is this still available?

Refrain from buying anymore equipment!

What exactly is a saloon car? Never heard the term, but sounds like something a moonshiner would drive. What is it?

This tripod is also owned be a friend of mine. To me, it seems a bit too lightweight. There are others made by Benro, Induro & Sirui that may be a bit sturdier. This tripod: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/744019-REG/Benro_C0180T_Travel_Flat_C0180T_4_Section.html
this tripod is one of the few carbon fiber tripods available at this price point & is currently on sale until the end of the month at B&H. Try & buy a good tripod the first time or you will end up spending your money again later on for a better one. It's usually cheaper to by a decent one the first time that to end up buying a second & better tripod later. Then you would have spent money on 2 tripods & not use one of them. $ just sitting in the closet.

For the same reason we repeatedly rephotograph anything, be it a tree, waterfall, an old barn or anything else. You may go to that favorite park & photograph any number of things yet you'll go back again & shoot it again. Views are always different, lighting is always different, and many other factors may be different. Parents will photograph their kids today, & maybe again tomorrow. They haven't changed overnight. As photographers, that's what we do. Have you ever gone on vacation to a place you've already gone? Why? You've already seen it. Ever see a TV episode more than once? Why? Bottom line, because you get enjoyment out of it. Same goes for photography.

The D90 does record actuations. That info is only available from an image that started out as a raw file. That info is also deleted when saves as a jpg. Save your raw file to a psd file then look in the file info. you may need to search a few folders in there but it IS there.

For a sleeker bag & one that is extremely comfortable to carry as well as stable at your side, check out the Crumpler 7 Million Dollar Home bag. Larger & smaller ones are also available. I've owned sling bags, backpacks & shoulder bags from Lowpro, Tamrac, Domke & Think Tank and many different ones from each of them and found I like the Crumpler line of bags best.

I am running Mountain Lion with CS6. No problems or issues. Also no issues with Elements 10, LR4, all of NIK'S plugins & Photomatix.

Congrats & great image. Your first cover will always be extra special. Enjoy the accolades.

Got all 20 correct

I add it, but I also know that it really means nothing except that it does fool SOME people into believing that it really is & they then tend to leave the image alone. Not all will, only some will. It also means that if they want that small file image, they must either crop out that info or clone over it.

So glad you & your pet made it out of that inferno. As others have already said, stuff can be replaced, we connot. Welcome back...

Most images that even professional photographers try to market have had vast amounts of post processing to make them the images they are. Look at the images of the famous Ansel Adams. The original images before his incredible darkroom work, looked terrible. He was a master of the darkroom. I attended a photo convention a few years ago where in one program, the photographer kept stressing the beauty of images as recorded without post processing. He completely lost the attention of the audience. You will find very few gallery type images that have not had their share of post processing. B&W digital images need post processing just to make them good B&W's & not various shades of gray. With film, much of this depended on the type of film used. We've come to expect images to have that "Wow" factor. That "wow" factor just doesn't come out of the camera. Most of us aren't lucky enough to be world travelers on a regular basis to where we are exposed to the incredible views we all see on the internet, or even our canned screen saver images, etc... so we must get the best image we can of what ever opportunities we have & try to give them that "wow" factor. Think of this; How much of a "wow" factor is in an image of a stream near where you may live compared to the "wow" factor of an image of El Capitan. We need to take what we can & try & turn it into something that it's not. Put two images side by side, with one image looking pretty must as it came out of the camera & another image that's been highly processed, & see which image gets the most attention. Best advice I can give is to spend the time learning how to do great post processing, or just be happy with the dull images that come from the camera. There are free youtube videos that will show you how to do just about anything with your images. Take advantage of this resource & turn your nice images into "wow" images. If you prefer your images to have a more natural look, thats fine too, but they won't generate as much interest to others. nuf said.... keep on clicking...

The different color star trails are because stars are many different colors depending on how hot or cool they are, not that they are actually cool but some are much hotter than others.