Will, you're welcome. That's a true story, by the way. It was an older Pana hand-held with a docking station---very expensive in those days. I put at least 200 hours on that cam. My friend hired me to do a bunch of shooting. Luckily, he had a couple of other cams for back-ups. :-)

It Lives!
 

I am happy to report that my GL2 has been returned. That's almost a month on the nose, so Mack's estimate of 4-6 weeks was valid.

The repair was to replace the main circuit board. I presume this means the connectors are mounted on the board.

Cost: $0. Even though I broke the thing and even though I was 100% honest with Mack in describing the cause of the problem, somehow this was included in my warranty. They also cleaned it, aligned the tape path, and reset it to factory specs.

Bless Mack and all therein.

Will

I neglected to mention that the GL2 was repaired by Canon. Mack sent it out. I sent it to Mack, Mack sent it to Canon, it came back to Mack, and then was sent along to me.

Will

Hmmm, took the scenic route,eh? Kind of like my flight yesterday on Southwest....from Las Vegas to Little Rock to Baltimore to Hartford, and my luggage arrived today!!!! Funny, the outbound flight was direct nonstop. Thanks for wasting my time, SWA!!!

Back on topic, Velcro ties are abundant. I have had really good results with Porta Brace Piggin Strings: they come with a nice little shackle that you can clip onto your bag or other things. Also, don't laugh, I have some pony tail holders made by Goody (found in the hair accessory department at Walmart or the like) tha consist of two plastic balls connected by a loop of elastic string, they are really quick to use...plus they are so cheap that you don't cry if you lose one (unlike Porta Brace Piggin Strings)