THE TALE OF THE TRAVELING NIKON

Once upon a time a lady found a digital camera on a downtown park
bench. She happened to work in my office and since she knew nothing
about cameras asked me if it was any good or worth keeping. Sadly, it
was a Nikon Coolpix 4100, a 4MP piece of junk hardly worth saving. The
lady was very sad when I told her this as the thought of scoring some
bucks on EBAY had already crossed her mind.

As for myself, I was more interested in the pics on the camera and who
they might belong to. So I took the camera home, downloaded the pics
from the cheapo SD card inside and looked at them. The card contained
family photos and from the pics it was obvious that it belonged to a
little girl. There was no owner ID embedded in the EXIF info but the
photos on the card told a story about where the family had been.
Obviously, they were just passing through town on vacation. Some of
the pics were taken at the hotel across the street from my office so I
knew they had stayed there. There were pics taken from the back seat of
the minivan of the Nashville skyline and the big bridge that you cross
going from Tennessee into Kentucky. So the destination was up Illinois
/ Indiana way.
Also, some of the pics were of an elderly couple who lived in a nice
little house .... somewhere. All I could glean from that was the
street address .... "330" .. on the front of the house. But who
knows what street, what town, or even what state?
The elderly man looked to be in pretty bad shape. I noticed a walker
beside the chair where he sat as well as a cap saying "FBI" on it.
There were some photos of the traveling family that owned the cammy,
which I printed. On some of the pics the Dad was wearing a hat that
said "Indiana University" so maybe they were visiting Indiana?

I took the pics I'd printed to the hotel the next day and the desk
clerk told me she recognized the family who had checked out the
previous day. She recalled the little girl crying at the loss of her
camera. I told her that the photographic evidence on the photos showed
that the little girl attended a school in NE Atlanta (one of the pics
was of her wearing a school shirt). The desk clerk could offer no more
clues saying, "Almost all of the people who checked out yesterday are
from Georgia." Thanks for nothin, lady.

The camera sat on my office table for almost a month before I decided
to really make an effort to locate the owners (hey, I've been busy!).
So the other night I started reviewing the pics once again, making
notes as I went. A few of the pics were of the little girl's brother
playing baseball. His cap said "All-Stars" so I knew he must've
been good. Also, the letters "NYO" were on his cap and a quick web
search of the Atlanta area showed that "NYO" stood for Northwest
Youth Organization. Fortunately, that athletic association has a very
nice website with lots of team pics. I looked through most of them
before recognizing what looked to be the kid in the camera photos.
Fate must've been smiling on me because his name wasn't Smith,
Jones, or Johnson. No, his last name had 14 letters in it, narrowing
down considerably my future web searches. When I typed his last name
into whitepages.com it only returned two hits in Atlanta, both of them
at the same address. Good old Mom and Dad, no doubt.
Cross-referencing, I typed his last name into the same site, this time
using Indiana as the state and got exactly one hit ..... on 330 E. 5th
St. That's right .... "330."

BINGO!

I called the two numbers listed and left messages on the recordings. I
also sent an e-mail to the one e-mail address I could track down. A
couple of days passed with no response. I left a few more messages, but
still nothing.

Finally, this morning I received an e-mail from the Mom saying that her
daughter did indeed lose her digital camera and was distraught over it.
And the reason it took so long to get back to me was that the family
had gone back to Indiana. The sick elderly gentleman had passed away.
The photos on the camera were the last pics they had of grandpa. So I
called the lady and the little girl answers and says, "Is this about
the camera?" I said, "Yes, I have it." The girl says, "I just
have one question .... Are the photos still on the camera?"

I said, "Hell no, kid I deleted all that crap!"

JUST KIDDING!

I told her that her pics were safe and then I talked to the little
girl's mom and told her the whole story of how I tracked them down
(omitting the part about me being a stalker, of course). She told me
of her late father-in-law who had just passed and said he would have
been proud of me. It seems he spent his life working for the FBI. The
little girl wanted to know if I was an angel. I chose not to answer
that one.

After talking to them on the phone I e-mailed the mom about how the
lady who found the camera would probably appreciate a phone call of
thanks. I gave them her number in our office and waited for the call.
About 30 minutes later the phone rang, and the lady who found the phone
answers and hears the little girl thank her. Then the mom gets on the
phone and thanks her and tells her what it meant to their family to get
the camera and their precious photos back. When the lady in my office
hung up, she was bawling all over the place. "Tears of joy," she
called them.

At lunchtime I went to the UPS store and mailed the camera back home.
The little girl will have her camera and her pics tomorrow.

Now I ask you, "WHO RULES???"

-Annika ---- loves happy endings

Annika1980 wrote:
Once upon a time a lady found a digital camera on a downtown park

-Annika ---- loves happy endings

MARVELOUS STORY BRET.

You can likely get this printed in your local rag with a bit of editing.
For that matter, Nikon might throw some ... equipment ... your way.

Cheers,
Alan

Annika1980 wrote:
Once upon a time a lady found a digital camera on a downtown park
bench. She happened to work in my office and since she knew nothing
about cameras asked me if it was any good or worth keeping. Sadly, it
was a Nikon Coolpix 4100, a 4MP piece of junk hardly worth saving. The
lady was very sad when I told her this as the thought of scoring some
bucks on EBAY had already crossed her mind.

snip one uplifting story

At lunchtime I went to the UPS store and mailed the camera back home.
The little girl will have her camera and her pics tomorrow.

Now I ask you, "WHO RULES???"

-Annika ---- loves happy endings

Bret, I salute you. A real man of honor.

Colin D.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

That_Rich wrote:
Bah... if he was a REAL man of honor he would have no need to tell
EVERYONE the story. The satisfaction is in the deed.
More braggadocio is all.

RP©

I knew when I reported the story that some butthole would crack wise.
Thanks for stepping up.

As for me, I thought it was a story worth telling.

Annika1980 wrote:
Once upon a time a lady found a digital camera on a downtown park
bench. She happened to work in my office and since she knew nothing
about cameras asked me if it was any good or worth keeping. Sadly, it
was a Nikon Coolpix 4100, a 4MP piece of junk hardly worth saving. The
lady was very sad when I told her this as the thought of scoring some
bucks on EBAY had already crossed her mind.

As for myself, I was more interested in the pics on the camera and who
they might belong to. So I took the camera home, downloaded the pics
from the cheapo SD card inside and looked at them. The card contained
family photos and from the pics it was obvious that it belonged to a
little girl. There was no owner ID embedded in the EXIF info but the
photos on the card told a story about where the family had been.
Obviously, they were just passing through town on vacation. Some of
the pics were taken at the hotel across the street from my office so I
knew they had stayed there. There were pics taken from the back seat of
the minivan of the Nashville skyline and the big bridge that you cross
going from Tennessee into Kentucky. So the destination was up Illinois
You ain't gonna like this Bret. But your writing and story telling may
be better than your photography. I work for the biggest book
distributor in the US. Send me a copy of your first effort at a novel
(Ha, without pics of course) and I'll forward to a script editor for
review. Yeah, you still rule for entertainment and keeping us engaged.
The story was terrific fiction, Thanks. The "fiction" part I think
might get you riled up.
/ Indiana way.
Also, some of the pics were of an elderly couple who lived in a nice
little house .... somewhere. All I could glean from that was the
street address .... "330" .. on the front of the house. But who
knows what street, what town, or even what state?
The elderly man looked to be in pretty bad shape. I noticed a walker
beside the chair where he sat as well as a cap saying "FBI" on it.
There were some photos of the traveling family that owned the cammy,
which I printed. On some of the pics the Dad was wearing a hat that
said "Indiana University" so maybe they were visiting Indiana?

I took the pics I'd printed to the hotel the next day and the desk
clerk told me she recognized the family who had checked out the
previous day. She recalled the little girl crying at the loss of her
camera. I told her that the photographic evidence on the photos showed
that the little girl attended a school in NE Atlanta (one of the pics
was of her wearing a school shirt). The desk clerk could offer no more
clues saying, "Almost all of the people who checked out yesterday are
from Georgia." Thanks for nothin, lady.

The camera sat on my office table for almost a month before I decided
to really make an effort to locate the owners (hey, I've been busy!).
So the other night I started reviewing the pics once again, making
notes as I went. A few of the pics were of the little girl's brother
playing baseball. His cap said "All-Stars" so I knew he must've
been good. Also, the letters "NYO" were on his cap and a quick web
search of the Atlanta area showed that "NYO" stood for Northwest
Youth Organization. Fortunately, that athletic association has a very
nice website with lots of team pics. I looked through most of them
before recognizing what looked to be the kid in the camera photos.
Fate must've been smiling on me because his name wasn't Smith,
Jones, or Johnson. No, his last name had 14 letters in it, narrowing
down considerably my future web searches. When I typed his last name
into whitepages.com it only returned two hits in Atlanta, both of them
at the same address. Good old Mom and Dad, no doubt.
Cross-referencing, I typed his last name into the same site, this time
using Indiana as the state and got exactly one hit ..... on 330 E. 5th
St. That's right .... "330."

BINGO!

I called the two numbers listed and left messages on the recordings. I
also sent an e-mail to the one e-mail address I could track down. A
couple of days passed with no response. I left a few more messages, but
still nothing.

Finally, this morning I received an e-mail from the Mom saying that her
daughter did indeed lose her digital camera and was distraught over it.
And the reason it took so long to get back to me was that the family
had gone back to Indiana. The sick elderly gentleman had passed away.
The photos on the camera were the last pics they had of grandpa. So I
called the lady and the little girl answers and says, "Is this about
the camera?" I said, "Yes, I have it." The girl says, "I just
have one question .... Are the photos still on the camera?"

I said, "Hell no, kid I deleted all that crap!"

JUST KIDDING!

I told her that her pics were safe and then I talked to the little
girl's mom and told her the whole story of how I tracked them down
(omitting the part about me being a stalker, of course). She told me
of her late father-in-law who had just passed and said he would have
been proud of me. It seems he spent his life working for the FBI. The
little girl wanted to know if I was an angel. I chose not to answer
that one.

After talking to them on the phone I e-mailed the mom about how the
lady who found the camera would probably appreciate a phone call of
thanks. I gave them her number in our office and waited for the call.
About 30 minutes later the phone rang, and the lady who found the phone
answers and hears the little girl thank her. Then the mom gets on the
phone and thanks her and tells her what it meant to their family to get
the camera and their precious photos back. When the lady in my office
hung up, she was bawling all over the place. "Tears of joy," she
called them.

At lunchtime I went to the UPS store and mailed the camera back home.
The little girl will have her camera and her pics tomorrow.

Now I ask you, "WHO RULES???"

-Annika ---- loves happy endings

That_Rich wrote:
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:21:03 +1200, ColinD wrote:

Annika1980 wrote:
Once upon a time a lady found a digital camera on a downtown park
bench. She happened to work in my office and since she knew nothing
about cameras asked me if it was any good or worth keeping. Sadly, it
was a Nikon Coolpix 4100, a 4MP piece of junk hardly worth saving. The
lady was very sad when I told her this as the thought of scoring some
bucks on EBAY had already crossed her mind.

snip one uplifting story
At lunchtime I went to the UPS store and mailed the camera back home.
The little girl will have her camera and her pics tomorrow.

Now I ask you, "WHO RULES???"

-Annika ---- loves happy endings

Bret, I salute you. A real man of honor.

Bah... if he was a REAL man of honor he would have no need to tell
EVERYONE the story. The satisfaction is in the deed.
More braggadocio is all.

RP©

Rich, you have a niggardly attitude. Why can't you give praise where
it's due? Grow and become a bigger man. Has your life been so bad that
you can't see a bit of light now and then?

"two men in jail,
looking through the bars,
One saw mud, the other saw stars."

Rich, you're looking at the mud.


Colin D.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

uw wayne wrote:
Annika1980 wrote:
Once upon a time a lady found a digital camera on a downtown park
bench. She happened to work in my office and since she knew
nothing
about cameras asked me if it was any good or worth keeping. Sadly,
it was a Nikon Coolpix 4100, a 4MP piece of junk hardly worth
saving. The lady was very sad when I told her this as the thought
of scoring some bucks on EBAY had already crossed her mind.


snip

You ain't gonna like this Bret. But your writing and story telling
may
be better than your photography.

more snip


At lunchtime I went to the UPS store and mailed the camera back
home.
The little girl will have her camera and her pics tomorrow.

Now I ask you, "WHO RULES???"

-Annika ---- loves happy endings

Nice...

A few weeks ago I had exactly the same adventure with a Chihuahua dog.
http://static.flickr.com/65/183850527_837fafaae6.jpg
except he lady suspected I had stolen "Ahnold" and was looking for a
reward.

Shoulda kept him.

--
Frank ess

That_Rich wrote:
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:16:52 +1200, ColinD wrote:

That_Rich wrote:
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:21:03 +1200, ColinD wrote:

Annika1980 wrote:
Once upon a time a lady found a digital camera on a downtown park
bench. She happened to work in my office and since she knew nothing
about cameras asked me if it was any good or worth keeping. Sadly, it
was a Nikon Coolpix 4100, a 4MP piece of junk hardly worth saving. The
lady was very sad when I told her this as the thought of scoring some
bucks on EBAY had already crossed her mind.

snip one uplifting story
At lunchtime I went to the UPS store and mailed the camera back home.
The little girl will have her camera and her pics tomorrow.

Now I ask you, "WHO RULES???"

-Annika ---- loves happy endings

Bret, I salute you. A real man of honor.

Bah... if he was a REAL man of honor he would have no need to tell
EVERYONE the story. The satisfaction is in the deed.
More braggadocio is all.

RP©
Rich, you have a niggardly attitude. Why can't you give praise where
it's due? Grow and become a bigger man. Has your life been so bad that
you can't see a bit of light now and then?

"two men in jail,
looking through the bars,
One saw mud, the other saw stars."

Rich, you're looking at the mud.


Call it mud if you wish... I call 'em as I see 'em.
So I should offer praise to a person that sat on a child's camera for
a month when all he really needed to do is drop it at the hotel where
they stayed. Personally I've left items at hotels more times that I
care to admit. The hotels have always immediately sent the items on to
me.

Pray tell... what's a "niggardly attitude"?

RP©
An attitude that finds it hard to compliment someone for their actions,
but rather finds some angle to put them down, as you did to Bret.

I see the public spiritedness of the story, you see only that Bret
bragging. That attitude is, unfortunately, altogether too common,

Colin D.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

That_Rich wrote:
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:21:03 +1200, ColinD wrote:

Annika1980 wrote:
Once upon a time a lady found a digital camera on a downtown park
bench. She happened to work in my office and since she knew nothing
about cameras asked me if it was any good or worth keeping. Sadly,
it was a Nikon Coolpix 4100, a 4MP piece of junk hardly worth
saving. The lady was very sad when I told her this as the thought
of scoring some bucks on EBAY had already crossed her mind.

snip one uplifting story

At lunchtime I went to the UPS store and mailed the camera back
home. The little girl will have her camera and her pics tomorrow.

Now I ask you, "WHO RULES???"

-Annika ---- loves happy endings

Bret, I salute you. A real man of honor.

Bah... if he was a REAL man of honor he would have no need to tell
EVERYONE the story. The satisfaction is in the deed.
More braggadocio is all.

I've tried to reserve judgement on you, Rich, but you are now...officially
noted as a complete ass in my book of names.

--
Images (Plus Snaps & Grabs) by Mark² at:
www.pbase.com/markuson

That_Rich wrote:
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:16:52 +1200, ColinD wrote:

That_Rich wrote:
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:21:03 +1200, ColinD wrote:

Annika1980 wrote:
Once upon a time a lady found a digital camera on a downtown park
bench. She happened to work in my office and since she knew
nothing about cameras asked me if it was any good or worth
keeping. Sadly, it was a Nikon Coolpix 4100, a 4MP piece of junk
hardly worth saving. The lady was very sad when I told her this
as the thought of scoring some bucks on EBAY had already crossed
her mind.

snip one uplifting story
At lunchtime I went to the UPS store and mailed the camera back
home. The little girl will have her camera and her pics tomorrow.

Now I ask you, "WHO RULES???"

-Annika ---- loves happy endings

Bret, I salute you. A real man of honor.

Bah... if he was a REAL man of honor he would have no need to tell
EVERYONE the story. The satisfaction is in the deed.
More braggadocio is all.

RP©

Rich, you have a niggardly attitude. Why can't you give praise where
it's due? Grow and become a bigger man. Has your life been so bad
that you can't see a bit of light now and then?

"two men in jail,
looking through the bars,
One saw mud, the other saw stars."

Rich, you're looking at the mud.


Call it mud if you wish... I call 'em as I see 'em.
So I should offer praise to a person that sat on a child's camera for
a month when all he really needed to do is drop it at the hotel where
they stayed. Personally I've left items at hotels more times that I
care to admit. The hotels have always immediately sent the items on to
me.

Pray tell... what's a "niggardly attitude"?

Time to buy your first dictionary, Rich.
But until you do, here ya go:

1. not generous: very reluctant to give or spend anything
2. small or inadequate: very small or inadequate in quantity

adv
in a stingy way: in a miserly or stingy way

-nig·gard·li·ness, n
Although the etymology of niggardly and niggard remains subject to debate,
these words probably have a Scandinavian origin not associated historically
with the origin of the offensive word Negro and its related offensive racist
slurs. These are derived ultimately from Latin. Niggardly, then, is in no
way a racial slur. However, the fact that the word sounds as if it might be
one is reason to consider context very carefully before using it.
--
Images (Plus Snaps & Grabs) by Mark² at:
www.pbase.com/markuson