The CP+ 2020 expo in Yokohama, one of the largest photo trade shows, has been canceled due to COVID-19.
Trade shows, especially international ones, are hotbeds of infectious diseases, and this show is not just geographically close to China and the epicenter of the virus, but the photo industry as a whole is hip-deep in a China-sourced supply chain.
Of course, SHOT Show is also full of suppliers from China, and further, takes place around the Lunar New Year when the city of Las Vegas is rolling out the red carpet for plane loads of tourists from China.
I mean, I joked about having the Wu-Tang Coriolisvirus, although I'm pretty sure it was whatever strain of regular old flu is going around, but you have to wonder how many cases of actual COVID-19 managed to get interpreted as the regular old flu and went home and got better because nobody thought to check. .
This bit of blatant in-camera HDR abuse was shot on the bridge between the Venetian and Treasure Island with the Sony RX100 I keep in my shirt pocket. The sky was dramatic right around sunset and so I stopped and popped off a couple shots with in-camera High Dynamic Range enabled.
Kevin Creighton at Ammoman's School of Guns blog has a pretty cool explanation of the business of SHOT Show, told through the lens of a photo essay he did following Julie Golob around for a day. Julie works as hard as anybody in this business, so it's a great illustration. Go check it out. .
So, I checked out of the hotel yesterday morning at a little after 7AM, and boarded a flight to SEA at about 10AM, local. From SEA, I flew to MSP, and from MSP home to IND, arriving just before midnight. Thankfully, I had enough miles to bump the first and last legs of the trip to first class.
It's going to take a day or two to get my bearings.
Having just spent a week on Pacific time, which is just about long enough to get acclimated, I'm back home again in Indiana on EST. And it's not just the time zones; Vegas is an audiovisual overload jammed with way too many people, and that's even without SHOT Show and all the work involved in covering that. I could spend forty-eight hours floating in a sensory deprivation tank right now and it would be a blessed relief.
As it is, I'm going to get some ribs at Fat Dan's because it's Sunday and I'm home in Broad Ripple and ribs at Fat Dan's is what I do on Sunday. Then I'm going to polish off some writing and make an early night of it. .
Three days in the desert and already my bodyweight is probably sixty percent dry-ass dead skin cells.
This is my third year of covering SHOT for RECOIL, and since they put us up in a hotel right across the street from the convention center, I didn't bother bringing a blaster.
Gasp. Shock.
Look, I know some people...plenty, actually...roll dirty in Vegas, but considering that practically my entire time here is spent either in the hotel or the convention center or walking between them during normal business hours, I'm pretty comfortable with my Vegas odds and a can of pepper spray. Besides, this trip is pretty much the only time I fly without checking guns, so it's interesting to see how normies experience air travel. (Curbside baggage check, for instance, is not normally a thing I get to do.)
Also, I haven't worn a belt in three days, which is really novel for me.
Hotel POTUS at sunrise, as seen from the 28th floor of Treasure Island
Federal dropped a presser announcing a new line of CCW-oriented ammunition, called "Punch", and marketed as "personal defense ammunition". While LE ammunition such as Federal's HST Tactical is fine for CCW use, the difficulty of performing well on the more difficult portions of the FBI barrier protocols requires solutions that aren't necessarily as important for a CCW bullet.
Engineering a bullet that will hold together, penetrate, and expand after encountering plywood, laminated auto glass or sheet metal requires various methods of locking the jacket to the core that require extra manufacturing steps and extra cost. A bullet that will do well in just the bare gel & heavy clothing parts of the test is easier and cheaper to make.
I mean, I'm still going to carry HST, but I found something interesting in the press release:
“Concealed-carry permit holders, especially new shooters, need an uncomplicated answer to the question ‘What ammo do I need for self-defense’,” said Federal Handgun Ammunition Product Manager Chris Laack. “Things to consider such as function, reliable ignition, barrier performance, terminal performance, ballistics and other considerations are a lot to digest for most people. What some consumers really need to know is it will function in their gun, every time, and that it will be effective stopping a threat as quickly as possible. Punch is our easy answer for them.” Most concealed carry permit holders are less concerned with factors such as barrier penetration through steel, plywood and auto glass and more concerned about choosing a bullet that is engineered from the ground-up to stop an attacker and work effectively in their chosen firearm. And, as the data shows, Punch bullets perform well in the tests that matter most to the average shooter—penetration and expansion through bare gel and heavy clothing. Federal has made Punch ammunition a natural choice for concealed carry. What’s more, Punch ammunition features Federal’s smooth-feeding nickel-plated cases, advanced powders, and the sealed reliability of high-quality, sensitive primers. With Punch, self-defenders can be assured its components will do its job when it matters most. The five new Punch options include a .380 Auto 85-grain offering with a muzzle velocity of 1,000 feet per second, a .38 Special +P 120-grain load at 1,070 fps, a 9mm 147-grain load at 1,150 fps, a .40 S&W 16-grain load at 1,130 fps, and a .45 Auto 230-grain load at 890 fps. What’s more, all these loads will be available immediately, and with MSRPs from $15.95 to $20.95 per box of 20.
Check out the highlighted portions. If the .380 is getting those velocities out of LCP-size guns, that's a big deal. But personally, I'm looking at that claimed velocity for the 147gr nine. If they're getting supersonic velocities out of a 147gr bullet from a 4" barrel, that's a spicy meatball. Then again, it could be a typo like the "16-gr" .40 cal bullet. (It's 165gr, almost certainly.)
Instead of trying to do everything at the last minute, I think I'm going to start getting stuff ready for SHOT today. Do some laundry and get at least the basics packed, for starters. I've already got to the point where I keep a separate bag of travel toiletries in the suitcase, and I've checked it to make sure it's all good and nothing needs replacing. (Can conditioner go bad? I don't think so?)
I need to pull the MacBook Air out and make sure that it's all updated, not just the OS but Word and P-shop, too. I don't want to run into this scenario I had at NRAAM:
I'm also going to throw all the spare camera batteries on chargers and round up the actual kit I'll be using for the show and make sure it's all packed.
Both those Sony bodies are gone, so I'll be falling back on using Canons for work stuff until I can afford a secondhand Sony a7 III this summer, after the a7 IV's cause the used prices to tumble. I just couldn't face another range day or show floor with a pocket full of batteries, and the a7 III has apparently better than double the battery life of its predecessors. (The a7 II would burn up almost five full FW50's in a busy day's work. It was a marginal power source for their APS-C cameras, and totally overwhelmed in the full-frame bodies. Photogs with the early original gangsta a7's would sometimes take the battery door off to make swapping fresh batteries in faster.) .
I'm megadosing vitamin C, stocking up on hand sanitizer, and have ordered comfy insoles and some extra memory cards for the cameras. I'm also watching the classic Manny Mansfield video to get in the mood:
Like most trade shows, when you register for a media pass, all the companies and their PR flacks get your email address, which means I've been cleaning the email inbox out with a snow shovel for the past month.
The worst part is that it's not specialized, so I'm getting notices for all kinds of stuff I could care less about. Precision Rifle accessories? Look, not only am I too poor to care about Precision Rifle, even if I had that kind of dough, I suck at math and my attention span is way too short. Also, while I could be talked into going and sitting in a tree stand for a few hours, there is a ton of esoteric Fudd stuff that holds no fascination for me. I dig that some people can get into knock-down drag-out fights over camo patterns and different brands of bottled deer piss, but that ain't my jam.
The weirdest emails are because at least one PR dude is not only in the gun biz but also reps in the music industry, apparently, and I get spammed with those emails, too. This just hit the inbox last night:
"DON McLEAN JOINS STYX, BLUE ÖYSTER CULT, WARRANT, LITA FORD, WALTER TROUT, FRANK MARINO & MAHOGANY RUSH AND MORE FOR ROCK LEGENDS CRUISE IX SAILING FEBRUARY 18–22, 2021"
Sponsored by Geritol!
Man, you know you're on the final glide slope of a career when you're playing the cruise ship circuit with whoever's calling themselves "Styx" these days. .
