What could go wrong next?

This buildup to my upcoming trip to London is proving to be a case of "everything bad that can happen will happen."

I totaled my car last November, just as I was getting to the point where I had enough money saved up to by my plane tickets (I had to cut out planned side trips to Amsterdam and Brussels as a result because I have car payments again for my new car). Then, my computer died a couple of months ago. It has to be replaced, but I'm putting it off till I get back from Europe.

And, this weekend brought the latest disaster in my life. I took my Nikon D60 camera to Cheatham Hill in Kennesaw yesterday to work on my photography skills. Cheatham Hill is part of the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, which history buffs will recognize as a Civil War battle site.

It is a great place to practice photography. It has the imposing Illinois Monument, a grave for an unknown soldier, cannon and artillery embankments a wide open field for nature shots and trails which bring people running by all the time.

Of, course I always struggle to remember which streets I have to turn onto to get there.

Well, I finally get there yesterday, and it was somewhat busy, which meant I would have been able to get a variety of different shots. But, luck was not on my side. I fired off three photos of a statue on the Illinois Monument and the shutter on my camera jammed after three pictures.

I kept getting a message that said "Error. Press shutter release button again" so I did that, and I kept doing it, but the error message never went away. I can't get it unstuck, and it can't be used until it's fixed.

This is apparently not a terribly surprising development. A Google search on the issue showed evidence that many Nikon D60's suffer this problem. In fact, this problem apparently happens to most D60's far sooner (five mos. to just under two years) than it happened on mine (it's 3.5 years old).

Fortunately, I have a little over a week to get this fixed, so I'm going to take it to a local camera repair ship in the morning to get it fixed. From what I can tell, it's just a little gear near the bottom of the camera that is getting stuck. A little WD40 and some gentle nudging ought to do the trick.

However, I am not going to risk screwing this up, so I'm leaving it for a professional to do the work.

Everything hopefully should be fixed well before my trip arrives. I'll just have to figure out what to do for work because I use that camera to take pictures to accompany the articles I write for my employer.

Let's just hope this is the last of the fires that I have to put out before my trip.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.