That's a catalog photo of my new Olympus SP-560UZ digital camera. It's hard to use a camera to take a picture of itself, you know. Oh, it can be done, but I don't feel like messing with mirrors right now.
Stats: 8.0 MP, 18x Optical zoom, with a 5.6x digital zoom that I'll probably never use. So far, I'm liking it quite a bit. I had a bit of a learning curve, but I'm already getting better results than I did from my Konica/Minolta. Why yes, I will provide some examples. I went out photo-finding just on foot today to a park near my house. and took some shots.
One thing you will notice is the aspect ratio. This camera can adjust to shoot in 16:9 wide-screen format. Which I greatly prefer, because I use wide-screen monitors, and it's better when a photo fills the whole view, without little empty areas on each side.

The color on this new camera just blows my old one out of the water. Color was one thing that I was disappointed with in my old camera, so I'm happy about that. It's also really sharp.

See the wee little ant inside the flower? I didn't when I took the photo.
I saw this guy, though.

I think I'm going to like this camera.

I will be in the great state of North Carolina for a week and a half coming up this holiday season. I will arrive Friday evening (21st) and leave in the wee hours of the new year. I hope to see all of you Carolinians while I'm there. I will definitely be getting up to Boone for at least a day trip. Gotta visit the "new" beansTalk and experience a time-warp. I will also be forcing Chris and Kelley to have our traditional new year's gathering on the eve of new year's eve, since I will have to head plane-ward so early on the first. It's going to be early days at work for me all week, followed by a stupid early work day from which I will go directly to the airport.

If I don't post before then, Merry Christmas!