One problem solved, another persists

Here's one of the first photos shot with my new Olympus Stylus 850SW. It's Maria, of course, as she was leaving for work this morning.

I've been hankering for a small, rugged digital camera to complete my travel electronics/blogging package and I found it last night for $158 at Sam's Club.

This is a slightly less robust and lower-res version of the camera I recommended for my BMW friend Charlie for his motorcycle trip to Alaska last year. I shoots 8 megapixel images and is shock (can be dropped from as high as 5 feet) and water (down to 10 feet) resistant, hence the S (shock) and W (water) in the name.

Like all point-and-shoot digital cameras, it's menu-driven, which means I'm studying the manual to figure out how to make it do all of its tricks.

I'd hoped to get a camera that used a conventional SD memory card. This uses a smaller, Olympus xD card, so I'll have to buy a card reader to download photos to my Mini 9 rather than use the built-in SD card reader. In the end, the advertised ability of the camera to take abuse on the road trumped the inconvenience of an oddball memory card.

I got interested in the SW line of Olympus Stylus digitals through the blog of Jill Homer, an Alaskan newspaperwoman who posts spectacular photos of the places she rides her mountain/trail bike. Check out her blog: Up In Alaska

Maria drove the del Sol to work this morning because the oil warning light is flickering again on the Subaru.

I was under the impression that this problem was solved with the installation of a new PCV valve at the Memphis Subaru dealership just before Maria and Austin make their Indiana trip last week.

I asked Austin to check the oil regularly and, if necessary, add one of the two quarts of Pennzoil 10W40 I sent along with them. Driving home from Walmart last night, I noticed the oil light flickering and discovered that, through some miscommunication, nobody had checked the oil during or after the trip - a situation that led me to believe the problem was solved. Maria thought Austin said he had checked it and vice versa. And just to make sure I couldn't top it off with those two quarts of Pennziol, Maria gave them to her father in Indiana because it looked like they needed the room for Austin's stuff.

So it's off to Auto Zone again this morning for more oil. And the mystery of the disappearing oil continues. No leaks on the ground and no blue smoke from the tailpipe.