Broke My Cherry

My Black Friday cherry that is. 

Mission successful.  The alarm went off at 3:30AM this morning, and after a quick leak and time to throw on a pair of jeans and jacket, I was out the door to the closest Best Buy, about 20 minutes away.  I arrived right at 4:00AM, and was greeted by a line snaking down in front of the store itself and it's 4 closest neighbors.  I'd estimate approx. 300 or so people in line at that point.  As it turned out, the first person in line had been there since 9:00AM...on Thanksgiving!  Seriously, WTF could be that good of a deal.  But anyways, I digress.

It's a bit windy, low 50s perhaps outside, with a very light drizzle coming down.  I was layered up pretty well, and for only an hour it wasn't that big of a deal.  I start chatting it up with the people in front and behind of me, and turned out kids (early 20s I'd wager) were there for the Playstation 3 bundle.  After a little talk on the console, etc., I ask if they were looking forward to the Little Big Planet that came with it.  They didn't know what it was, so I explained it was a kids platformer and offered them $20 for it.  CHA CHING.  I sold off my copy a while ago, and my youngest has ever been pissed at me since.  So, for $20 I scored him the GOTY version - which includes about $30 of DLC I don't have.  Can you say XMas gift?

So what did I rouse myself so early for?  New camera.  My P&S Sony developed a cracked lens from a drop recently (I only just realized it was broken on Tuesday), and will be going back under the protection plan on it this weekend or early next week.  But my wife and I have always wanted to get into photography, and with the kids getting older and in more significant activities (daughter riding horses, son marching in the HS band, etc.), we have been toying with a D-SLR for a while.  Courtsey of Best Buy and Black Friday, I'm now the proud owner of a Canon EOS Rebel T1i with two lenses, one at 18-55mm with image stabilization (IS), and the other 55-250mm with IS as well.  It also was bundled with a nice all-weather camera bag.  Total damage, including a 4 year protection plan, was $1050.

Now time to look up photography classes at the local rec center or community college.  Would be a shame not to really milk this for all it's worth.  :)  I'll post some snaps from it in the upcoming days, so stay tuned.