Monday crap

Most of my Ebay transactions go off without a hitch, but I'm dealing with a couple of major exceptions today.
I've been disposing of a set of dishes that Maria no longer wants and am happy to report that we've made more from them on Ebay than she paid for them and that almost all of them have gone through the mail stream without damage.
Except for the cup and saucer bought by Betty Mapes of Nebraska. She said they arrived broken. So I carefully packed a replacement set this morning and will mail them presently.
And then there's Maria's Nikon D100 SLR digital camera.
I sold it on April 25 to a guy in Colorado who was slow to respond to emails and welshed on the deal. He claimed he mailed a check, but it never arrived and I'm willing to bet that it was never sent.
So I voided the deal and re-listed it.
This time the buyer was a guy from India, living in Canada, who writes in very broken English. To his credit, he paid promptly by PayPal. But a few days ago he wrote to say the camera wasn't what he expected and he wants to return it for a refund.
I have been selling on Ebay for 10 years and have 568 comments in my profile - all positive - and I have always striven to make sure the customer is satisfied. So I agreed to let him return it with the stipulation that the camera, batteries, charger, and manual all arrive in the same condition in which I sent them.
And I will refund his money via PayPal.
I've been asked to shoot photos for the BMW MOA rally in Gillette, Wyo. next month and I was originally planning to take my D200, but now I think I'll spare the more expensive camera from the dust and vibration of a motorcycle trip and carry the rejected D100 instead.
For the record, the guy in Colorado has only 5 comments in his Ebay profile - the sign of an Ebay novice or a crook. From now on, I sell no big ticket items to bidders with less than 100 positive comments in their profile.
And I'm not crazy about the hassle of international transactions, either.
Now, I'm off to the postoffice and to take my Honda del Sol in for an oil change and lube and to get the hood latch repaired.
It's always something.

Cameras

This is my first 35mm camera - a Minolta Himatic-7 rangefinder camera that I bought in the autumn of 1966 while I was working at the Tipton Tribune.
I don't recall what I paid, but I bought it at the Ayr-Way store on the Kokomo bypass. Ayr-Way is gone and the bypass doesn't bypass anything.
It was a great learning tool and served me well for the next several months until I stepped up to a Honeywell Pentax SLR.
Over the years, I've owned three Pentaxes, a Nikon N90S, Nikon F, Nikon F5, and innumerable point-and-shoot 35mm cameras of various brands. My first digital was an Olympus point-and-shoot. Since then, I've owned a Nikon D100 and a Nikon D200. At present, the inventory includes the Nikon F (a sentimental relic), the F5 (just in case I ever need a serious film camera again), the D200 and an Olympus point-and-shoot film camera that refuses to quit and lives in the tankbag of my motorcycle.