Road to...............?????????????

Most of you know I had my camera gear stolen several months ago.  I have since replaced most everything lost, but the one thing that's been missing is my Sigma 10-20mm wideangle lens.  It was one of my favorite lenses since it catches the shot very wide and can give a different perspective to the shot.  And besides that I though it had great color representation and was pretty sharp.  I recovered this lens the day my gear was stolen(it had fallen out of my camera bag as the looter was haulin' a-- down the sidewalk), and I was pretty excited that I at least had this one, perhaps my favorite lens.  Unfortunately,  a couple days later I tried to attach and use the lens, but the mount had been ruined in the fall to the ground.  Bummer.  I had choices at that time.  I could try to fix the lens myself; I could order a new lens; Or,I could send it in to Sigma and get an estimate on the cost to fix it.  I spent a couple of weeks trying to make the decision.  Finally, I tried to fix it myself.  No go.  That mount is made of some pretty strong steel as it should be.  I then checked out ordering a new one.  Insurance did pay me to replace that lens.  But, somehow, I must have spent that money already on other gear because my little account to hold my monies for replacing gear had run pretty low.  I don't know how that happened.  Plus, the price of a new lens had went up considerably since I first purchased this lens.  Next, I emailed Sigma Corp. to find out the process on sending in repairs.  They replied on what to do and that they would give me an estimate before performing any work.  I decided to go that route.  They sent me an estimate and it was about what I figured it would be.  Way too much for a simple repair, but, hey, I figured it would be.  Still, considerably lower than buying new.  I was still worried since these lenses are pretty temperamental pieces and I was worried that even though they would fix the mount, who knows what damage might have been done to the focus or other aspects of the lens.  And I didn't know if they would even check those things.  I sent the lens and then it was a waiting game for about 3 weeks.  Finally, it showed up at my door looking like new.  We had some good storms come through yesterday and I was excited since I love shooting in stormy weather and I had my number one tool for the job.  I didn't do alot of shooting with it yesterday, but it sure felt good having it on my camera again.  I caught a few nice shots of the storms coming in.  And then the downpours came so my camera and my lens were put in a dry place till next time.