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Curious George killed my camera!

No, that’s not just a colorful title to get you to read this post (though I hope it helps).   Curious George really was (partly) responsible for the demise of my trusty Pentax *ist DS.  Keep reading for the whole sad story.

My wife and I were recently vacationing/honeymooning in Orlando, FL and were spending most of our days exploring Universal’s Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida theme parks. We are both huge Harry Potter fans so the main focus of our trip was to visit Hogsmeade and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and the other areas of both parks.   After a couple days we got to do most of what we wanted to do and see in “Harry Potter World” so we ventured out to see what else the parks had to offer. Eventually we made our way to a very kid-friendly area of Universal Studios Florida featuring characters like Barney, Feivel from An American Tail and, of course, Curious George.  The Curious George area (Curious George Goes To Town) is essentially an outdoor splash zone.   It is basically like a section of an indoor water park with water cannons, water spouts on the ground and my new nemesis, the giant timed release bucket of water.

In hindsight it is very funny that I took a photo of the warning sign that tells you to leave cameras, cellphones and other electronics out of the area because you, and they, will get wet.   I scoped out the area and saw how far the cannons were firing so assumed I would be safe if I kept my distance.   I followed my wife around and stopped while she was checking out what looked like a big button on one of the walls underneath an overhang.   She pressed on it and and waited for several seconds but nothing happened.   We assumed the button was just for show and were about to move on when it happened.  SPLASH!!!  Hundreds of gallons of water came down on our heads and completely drenched us.  After the initial shock we moved under the overhang but it was too late.   We were soaked, my camera was soaked and my shoes were waterlogged.   After a few more seconds I collected myself and snapped what would be the final photo that my good old DS would take.   🙁

soaked_IGP7236

Taken just after being drenched!

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Luckily my wife’s Pentax point and shoot camera is waterproof so she came out of the ordeal with just some wet clothes and a wet backpack.   I, on the other hand, had a new paperweight that looked remarkably like a digital SLR and had just been given the excuse to think about upgrading to a brand new camera.   😉  It turns out that the button was for show so my wife wasn’t to blame for the drenching.

Thankfully my phone wasn’t damaged so the rest of the trip was shot with my HTC Incredible (which did an excellent job, by the way) but obviously couldn’t match the versatility of the DS and it’s lens.

So, that’s how Curious George (or at least his namesake water park) contributed to the death of my longtime companion, my Pentax *ist DS.   Now that its time to move on I’ve got to figure out if I want to stick with Pentax since I’ve already got the lenses and accessories or if I want to move on to a new system.  I don’t know the answer just yet but I’ve got time before our next big trip so it’ll be fun figuring it out and posting about my research.

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