There is so much crap that we buy these days that ends up broken and in the garbage in short order.

My mom still has a ton of the toys I used to have as a child (including my Easy Bake Oven, which amazingly, after over 20 years in storage still works).

I look at Vista’s toys and there are very few that are going to last through her, never mind still being around 30 years from now.

But it’s not just kids stuff either.  Bil and I have burned through our fair share of laptops, routers, and backup drives.  Now a days, if your printer dies it’s cheaper to replace it.  Ditto for some laptops.  That just blows my mind (and my wallet).   I suppose it’s all a ploy to increase consumerism.  But what really surprised me is when I realized that we’ve come to expect it.

When we took our unexpected swim in the lake this summer, Bil’s new Flip video camera was in his pocket (I say new… it was a couple months old, but you get the idea).  Needless to say having your video camera sitting in water for 10 – 15 minutes isn’t really healthy for it.  When he got to shore and pulled it out of it out of his pocket and the lake water came pouring out of it, we were sad.  We liked the Flip.  But buying another one just wasn’t in the budget.  We put it aside to dry out in the hopes we might be able to recover some of the videos that were still on it.  We weren’t really optomistic about it, though.  After all, technology and anything wet?  Not such a great mix.

Fast forward a month.  Bil went to a conference last weekend and as he was packing his laptop and camera, he grabbed the Flip.  With a shrug (and for the fun of it) he turned it on.  Not only did it turn on, it still works. AND all the videos we had taken were still there.  We struggled to pick our jaws up off the floor.

That’s right.  After being immersed in water for over 10 minutes our Flip video camera is working perfectly.

They might not make most things like they used to, but I’m sure glad Pure Digital Technologies created a quality product.

**I’m in no way being paid, compensated, or otherwise bribed for this post.  We bought our Flip with our own money and this is just my honest opinions of a great product**