October 26, 2004 Valentine, Nebraska

October 26, 2004
Valentine Nebraska

Quite a day. Out of Valentine down Hwy 97 toward the Snake, North Loup and Dismal River. Arrived at the Snake River and a great water fall. While setting up the camera the screw from the tripod to the camera broke. Now this tripod had a $350.00 “magic ball” head made by Novoflex on it and one would think a few things. 1. the screw would not break being made of strong metal. Wrong, the inside metal of the screw is soft and it broke with very little pressure applied. 2. You could get a replacement screw. Wrong again, after calls to our suppliers no one had any idea about replacement parts. So it looked like a new head and a few headaches trying to get it shipped to the middle of nowhere. And of course it all had to be over-nighted as I could not shoot until we had the tripod up and running. One ray of hope- on the horizon we saw a Fed-x truck coming down the highway. So here we are in the middle of nowhere; the truck, airstream, Henry and me by the side of the road, with no one around for miles totally clear weather about 1pm in the afternoon, flagging down the Fed-x truck to find out were to get the head shipped. But the Fed-x truck just whizzed by. Perhaps he just didn’t see us? I’ve noticed that Fed-x service and customer care has been declining lately. ……

I headed back to Valentine in the hopes of finding a hardware store or a Fed-x office. Not that I had much hope of finding either. I pulled into the Bomgaars Hardware store in downtown Valentine. I had taken the head apart and found numerous custom parts that no hardware store, not even in New York City would stock. As I walked into the store with all these parts and the camera Carl Fernau came up and asked me if he could help. After studying the problem trying numerous ideas and an hour in the back room where I was allowed to use their tools we were able to fix the head with a 39-cent screw and a drill. Drilling out a $350.00 anything is a bit scary but when we’d finished we had not only fixed it but improved on the design of the head. If the screw ever breaks again it can be repaired with a screwdriver and a stop at any hardware store that carries a ¼ by 1-inch flat head screw.

DMK on the cell trying to find parts