Hi all. I have a nice little tale about how the internet isn't as cold and soulless as we often think it is. Figured this is a good place to share...

Along with sports, I also enjoy photography. Decades ago I took a school course and got hooked. Much more recently, I stumbled into the joys of shooting with "legacy glass"- using old, outdated manual lenses from defunct brands, mounted onto a new digital camera (the Sony Nex and the various Olympus and Panasonic Micro 4/3 cameras can use these old lenses with an adapter). In my case, it's with an Olympus PL1, and over a dozen old Minolta, Fuji, etc lenses.
A common way to get lenses on the cheap is to buy them with an old film camera, which often doesn't cost much at all; and in the process you also pick up the old camera too- for those who appreciate craftsmanship and the like, nothing beats a vintage camera.

I very recently came across an ebay auction where the guy was selling a camera and 3 prime lenses, for a pittance. I bid and won, and sent a playful "geaux tigers" to the seller, as his name included "UTVols" in the spelling. We ended up exchanging quite a few letters talking Tennessee, LSU, and football... as well as the camera. The guy was an old UT letterman who knew Chavis from way back, and we enjoyed a nice, cordial, decent conversation through the ebay message line.

You don't expect anything but hit-and-run online, and especially at ebay. It was refreshing to have a conversation worthy of the Rant here, or even a coffee house, with an interesting guy who enjoyed photography as much as I do, and his Vols as much as I do my Tigers.

Hey Jim, if you browse this site, good luck to the Vols and best wishes- and go take some photos. Me, I'll shoot a roll through the old Yashica of my Tigers sometime next season. I'll see if I can get the Chief in a few frames