Talked to the plumber last night. Turns out that we have old pipes that need to be replaced, so one entire wall and part of the other will need to be torn out. He thinks we will be without a tub and sink for a full week at minimum, but he thinks the toilet will only be out of commission for a day or two. (Have I mentioned that we only have one bathroom?) And the fixtures I bought at Lowe's are a bad brand. He said he could put them in, but he guaranteed he'd be back in a year to repair them. He recommended I go to a plumbing supply store and get Delta instead.
Also he suggested replacing our old water heater, which barely provides enough hot water for one shower, with a new "instantaneous" water heater. There's no tank, so it's supposedly much more efficient. And we already have gas heat. It sounds like a great idea, but I'm not sure if we can afford it on top of everything else. Well, everyone did tell me that renovations always end up costing way more than you expect!
Georg is out of town for work until Thursday. The house is kind of lonely but I've got lots to do, so it's not like I'm sitting around moping.
I've been wanting to use more photography in my collage work. Not to start using a "photocollage" style but just to solve some copyright problems by taking my own photos of objects, textiles etc. I have been reading up on digital cameras and had finally settled on the Nikon 995 as the right camera for me. I couldn't afford a high-end digital SLR, and it would be too much for my needs anyway. I think the 995 will be a good fit for me.
I wasn't going to buy it just yet, but the Durham Arts Council is offering a digital photography course in their summer catalog. I could really use some instruction in how to use a camera's manual settings, but until now all their classes required a film camera. I don't see why they don't allow digital cameras in the non-darkroom classes, but their teachers can make whatever rules they want I guess. Anyway, they are finally teaching a class for digital photography. So I ordered the camera and signed up.
The price has been dropping due to availability of newer models, but wasn't as good as I had expected because of the "grey market" thing. Apparently lots of dealers buy cameras in other countries and resell them here for cheap on Ebay. It's a great price and it's not illegal (thus the term "grey market" rather than "black market"). But a grey market camera has no US warranty, often no manual, etc. If parts are missing or the camera is defective, you're out of luck. I guess I'm lucky I found out about this before buying the camera rather than after. Besides, it was still a good price. Just not as good as I had expecting from browsing Ebay.
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