2016 Wish List

This post is definitely not part of the last one, my year-end review, but rather, what is just over the horizon. One of the things I depend on a lot in support of this blog is the imaging, and my ole' venerable Canon XSi is pushing 8 years old. I've already replaced the shutter module a couple years back, and I'm looking to upgrade. On two occasions this year, I've had a chance to use the latest hardware - the Canon 6D with a full-frame sensor(emulating the 24X36mm size of 35mm film). The larger sensor size both widens the field on my lenses currently cut down by the smaller APS sensor of the XSi, and will also have more pixels to maintain the same resolution I've got now. On both opportunities, the lower noise and higher gains and video capabilities available with the new hardware has been really impressive. Things have improved tremendously in 8 years!




But at $1400 for a basic body, with no lens (I can use most of the lenses used now), the household budget doesn't allow such purchases, so I've been looking for "creative" ways to raise funds. I've had a "piggy bank", actually an old pretzel jar, that I use to collect my pocket change at the end of the day. The "Boss" (Melinda), has agreed I can match funds from my personal pension account, and I can also build it up by selling gear too. Today's piggy bank contribution was pretty meager, only 9 cents, but decided with the new year, I should account what my totals are.

The "piggy bank" is shown at left. The lower mark is from the last time I cashed it in a couple years back, when I raised $125. Today it was almost to the top of the cylinder and a new mark installed. Weighing it before taking it to the grocery story (26 pounds!), I used the change counter which is much more convenient than rolling the coins manually. The fee (10.6%) seems reasonable to save my time rolling pennies! After pushing them all down the chute, the grand total was $330.07, of which I pocketed $293.

  The coin distribution of my collected change is interesting, and perhaps even worthy of a post itself. Generally you don't get dollar or half dollar coins in change, so there were none of those. But there were 942 quarters, 640 dimes, 351 nickels and 1177 pennies! Fortunately we don't steal quarters for laundry or the car wash, only pick out the designs we don't have in our quarter collection. I also had collected some foreign coins inadvertently, including mostly older near-worthless Mexican coins, a silver quarter from the 40's that got rejected, and interestingly a 200 lira coin from Itally!

Anyway, from the $293, adding the matching funds, adding the $50 check I got for Christmas from Santa, and the $500 I got for selling a mirror blank a couple months ago, I figure I've collected $1136! Getting closer!

Oh, and if I wanted to truly make a wish list for 2016, I'd include world peace, and some reasonable candidates for elective office later in the year. But my personal goal is working towards the new camera...