Something to do if you've lost equipment....

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MikeBinOKlahoma
Posts: 1491
Joined: Sat Nov 20, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Umm....Could it be Oklahoma?

Something to do if you've lost equipment....

Post by MikeBinOKlahoma »

I've been meaning to post this for awhile, the hurricane news made me think of it.

More than a year ago I took a mostly business trip to New Orleans. I wasn't going to do much photography, even though I was spending a couple of personal days in the city--I have a friend there I wanted to see. I did take a camera body and just three fairly small lenses, and a photo vest to tote the stuff around in. My photo vest "disappeared" while there, and I didn't know what had happened to it. I still had my camera and my Vivitar 100mm macro lens (ironically the most expendable lens I'd taken along) that I'd been carrying. I concluded that either it had been stolen out of my hotel, or perhaps I'd carelessly left the vest in the passenger compartment of my car with the doors unlocked. Unfortunately, I had a 20mm lens and a 50mm macro lens in the vest when it was lost. The only place I'd been photographing was the Audubon nature center there. I called them, they hadn't found it, so I filed a police report and marked it down to experience. I replaced the vest and the 50mm macro lens--I don't use the 20mm lens much, so didn't replace it. This was in August of last year.

On a Saturday morning recently I was sleeping in. It was a lady from the Audubon Nature Center! They had a vest, and had found a receipt with my name and home town in it. They'd looked me up through directory assistance and tracked me down. They'd tried to call a few times almost a year ago, and had never caught me at home during the day (I'm a Luddite and refuse to have an answering machine). I was so pleased, I wasn't churlish, and didn't ask why they didn't try once in the evening! Smile The employee who had found it was about to change employers, and wanted to try one more time before she left.

She offered to mail the vest back to me, and volunteered that the two lenses were in it. I did receive it in the mail three days later. They didn't even ask me for postage! And indeed, my lenses were there, as well as the miscellany of filters and oddments that take up vest space.

MORAL OF THIS TOO-LONG STORY: If you lose some camera equipment, don't be satisfied with calling and checking one time about if the stuff has been found. I'd probably have gotten my stuff back long ago if I'd called a second time. Leave your name and a phone if you think you know where you may have left it.

Another moral would be "Don't be a schmuck, and set down your vest someplace and leave it!" But I'm not going to dwell on that one!

Kudos to the Audubon Nature Center staff, I hope they and their facility make it through the storm okay.
Mike Broderick
_____________________________________________________________
"I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.....My mandate includes weird bugs."--Calvin

(reposts on this site of my images for critique or instruction are welcome)

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S. Alden
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Post by S. Alden »

That is a very nice story Mike and I must admit, that individual went about and beyond the call of duty I think, and that says alot about that individual and the Nature Center in general.
Sue Alden
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Repost of my images are welcome

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