wow i love the photos nubs! and that Brobot looks evil under the light  
, im glad to hear everything arrive safely  
Thanks.  And it takes something worth photographing to get a good photo...well not really, but it doesn't hurt.
What is your camera, Nubs?  I generally can't get sharp images by hand unless I use flash or daylight illumination.
It's a Nikon D70.  I'm using a 50mm lens at between an f/2.8 and f/4.5 and a close up filter and generally shoot no lower than 1/20.  I grew up shooting guns, so I've carried over a lot of the shooting techniques into photography, like how to properly anchor your body  and limbs to stabilize yourself, how to breath, and so on.  I actually won a little inter-office on campus contest run by Canon when I was working in my undergrad PR department with a shot that I hand shot at 1/8.  I managed to get a sharp shot by using those techniques.  It's not always perfectly sharp when I do that, but I tend to bracket, so I always have something usable.