I ended up getting my Costco rebate check in the mail a few months ago. And since that time I’ve been struggling to figure out what to buy from Costco to use up the rebate check. I really hate to use my rebate on consumables such as foodstuff, cleaning supplies, booze, etc. Since if I’ve spent all this money at Costco through out the year on consumable stuff, I should at least be able to get some enjoyment out of my rebate if I use it on “durable good” of some kind.

Last year I ended up using my rebate to get an 11-cup Cuisinart Food Processor. So this year, I’m thinking about getting a new digital camera, since my current Nikon camera is kind of messed up. So this past weekend, I finally bit the bullet, and picked up the Panasonic Lumix FP3 digital camera in black (which was the only color available.) I ended up going with the Panasonic for two reasons:
1) Manual lens cover. This was the only item I wasn’t willing to compromise on, since I seem to do quite a bit of activities in sub-zero weather. And this was how I screwed up the automatic lens cover on my Nikon (sub-zero temperatures in Chicago.) So the next camera had to have a manual lens cover. And this Panasonic model has a manual cover.
2) Price. For $99.95, you can’t shake a stick at the price. Especially for a camera with 14.1 megapixels, which is totally nuts in my opinion for the price.

So theoretically going forward, the pictures on this site should look a bit better then before, but I offer no guarantees, since I’m not a professional photographer.