Howdy. It's been a long time since I did my last one of these things. Yeah I just thought I'd mention that Susan and I went garage-sale-ing and we talked for a while with one guy who was selling some things that caught our eyes.  He had a photo negative scanner, and a professional grade tripod. After talking for a long time, he took us inside his house to try to find the cables that went with the photo scanner. He showed us his work space, and he (as a professional photographer, he has a very nice workspace with a Mac, a newer negative scanner, and a huge printer. He gave us some tips on being successful as a professional artist. He said that (starting out) you NEED to work a real job until you get yourself a reputation as an artist. One thing that you have to remember is that if you're passionate about what you do, you can't give up. "Too many people just give up too soon." he said. He ended up giving susan the scanner for free and said "come back and give me what you think it's worth, if it works for you." He sold me the tripod for 30 bucks. It's good, and stable, and best of all, it gets up to 10 feet tall so yes... I will indeed be making a teepee with it. Okay good job reading all that.