Okay, got the Panoscan for minimum bid!

(Is that a good thing? Would he have relisted with a lower minimum? He dropped it $2000 last time he did that... or maybe he'd not relist for several weeks, and try again at his original price -- who knows? By then I'd be, hmmm, either frustrated or compromising probably.)

And in the meantime, other gears are turning. Ordered a new Macintosh PowerBook to make the Panoscan work. Will shortly order a new fisheye lens for use with it too. This lens costs more than most digital cameras. Sigh.

And to head off question... fisheye lenses are not themselves unacceptable for panoramas -- they're just not great quality when being used with a tiny CCD as in most digicams. A nice fisheye with this system will be fine.

So I'm tired but jazzed up now. Going to play shuffle the dollars so that we can get a good chunk of bonuses (and take advantage of their on-line purchase protection program) on the Visa card (called and warned them not to flag the activity as suspicious so that there's no delay in getting stuff), then pay the Visa card off within the month by withdrawing from our home equity loan (which we've been paying down in advance for this sort of operation), which is what the business class teacher's strong recommendation was to self-fund (because it is cheaper than a bank loan, and shows dedication to the endeavor -- better for later visits to the bank in the long run, like when I want to quit my job and pay myself my own salary from a loan).


Got all that? Anyway... my Warbird Dream Flight has been confirmed for Sunday afternoon and we have three short work-weeks in a row, then a regular one, then another short one. Lots of time to learn how to put this fortune to good use making an escape route from my cubicle and doing something interesting for once in my life.

Bon voyage!!!