Thursday, June 24, 2010

Kodak EasyShare C913 repair

I'm pretty hard on my digital cameras. It's been a while so I'm not sure what mistreatment caused my Kodak EasyShare C913's screen to go all fuzzy...

Sad-looking Before Kitty

...but it probably has to do with my habit of just tossing the camera into a banjo gig bag or carrying it around in my hip pocket.

I thought of this busted camera, which has been sitting on a shelf for some time, when I ran across a YouTube video showing how easy it is to replace a broken digital camera screen.

So I took my camera apart with a plan to find the part number of the broken screen and ordering a replacement. (You can get replacement screens on eBay for $15-$20.)

But when I got it open I found that the screen's internal connector...

Loose connector

...was loose and just needed a little nudge to make things right again.

Happy-looking After Kitty

It's too bad I didn't know that before I purchased a replacement camera last year.

Speaking of which, my next repair task is to fix the replacement camera, which seems to have suffered an even worse fate than its predecessor.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Happy 3rd banjoversary to me!

It's my third banjoversary! Three years since the redhead gave me a banjo for my birthday on that fateful day.

And how did she honor my banjoversary this year? Why, she gathered my family at that very same vegetarian diner (Try the Dagwood!) and gave me another banjo!!!

The redhead gave me an Irish tenor banjo for my 3rd banjoversary

This one's a Gold Tone CC-IT, which stands for Cripple Creek Irish Tenor. It's tuned to G d a e', which is just like my recently-acquired (and not yet learned-to-play) mandolin-banjo's tuning of g d' a' e'', just one octave lower.

But my banjoversary is about more than receiving banjos. Although, don't get me wrong, that really helps the festive tone of the day.

My banjoversary is also about my annual introspective/retrospective look at my banjo skills, where I've been and what I plan to do.

So, like last year and the year before, I'll be spending the next few days (weeks?) looking backward, inward and forward. Stay tuned for some posts under the 3rd banjoversary label.

Cross-posted at J.R.'s Banjo Hangout blog