Camera Copan

01.7.18 5:45 pm Camera Copan

I am a mechanical genius. This phrase comes from when my ol' P&G pal Sean Pratt, known as a chemical engineer, managed to plug something in, or something equaly simple, and made some computer thing work. I don't quite remember the whole story anymore. Anyway, we dubbed Sean a Mechanical Geeeeenius for his fortitde.

So I went to Copan today - the ruins. Ya see, there is the town of Copan, Santa Rosa de Copan to be exact, then there the actual ruins....Copan...and then just to make everything totally confusing, they put a town by the ruins, called Copan Ruinas, which means Copan Ruins. The town of. Not to be confused with the actual Copan RUins. Or something.

So I went to Copan, and put together a group tto split the $20 guide fee. Got to the first thing, and pulled out my trusty digital camera. Olympus. Good stuff...and I know cuz I've had a film camera of theirs that took all the abuse only I can dish out. Well, I aimed, hit the button and waited for the telltale BeepBEEP that tells ya it took a picture, and also eireely sounds like some of the crickets down here in cCentral America...so much that sometimes I think my camera is beeping at me or someone elses phone it ringing. Very digital sounding crickets. It's quite confusing. Not to be confused with the quite confusing game of cricket.

So no telltale beep. Check camera and it has some ERROR D12. Of couse I didn't bring my other camera. And of course my digital camera is broke 3 weeks into my 52 week trip. 6% is better than no percent. Well, being the UsedToShittySoftwareFromMicrosoft kinda guy that I am, I did the ol' turn it off turn it on thing (which needs a word to desribe it because its too long to say and definately too long to type. I'm actually developing a list of terms which need words. The other one I'm working on is something to describe the foaming action of a poured beer...and how the head rises rapidly, and magically before it rises over the edge of the glass, it stops. Anyway) and when I turn itt back on, it does the same damn thing. Well, having had a shiotty computer at P&G for 3 years, there was sometimes a SuperResetTechnique that called for removing the battery, unpluigging it, saying the P&G mantra ("I will do that which is most illogical especailly if we did itt before and it didnt work"), crossing your fingers, and then turning it on, and heading to the cafeteria for fifteen minutes while the thing rebooted. Well I did that, sans mantra and cafeteria, and no go. I noticed in the past the lens would boogie back and forth when ya turned the camera on. Schnazzy I thought. My camera dances better than I. On this occassion, no schnazzy tango dnce, just some weird raspy gear grind noise. Like CLICKCLICKCLICK real fast like. Ha! What was I doing using the newfangled technology fixes (turnoffon and Sujperdepowerprayandreset) when I could do the old Hitthefuckerafewtimesandit'llfixit. If I may digress and post story by my sister recounting her experience with this tried and true technique:

5/12/99

On a side note, I just dropped my keyboard in a serious way. So then,
it wouldn't type anything. So being the sister of an engineer that I
am, I dropped it again really hard and low an behold, it works
beautifully now. And I haven't even taken any engineering courses :)

-- Makenzie Newman
(Reproduced without any sort of permission or express written (or otherwise) consent. Sorry Kenz)

Well, I tried this technique not once, not twice, but about every 15 minutes for the 8 hours I was at Copan and the fact that I did it so often tells ya it either:

A -Fixed it
B -Fixed it for a little while and then it broke again'
C -Didn't fix it
D -I was pissed.

So, no, it didn't fix it, and yes I was pissed as hell.