santa doesn't only visit in december....

so, i am leaving for virginia in about a week and a half. i'm really excited and can't wait to start my job down there!! i'm also really excited to be down in the dc area with all the historic sites and such. as i knew i'd be headed down there to this great splendor, i decided it would be nice to have a camera to take some super sweet pictures with, so that i might hold this summer in memories for years to come. it started out as just a hopeful idea, but then i decided it was something i really really wanted. as such i started looking for a cheaper, but decent digital camera. once i started mentioning the idea to the rents, they decided i should do some research to find a nice one (okay, so mostly dad...).

well dad also has a friend that owns a camera store. dad had me write down a list of what i was looking for so that i could ask tony about it. sadly, tony is closing down the store and no longer has any cameras. so it was back to the internet. after searching like crazy, and calling local stores to see if they had them in stock, i was able to find the camera that i wanted. i had intended to pay for this almost 95% of it by myself. alas, "santa" decided to come a little earlier this year and just told me not to hold my breath for christmas day...
dad and i headed to a specialty camera store in melrose, with our specific camera in mind--the olympus fe 340. we went right to the counter, told the guy what we wanted, he pulled one out and started demonstrating it for us. then he also pulled out two other cameras, that were similar but slightly better. pretty much he convinced us to change our minds.
so basically, i have a new camera. and it's awesome!

this is the exact camera i got, color and all. i originally was going to go with blue but they didn't have one in stock. so i went with black. as you can see it is a nikon coolpix s550. if you watch tv this is the camera that ashton kutcher is currently advertising....