Have you ever lost your cell phone? Camera? Other pocket sized gadgets that can easily cost $500 or more? What about the other side, have you ever found a gadget, only to be helpless and not know how to return it?
Phones are a little easier due to phone books, last calls, caller id, etc. This has happened several times in my presence, most recently at Sea World. Find a phone, press redial and as it turns out, the phone owner and the last person called were together, and within a few minutes the phone was returned.
BUT ... what about your camera? If you know me, you know we recently had a baby girl, and you also know that I'm a **very** amateur photographer. My photos (all 15K plus on flickr) are all about capturing the moment, rather than getting the picture right. Disk space is so cheap, cameras are so small, and moments pass to fast, for me to worry about getting just the perfect photo. I'd much rather have 50 decent (even some not so decent) pictures to capture the moment, than one or two perfect pictures. ok ok back to the story.
Something you probably do not know is that we lost our camera with all of the first pictures of baby Courtney. These were the Day 0 pictures of baby Courtney, and capturing many memories of all the friends/family that visited us in the hospital that day. Just weird! How do you lose a camera in a hospital room? It was here a minute ago - I just took pictures of Grandma. Where did it go?
We finally ended up hoping that it fell into a bag (there were lots of those around) and someone accidentally took it home. What else could have happened? We'll wait a few days and someone will call with it. Waiting ... Waiting ... Waiting ... No Call. Four days go by, and we're now home from the hospital. What are we left to do? Give up? Call lost and found at the hospital - yeah right. They're like - umm, what does your camera look like? and I answer - it's a small silver Sony. Very descriptive right - but what else am I to say? Nothing.
Then two weeks later, I decide to call back just so I can sleep better at night. Jaw dropping news! They have my camera, and I identified the pictures on it. When baby Courtney was born, I snapped a picture of the clock in the delivery room, and that was the identifying photo. Who turned it in, how, when, where, why, will all go unanswered - but for some reason it was finally turned in and we were very happy.
Anyway ... this is an awful long non-technical story to talk about, what could have just been answer by looking at the photo. They say that a picture is worth a 1000 words, and they're right. By just looking at the photo you might say - why would anyone disgrace their camera like that - and now you have the answer :) If I ever lose it again, it's be mush easier to return.