The stupid things I do! 
4/12/02

I live near Winifrede Hollow (where the Big Eagle Railroad is), so it's no trouble for me to ride down there and see what's going on. I had been in need of pictures of the leased GP-35 for the web-site, and to get some practice shooting some film. I am a amateur in all respects of photography,  from the f stops to the exposure - I know a little, but not much. In light of this need to learn I took several shots of each engine: opening, closing, turning, pulling, and pushing every little thing I could. In all I took about 16 shots. When you have a camera handy, like I do, you tend to take a lot of pictures (in my case trains). I had passed through Dickerson Yard  one night and snapped a few, and I saw a few photo opportunities at Handley before that. By this time I wanted to get my film developed; I assumed that this was a 24 exposure roll of film (b/c the bulk of my film is 24 exposure). I went to get it developed, and It was on the 22 mark, so I took a few shots of Dupont Plant from across the river. Four shots of Dupont and two of my truck later I decided that this must be a 36 exposure.  Like I said I am an amateur; I cant even remember what kind of film I had in my camera. Later that week one of my friends wanted to go to Cass, but that's three hours away, and it was already 12:30 in the afternoon.  So I said to him lets go to Huntington and take some pictures of CSX's new paint scheme, and the H-6. We went there and I took enough to get the counter to 33.  I don't know why I didn't finish the roll off down there, but anyways, after about another week my final photo opportunity arose. I was ready to finish this film off so I could get it developed. This happened to be my nephews birthday party - no one else had film or a camera. I had some film in the truck, but selfishly I wanted to finish my roll first. I took a picture of him and his cake, him blowing out his candles,  some of the people, and him opening his presents. This put me up to 37, so I figured one more should do it, click. Finished! Then I went ahead and advanced it out of habit, uhoo, it kept going. I advanced it again and again, but it never stopped. I decided to take a chance on ruining the whole roll, but I went ahead and opened it. To my dismay there was absolutely no film in it! All these days of waiting and taking pictures for nothing - I guess its a hard lesson learned.

Thus the moral of the story is "Always Check your Camera For Film"