The re-repaired Canon EOS 1D Mark III arrived via FedEx this afternoon, just in time to for a scheduled basketball game at Floyd County High School but I never got the chance to test the camera at the game because the approaching ice storm forced a postponement.

The camera arrived exactly two weeks after I sent it off the first time for what was supposed to be a routine upgrade to fix an autofocus problem that some photographers were experiencing in certain conditions (mainly bright sunlight in hot weather).  It came back last week with a new sub-mirror assembly but brain dead with a shutter that wouldn’t fire.

As a working pro photographer, I’m supposed to get expedited turnaround from Canon on repairs to equipment but two weeks without a functioning camera is hardly what one would call expedited.  They first took a camera that worked and turned it into one that didn’t. Then it took three phone calls to the repair center in New Jersey to keep the repair on a semblance of fast-track.

This was my first experience with Canon’s repair service since switching from Nikon in 2004. Hopefully this was an exception and not the norm.

Lights still burned inside Nancy’s Candy Company at the Village Green when I left Blue Ridge Muse at 10:11 p.m. Thursday. People bustled about inside as they worked to get ready for the shop’s grand opening on Friday.

From the outside, they look ready to open now. Candies and sweets of all types fill the shelves and display cases in the red-and-white, brightly lit interior.

There’s enough there to drive a chocoholic into rehab.

Memo to self: Join gym. You’re going to need someplace to burn off the calories.

Still waiting for word on my Canon EOS-1D Mark III digital SLR that was DOA from the factory service center Friday after a service "upgrade."

Technicians in New Jersey continued to work on it today and promised to overnight it back to me "as soon as the repairs are completed."

Hopefully that means soon. Hopefully it also means the camera that arrives will work.

Technical glitches seem to be more of the norm as professional level cameras get more complitcated and more features are added. I used Nikons as a pro for 40 years and my trusty Nikon F (purchased in 1966) never needed factory service and still works. An F2 needed work shortly after I bought it but I used an F5 for years without any problem.

My first digital SLR, a Nikon D1 purchased in 2000, started giving the "Error 99" communications problem after two weeks of use. Penn Camera in DC replaced it with a new one that worked without any problems. A D2H needed service just three months after purchase and the photographer who bought it from me when I switched to Canons in 2004 had to send it in six months later.

On the other hand, my two Canon EOS-1D Mark II bodies have worked without a hitch for the past three years and I’ve shot more than 10,000 exposures on each.

I head into the coming week realizing that time is neither on my side or under control. My time is no longer my own. It belongs to too many others, controlled by outside forces, dominating every waking moment. The day ends in exhaustion. I collapse into bed or fall onto the couch and sleep, in bits and pieces, until the new day dawns.

Time to cut back, prioritize, focus on the important and discard the minutiae. But how? I’m over-committed, over-scheduled, over-utilized and unable to control time, life or destiny.

Life in the country is anything but restful, easy or bucolic. Every evening this week is booked. Every day is dominated by appointments and meetings. The approaching deadlines must wait until the overdue projects are completed.

There is a breaking point. Or rather there was. I think I passed it a long time ago.

My Canon EOS-1D Mark III digital SLR went to the company’s repair facility in Newport News this past week for a photographic version of a factory recall.

Some early models of the Mark III had problems with the automatic focus (a new design on the model) so Canon launched a massive retrofit program that involved replacing the sub mirror assembly in the camera body on all early models. It meant sending my five-month old camera back to the factory service center and being without it for a few days.

"Few days" however, can be subject to interpretation. Canon promises a three day turnaround for working pros so I sent my camera off to Newport News via UPS next day air on their tab. According to UPS tracking, it arrived at the Canon facility at 8:11 a.m. on Friday, January 18.  However, it wasn’t logged into Canon’s repair system until the end of the day on Monday, January 21. OK, it was a weekend so no big deal.  The same system said the camera repair was completed by Tuesday, January 22 but Canon didn’t ship it until Wednesday and, for some reason, they chose FedEx two-day air to return the camera. That meant the camera goes from Newport News to Memphis and then back to Roanoke for Friday delivery — eight days after I sent it in. UPS ground can get it from Newport News to Roanoke in one day.

The "upgraded" camera arrived at our house Friday afternoon. I was out but Amy signed for it and I got home just in time to unpack it, stick in a freshly-recharged battery, and head back out to shoot the Floyd County High School basketball game and homecoming that night.

At the game, I put a telephoto lens on the camera, focused on the action, pressed the shutter release…and nothing happened.  An ominious message flashed in the viewfinder: Error 99.

Error 99 is one of the most dreaded messages that the user of a digital camera can receive. It’s a communications problem somewhere in the digital bowels of the camera. It also means the camera won’t work. I tried the recommended steps to try and correct the problem: turn the camera off and on, remove and reinsert the battery, change memory cards and/or lenses. Nada. Dead in the water.

Fortunately, I carry backup camera bodies so I put the new and improved Mark III away and went back to my trusty EOS-1Ds Mark II and a 40D to shoot the game and homecoming festivities.

When I got home I called the Canon "priority" support line and said, in a relatively calm tone, that "a week ago I sent you a working camera and you upgraded it to one that doesn’t work.  Why is that?"

The support tech apologized at least 10 times, got his boss on the line and they emailed me a UPS sticker to ship the camera out this morning via next-day air to the New Jersey repair facility.  They promised the problem would be repaired and the camera returned to me no later than Wednesday of next week.

Floyd, unfortunately, does not have Saturday pickup for next day air. So I will pack the camera back into the box that arrived just yesterday and truck over to Christiansburg or Roanoke to make the early deadline for next-day air pickup at one of the UPS stores, which also means cancelling two appointments for today with web site clients.

Ah, the joys of modern technologies.