Zoo and Stuff

We are members of the Greenville Zoo thanks to my sister who buys our membership as a gift for Addy every year. So, I have been to the zoo many times over the past few years. There is one thing that is constant...and that is that the lions are always sleeping...wait they're moving you say? No, it's only to change positions and go back to sleep. Imagine our surprise when one of them was quite awake. While you might think he is roaring in the pictures, he is actually just yawning, which is quite fitting considering.

One of the good things about fall is being able to eat outside on the porch in beautiful weather, something we all enjoy doing. After dinner everyone (except Kristi) ran around the yard for 15 minutes as fast as we could. Addy loved it, but Lucy and I are getting old and we were exhausted.

eBay Frustration

So I sold this snare on eBay to a guy in Armenia. I shipped it off (USPS does not offer tracking on these types of shipments), didn't hear anything for a month, and forgot about it. Well a month later the guy randomly files a complaint about me with Paypal saying he didn't receive it...long story short, he actually lives in Italy but for some reason gave me an Armenia address. In the meantime the snare makes it back to me...I tell Paypal to refund the money but that I don't want to refund shipping for his error. By the way, we are talking $70 of shipping on a $100 item. Paypal takes forever (over a month) to do anything but in the end gives him all of his money back. I call and argue with them and am told, he either gets all or nothing, there is no in-between.

To top things off, the guy then leaves me negative feedback on eBay (my only negative feedback after many years of eBay buying/selling). I call eBay and they say the feedback is subjective and that they can't do anything about it.

So to summarize, if you sell an item to someone who gives you a wrong address, you will not only lose money but you will have your eBay reputation ruined in the process.

Wonderful. I've tried to research my options about complaining again to eBay but from what I read it isn't worth wasting my time.

In other news, I've been editing some of my old favorite pictures with Lightroom just to make them look better. My old point and shoot had some serious vignetting. This picture of Lucy has always been a favorite of mine:

One more HDR

Actually...I think I might like the non-HDR version of this one a little better.

More fun with HDR

Waterrock Knob

Addy is a huge fan of hiking. Last year we went to Whiteside Mountain, which is one of our favorite short hikes, but this year I wanted to try something new. I browsed the web looking at hikes near Asheville and settled on Waterrock Knob. It is pretty steep, but pretty short so Addy handled it well...minus a few wipeouts here and there.

HDR Lucy

For some reason Lucy translates really well into HDR pics...I don't know if this is true for all dogs.

Middle Age Crisis?

I bought a motorcycle last week...I'm pretty excited. Today I have to go pay my taxes on it to get my tag. Since my insurance is only $5 a month I'm expecting taxes to be pretty low...

I hope to do some even better HDR stuff with it later, but this is all I have for now.