I’m home I don’t think I can go back to sleep since this is when I would be getting up anyway. I haven’t gotten to the best part yet though: when I got there the computer wouldn’t turn on! It didn’t respond to any of the buttons at all. Rene packed it and hopefully something will jiggle back into place on the flight to Boston, where he’ll be attending Berklee College of Music.

Everyone leaving so far has been hard, but I think this is the hardest, both because he is leaving so late and because we’ve really grown up together, at least in high school. He’s definitely one of the nicest, friendliest, and most sincerely religious people I know, and Rene will be dearly missed while he’s away. Not to mention the incredible BBQ I’ll be missing ;).

Good food, nice night with friends, a little past midnight, windows down, 95 miles per hour on Main/90, Beautiful Day on the stereo. Life is good.

Well I just had my first college class, and now I have one hour of downtime before the next, and I’m pleasantly suprised to find an open wireless connection in the building I’m waiting in. Actually I just found a page that lists all the locations that wireless is supposively available, although where I am right now isn’t even listed, so there may be more hidden goodies like this throughout the campus. More updates later!

Overall it was a pretty good night—ate good food, saw old friends, played frisbee in Hermann Park, and saw Simone (which was not a highlight of the night). However the tough part came during the last part of the night, when Joe, Rene, and I went to see the movie. We took two cars instead of one or three, because I had driven to the park with Joe and Rene met us there, and to not leave a car at in the park we decided to take both cars. The problem came when we got to the Edward’s Cinema on Weslayan and neither Rene nor I wanted to pay the $2 for parking, because we’re both a little low on cash at the moment. So we drove around the theatre, and all the spaces were taken on all sides, so I had the brilliant idea to park behind the strip mall across the street from the theatre. There were only a few cars there, probably belonging to workers at the restruants and such, but I didn’ see any signs and we were only going to be in there a few hours anyway. Rene was nervous about parking there but I assured him that there wouldn’t be any trouble, and that if he was towed I would pay for it.

He was. There’s nothing quite as frightening as walking out and seeing absolutely nothing where your car used to be. Rene was a little hysterical, but we managed to think through the situation logically. Luckily Joe was there with his car and we drove around till we found the “No Parking” sign that seemed to have alluded us earlier, and we called the number, was redirected, and found out that the car was at a lot at 45 and Ennis (not a good neighborhood) and could be picked up for a small fe. So we all went back to Joe’s house to get my car, and I went to the hardest part of the night—getting the money from my parents. Thankfully my Mom was very understanding and in a short while I was back to pick up Rene and head to the place. One hundred and twenty dollars later Rene was back in his brother’s truck and I began the long drive home, utterly exhausted from the events of the night. Picking the car up was pretty easy, and nothing compared to the long car rides home and back when my mind went over every detail of the night thus far and thought of a thousand things that could have gone differently and prevented the whole thing. $2 would have saved $120, and I think the moral of the story has been burned pretty well into my head. Don’t declare liability for any risky ventures :). Oh, and parking where it’s legal wouldn’t hurt either.

Sleep finally came but I had bad nightmare about my cat. First thing when I woke up I checked her, and she was purring contently on a pillow. Strange how dreams can sometimes be so real and make you worry about tangible things as a result of an intangible and imaginary experience.

As I enter my 38^th hour awake, I’m starting to wonder, academically, how much longer this will last. It might be a useful tidbit of information starting college on Monday. I think I’m just nervous about everything that’s been happening. We had to postpone the production meeting today because the producer is down with a cold or virus of some sort. College is starting in just a few days, and Iଁm not sure if I’m ready physically, emotionally, intellectually.

I rearranged all the furniture in my room, which was almost like the puzzle where you have the squares with the different numbers and you can only move one at a time. Anyway I’m pretty happy with the way things turned out, as I now have true surround sound, dual monitors set up, and a *real* space to study that doesn’t require me moving other stuff out of the way. Also I have a much better practice area now, the next step is practicing more.

One of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard in a long time is Sing A Song of Song by Kenny Garrett which is available on the CD Songbook. Although I had heard it before, I was really introduced to it through Rex Gregory’s wonderful senior recital where I thought it was one of the best songs. The recital made me reexamine the song on Songbook and I was really moved by the performance. Kenny Garrett has more vitality and life in his playing then twenty of the other players with record deals and such.

After a wonderfully pleasant drive, I am now back at home sweet home. I still miss my camera . . .