New Camera On Its Way...

My new Canon PowerShot SX100IS should be here by Friday thanks to the Canon customer loyalty program to which I'm am, unfortunately, a member. Membership requires that you have a Canon camera that you mess up so bad that it needs repair -- and that repair is so expensive that it's more efficient to replace the camera.The good thing about the program is that you get a better camera and a ridiculously low price. This one retails for about $250 and I'm getting it for $140 (plus the trade in of my broken camera).

If I would have had a working camera yesterday, this post would have been about the tornado damage we saw in Nappanee, Indiana last night. Here's a link to a YouTube video of the tornado damage (warning, video has loud music).

The tornado was last October, but there are still heavily damaged buildings in the town. After seeing the devastation caused by that tornado, last night's weather alerts made us rush down to the basement and duck for cover.

The storm that blew through Chicago and Northern Indiana brought with it lots of lightening and very strong winds (clocked at 80-100 mph). By the time the storm made it into Elkhart, it had lost quite a bit of steam. Our power blinked off for about two seconds, and there were a few small branches down in the yard.

Being down in the basement for an hour or so did give me an opportunity to clean it up a bit, which I've been putting off for awhile in favor of playing in the gardens outside.

While in Nappanee, I also could have taken a photo of the Amish buggies parked next to the grocery store we drove down to visit. We used to buy meat at the Osceola Park 'N Shop, but that closed on news that Wal-Mart was coming to the area. We wanted to get some good steaks to cook for family this weekend, and there's a store in Nappanee we'd heard about for good and inexpensive meat. We ended up buying a whole NY strip for $60 and Bruce cut it up into about 20 large steaks. If it turns out to be good, that will have been quite a bargain.

Another lost photo opportunity was of the 25 zucchini I peeled and shredded by hand. That was quite a task, but I'll sure enjoy the zucchini bread this fall.

We also picked the first of the red tomatoes out of the garden yesterday. No photographic evidence of that though.

We have lots going on this weekend so I'll be anxious to get the new camera. Hopefully there won't be a big learning curve.