It's sad, but I ended up breaking my camera on my last roadtrip up to southern Washington.  I put my camera in the car with my 50-500mm lens on and the flash, and the weight caused the flash to tear the top of my camera off... (Just the hotshoe).

I'll be buying a Pentax K20D to replace my *ist D, and I'll keep my lens set.  It really sucks though, it set me back, because I was planning on spending the money on some new videocards (4870x2's) and school.  Oh well for the videocards I guess.  I've got a second job so I'll be earning up money a lot quicker.  One full time and one part time, I guess it goes with the territory of not having a degree yet.

I'll continue saving though and I'm going to take a few language courses, I'd like to do some backpacking in the southern alps of Japan and photograph everything I see.  I'm going to stick to that plan and get myself in gear sort of haha, I am pretty lazy at times though, and lately it has been bad (my laziness).  Oh well, time to start checking out online stores for that K20D!