Annoyances...

So, sometimes I take a photo with my phone that is intended as an actual photo and process it with Adobe Lightroom CC, right there on my phone, because it's handy as dammit.

Far more often, though, the photos I take with my phone are notional things, meant to share a picture my friends of a tasty meal or a cool t-shirt I saw. (Because that's what social media is for, in my opinion. I'm just having conversations with friends that, because these conversations are on the internet, are observable by other people to a greater or lesser degree.)

Even more notional than a picture of a meal or funny t-shirt are the countless images in my phone's photo album of shopping lists, screen shots, silly memes, and such. The phone dutifully saves these, too.

And the problem is that I haven't figured out a way to make Lightroom able to tell the difference between an actual photograph and the "Why football man don't stand up?" So it automatically tries to synch everything in the iPhone's photo library with my online Lightroom storage.

There has to be a way to fix this that I'm just missing...
.

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #172...

This Langdon Tactical 92 Elite LTT is fixin' to get the 2k round treatment. So far I am really liking the grips. I'm finding the sights to be very usable, and the trigger has to be felt to be believed. The DA pull is amazing.
.

Not in the game...

With the front moving through, I spent yesterday in rather a lot of pain. This morning I repeated last Saturday's day off from walking, which means I'll be out for a morning stroll before Meet the Press tomorrow morning. Hopefully without an umbrella; it's been raining pretty steadily for two days straight here.

My head has been muzzy today, which is making writing hard.
.

LOL'ed...

That's funny right there, I don't care who you are...
.

Terribly sorry...

Got out for a leisurely amble this morning. My 17.03/mile pace was due more to laziness than the fact that I was carrying an umbrella.

Then a discussion on Facebook wound up in me falling down the rabbit hole of Googling ballista plans on the internet. Turns out there are rather a lot of them. For instance, behold "Mista Ballista"!

That felt good...

I got a good walk in this morning right at sunrise. A little over a mile at what Siri says was a 15.33/mile pace. It left me pleasantly winded. I should do that more.

I'm not alone...

...in my love of State Fairs. Aaron has pics and video from Michigan's State Fair. Go check it out!
.

Fast Glass

The 70-200mm constant-aperture zoom lens is a staple in camera bags. It's such a staple that, well...

"...it’s a lens that so many pros rely on for a considerable portion of their photography that the leading manufacturers of camera bags design their wares around it. We’ve seen countless demos by the bag makers who describe a pro-level case as being able to hold a DSLR with a 70-200mm."

I like "travel zooms" (like the Sony 24-240mm that's on my a7 right now) as the walking-around lens on my camera, but while they add the versatility of going from wide-angle to long telephoto, they are too slow to use for anything other than brightly-lit outdoor work.

Even with extensive work in Lightroom, trying to shoot derby with a typical f/3.5-5.6 travel zoom results in a hot mess.

I'd been pondering getting a constant aperture 70-200mm to better be able to shoot things like roller derby. There was no way I was going to be able to swing a lens like that before Blogorado time rolled around again, though.

A full-frame Sony E-mount 70-200mm f/4 is about a grand used, and the one I really wanted, the 70-200mm f/2.8, is double that money or more.

This is where the magic of Micro Four-Thirds comes to the rescue. Since the MFT sensor is half the size of the one on a full-frame camera, a 35-100mm zoom would give the same field of view as a 70-200mm on the Sony. And Panasonic happens to make a very well-regarded 35-100mm f/2.8 zoom lens.

Due to the smaller glass, it's a lot more affordable, too. Sure, because of the crop factor you also lose some of the tight depth-of-field control you get with a full-frame f/2.8, so if portraiture is your jam it's not really a substitute. But is it capable of shooting roller derby? It would appear so.

Speaking of the magic of crop factor, the tiny 1/1.7" sensor on the Pentax Q7 and Q-S1 means that the 70-200mm equivalent on those cameras is a 15-45mm lens that costs a hundred bucks and fits in a teacup.

Surly...or, well, surlier than usual.

The constant low-level pain makes me a downright unpleasant person to be around, and I don't much like that. I'm irritable and find myself answering even long-time friends snippily and shortly.

If I've done this to you recently (and it was in a manner you thought out of character for me) that's why, and I apologize. Hopefully things will be back to my normal levels of snarky hostility in another month or two.
.

Nike's ad agency...

Meanwhile...

"Nike Loses $3.75 Billion in Market Cap After Colin Kaepernick Named Face of ‘Just Do It’ Ads"

Quote mining old posts...

"Both atheists and believers want to feel oppressed here, because oppression is the coin of the realm in 21st century America and can be traded for valuable cash and prizes."https://t.co/Wl9wAh3jnM

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) September 4, 2018

I did not know that.

I mean, I knew that the Canuck-made rifle optic was called the "Elcan", presumably after its manufacturer, and I knew that Leica had long had a presence in Canada. But I had never made the obvious connection...

"KE-7As were fitted with modified shutters to operate in temperatures to -20 degrees Fahrenheit, were dust sealed for military field conditions and made to withstand explosive concussion (i.e. bomb blast). The 460 military versions were engraved to indicate that they were standard issue US Army property ( specifically, each with FSN (Federal Stock Number), Cont. (contract designation), and U.S. (United States) markings) and came supplied with a Leitz Midland made 50mm f2 “Elcan”. The Elcan 50mm f2 (“Elcan” being a contraction of “Ernst Leitz Canada”) was constructed of 4 elements for minimum size for military use. Where the “KE-7A” designation comes from is anyone’s guess."

Optics are, after all, optics. It's a rare camera company that's not hip-deep into scopes and rangefinders and microscopes and such.

It's too bad the C79 is such an expensive optic. They're generally not preferred by anybody who can get their hands on alternatives from Trijicon, Aimpoint, or any of several quality makers of low-power variables, but it would be neat to have one in the collection just because of the Leica connection. There's a used one on Gunbroker right now, but it's the US M145 variant, which is intended for use on SAWs and 240s. And $600 for a "meh" scope I'd never put on a working gun, just because it has a cool camera connection is not the sort of thing I can do.
.

Labor Day

I did my mile walk around the block this morning and returned home feeling like I'd gone for a swim. According to Siri, the dew point outside was 71° (Siri knows the dew point and barometric pressure; Alexa is stumped by those two.)

I walked over to Sam's Gyros for lunch and tipped extra because Sam was in there by hisself on Labor Day and it was hotter than dammit in that kitchen. Heat index was over 100 today in weather that was more Floridian than Hoosier.

I had a lager because lower in carbs, but then I had a Hoppopotamus IPA from Metazoa Brewing because Labor Day.

Sat at the counter at Fat Dan's for a couple pints and pecked away at the Glock 19X review while keeping half an eyeball on the Braves playing the Red Sox on the overhead TV screen.

The Logitech keyboard case I got bundled with the new iPad while I was up in New Hampshire has been super handy. Since I have Word on the iPad, I don't even bother dragging the MacBook Air with me around town now. The notebook is strictly a roadtrip productivity machine so that I can work on stuff in hotel rooms at gun school and such without dragging the beastly heavy Dell gaming laptop and its power brick (more like a power cinder block) along with me.

On the way home I spotted these beasties parked up in front of Moe & Johnny's, and so I crossed the street for a closer look.

Mmm-hmm. I could live with that Duc. I was sad I hadn't brought more camera; I just had the little Samsung TL350 with its twee little steam gauges in my shirt pocket. It acquitted itself okay, I guess.

The sidewalk in front of The Jazz Kitchen and a couple shops next to it was host to an outdoor jazz concert and al fresco dining.

I love my neighborhood!
.

Out of Touch

I watched some of McCain's funeral service yesterday, and watched Meet the Press this morning. The latter could not stop talking about the former.

There were many commentators yesterday talking about how they hoped this was going to be some sort of bridge between the Left and the Right, and noting the bipartisan nature of the affair.

I had to laugh when I heard that, and rather thought Chuck had the right of it when he asked Senator Senator Sullivan (R-AK) if this hadn't been the funeral of bipartisanship itself. I guessed ahead of time what I was going to find when I went out and made my daily rounds of the net, and I wasn't wrong.

Sure, the Center Left and Center Right just made a big show of bemoaning the divisiveness of the current political scene, but out on the the internets both the Progressive Left and Reactionary Right were dancing jigs on his flag-draped coffin. Whether they called it the Establishment or the Swamp, they saw McCain as the problem.

The reactionary culture warriors? They only pine for the Good Ol' Days of white folk hat-tipping and ma'am-ing and sir-ing each other. They don't actually practice that "culture" stuff. They're too busy making frog may-mays.

To the progressive culture warriors, meanwhile, almost everyone deserves a safe space where they won't get triggered, but McCain just joined the least protected class of all: Dead White European Males. Apparently the grave's not even a safe space for those guys.
.

Odds.

Which is why I wonder about people who call for a "second revolution". We beat the odds in '76, but just because you got lucky drawing to an inside straight once doesn't make it the way to bet. https://t.co/4KzaoXlYDJ

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) September 1, 2018

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #171...

Glock 19X testing continues.

Danger Close

So, there was an armed robbery in daylight, in an alley fairly close to the house the other day. The robber gratuitously shot his victim in the leg before running off, too.

Partly this story illustrates the steepness of the crime frequency gradients in 21st Century urban America. Here, a gentrified neighborhood where mothers on maternity leave from jobs at Eli Lilly or Rolls Royce push their infant children on porch swings in the half-light of pre-dawn is only blocks away from one where gang bangers do drive-bys on business rivals.

In the mornings, I wake up and put my feet on the floor when the alarm goes off. Then I watch the local news while consuming coffee, soda, bacon, and the cocktail of pills I'm still taking to repair my shoulder. After the first ten or fifteen minutes of the national news (which comes on at 0700) I head out around the block for my walk.

This morning, in light of recent events, Bobbi replied to my "I'm headed out" with "Do you have a gun?"

She was asking out of genuine concern, and so I did not reply sardonically with "I'm wearing pants, aren't I?" or "Am I in the secure area of an airport?"

But I'm not carrying a gun because I'm afraid. I'm carrying a gun because carrying a gun is what I do. If I'm dressed, there's a Gen4 Glock 19 on my person, whether I'm at home or out and about.

I carry a wallet in case I need to buy something. I carry a flashlight in case I need to see something. I carry a knife in case I need to open something. And I carry a gun in case I need to stop someone from trying to grievously harm me.

This doesn't mean that I walk around thinking everyone's trying to grievously harm me, any more than it means I think everyone's a dark place that needs a flashlight shone on them.

Roundup.

I've gotten serious trigger time on...and feature-length SI reviews out of... commercial analogues of three of the four serious MHS finalists. The P320 in several varieties, the M&P 2.0, and the FN 509. So it's kind of karmic that I'll be reviewing this one for Shooting Illustrated, too.

Hey, look!

My review of the Charter Arms Bulldog XL is live at Shooting Illustrated.

Sweltering.

Today was the third day in a row with highs in the nineties, our thirtieth of the year. Plus enough humidity to take the starch right out of you.

Blech.
.

Target discrimination, Part Deux...

I disagree a little bit with Claude at this post, in which he references the dude who mistakenly put a bullet through his stepson when he whirled and fired at what he thought was an animal closing in behind him in the underbrush.

Claude lays the blame on the internet's emphasis on speed in draw time.

Personally, I doubt the guy's draw was very fast in the grand scheme of things. What I blame is the fact that he apparently made the decision that he was going to turn and fire...and then did so...without first gaining visual confirmation that there was something that needed shooting there in the first place.

It doesn't matter if you draw and shoot blindly in 0.99 seconds or 9.99 seconds if you don't first ascertain that there is something there that legitimately needs shooting and that you can, in fact, shoot it without inadvertently shooting something that doesn't need to be shot.

Draw speed, like a number of other skills, is one of those things that isn't usually important, except when it is.
.

Things I wish they made...

I wish Magpul made their .300BLK Pmag in a 20-round configuration.

Pro Tip...

Better late than never?

So, Nikon announced their new Z-series cameras the other day.

"It's a full-frame mirrorless camera that can use the existing Nikon F-mount lens library with the use of an adapter!"

Er...okay?

I'm being a little unfair, since the Nikon adapter will allow the Z-series to communicate with existing F-mount autofocus lenses and control focus and aperture and even use the VR image stabilization functions without having to perform the translation work that occurs when using  kludgy third party adapters to use Nikon AF lenses on a Sony. (Personally, I only use old manual focus lenses on "dumb" adapters.)

These look like fantastic cameras and are probably what Nikon should have released in the first place, rather than the Nikon 1 series that were designed to chase a market that doesn't exist. Instead, they wasted half a decade trying to market an interesting interchangeable lens camera to people who were happy with their cell phone cams, and let Sony get three generations into establishing itself as the de facto choice in full-frame mirrorless.
.

It's a strange modern world.

I wasn't sure if we were going to go to a ham radio swap meet thing in some far off corner of the state  today or not. I was meaning to ask Bobbi, but I just read her blog and it appears that we are not.
.

Danger close, t-shirt.

"I'm feeling personally attacked, here."

Overheard in the Dining Room...

RX: "Apparently Bishop Chatard* sends the short bus to sporting events. I was following a couple little buses with the Bishop Chatard logo on them the other evening." 

Me: "You can't say 'Chatard' anymore, you have to say 'Chamentallychallenged'."

*A local Catholic school

I've always wondered...

In the various fora and social media circles in which I run, there's a self-selecting bias toward literacy. Thoughts tend to be expressed in complete sentences with reasonably correct grammar and punctuation.

But sometimes I'll find myself looking at the posts of a Facebook friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend and I see these random aggregations of misspelled words. They have the occasional capital letter or punctuation mark thrown in, as though the writer knew they were supposed to include those, but not how or why.

And I find myself wondering "What's it like inside their head?" I mean, you'd probably be going through life slightly angry, thinking everybody was secretly laughing at you behind their hands, that there was some arcane code of keyboard use you were violating. The whole internet would be like one of those fancy restaurants with too much silverware and you never know which implement to use to eat which dish.
.

#FightTheDerp

So...

Today I went out into the pistol bay at Indy Arms Company, and the first thing I saw as I set foot on the range was that the guy shooting in the lane to my left had this weird stance, with his strong-side foot dropped way back, combined with an aggressive tactical turtle crouch. And he was shooting a CZ P10.

“Oh, boy,” I thought, “This is gonna be an exotic form of f$ckery...”

And then I heard a timer beep, and he started shooting. A failure drill on his five yard target.

And it wasn’t bad.

A timer, on a public range.

And then he recovered after the string and, as he looked down to check his time, his trigger finger went into a hard register in the P10’s ejection port.

Madness! This guy’s stance is goofy, but he’s hitting stuff and actively working to get better. And he had a timer.

A timer, on a public range.

And then the guy on lane three asks his buddy on lane two “What’s a Bill Drill again? Is it five or six shots? And fifteen or twenty-one feet?”

“Hang on,” says his buddy, “Let me look that up,” and consults his cell phone with one hand and hands his friend a target printed out from Todd’s blog with the other.

And I’m like “THIS IS MADNESS. WHAT ALTERNATE UNIVERSE HAVE I WANDERED INTO?”

There were three fellow range patrons and I was the only person out there not using a timer today. And nobody was engaging in crappy gun-handling, and everybody was reliably hitting their targets, even when they were shooting at speeds that normally have me asking my fellow range patrons to please stop shooting the ceiling.

I have never before seen the like in my entire shooting career, outside of a match or a class.
.

Last shots, first shots...

Yesterday morning saw me at Indy Arms Company, putting the last few rounds through the Charter Arms Bulldog XL in .45 Colt before writing up the review for Shooting Illustrated.

I also put the first hundred rounds through the Gen5 Glock 26, which I'll be writing up for the same outlet. The G26 was my first time shooting with both hands on the pistol since the accident back in May. It's going to take a while before my support hand is contributing to the performance like it should, but at least I can keep it on the gun now.

The single cylinder of .45 Colt Winchester Silvertips was fired strong-hand-only at five yards. Lots of muzzle flash, but you can see it shot pretty well POA/POI at that distance.

The hundred rounds of Winchester (Winchester 124gr NATO FMJ and Ranger 124gr +P FMJ) was also fired at five yards, and trying to build up a little speed in my shooting again. The difference in shooting this 26 and the Glock 43 is like night and day. I need to try shooting some drills on the clock with both guns side-by-side.
.

Vintage Glass...

Out to lunch with the #sonya7 and #nikkor105mm25 lens. #photography #takingpictures #f8andbethere

A post shared by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on Aug 20, 2018 at 9:06am PDT

The Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 is a classic, and since Nikon hasn't changed the basic mount, vintage manual focus lenses will fit on the newest Nikon F-mount DSLRs. (Or my Sony, with the right adapter.)

More State Fair pics...

The big Keck-Gonnerman steam engine from an earlier post was being used to power this late 19th Century thresher.

I didn't get the details of the thresher's manufacture, but the steam engine was made right here in Indiana.

 A hideously complex array of leather drive belts obviously take skill to arrange and tension properly.

The thresher probably dates to the 1880s, while the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was still some ninety years in the future. Even today, working around farm equipment is dangerous, and the price of inattention can be traumatic amputation.
.

Hey, look!

Thumbnail review of the EAA Witness P Match Pro is up at the Shooting Illustrated site.
.

From discussion elsewhere...

I'm troubled when they refer to a "Use-of-Force Continuum". It’s not baseball, people. You can run straight to whichever base you need to. You don’t have to touch them in order.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) August 20, 2018

Happy Photography Day!

Out for a working lunch. Towed along the #sonya7 with the #leicaelmar90 on a #fotasy adapter. #photography #goodtimes

A post shared by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on Aug 19, 2018 at 8:49am PDT

Hope those of you who are shutterbugs had some good times with a camera today!
.

General Gripes...

• Collarbone still hurts plenty, although it's a more manageable level of pain than initially. It's still enough to make me pretty grouchy.


• Those spots on my Battleship Cove photos actually mean that I am about to learn how to clean the sensor on my Sony a7 II.


• The doctor cleared me for two-handed pistol shooting again, and said that there was no danger of re-fracture, and pain would likely be my only limiting factor. So...yay? Back to work. I'm going to consider it as rehab for my shoulder.

Took a knap.

There's a gentleman who sets up in the Pioneer Village at the State Fair every year and demonstrates flint knapping. Every year I tell myself I'm going to buy one of his pieces just for the cool factor, but I never got around to it until this year.

This is some lovely rainbow obsidian from northern California that's been knapped into a broad blade about 3.75" long and affixed to an antler handle.

What caught my eye was the fat, asymmetrical antler handle that fills the fist nicely, the right hand in a forward grip and the left in a reverse. It feels kinda like a clinch pick.

The rainbow obsidian is translucent and, when the light hits it just right, has the multicolored internal shimmers that give it its name. (Also, I'm kinda just got by how pleasant the bokeh is on this Zeiss 32mm f/1.8.)
.

Peak State Fair

This kid swarming up onto the tractor just made my day.
Peak State Fair, right there.#IndianaStateFair pic.twitter.com/UWscQRxh49

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) August 19, 2018

The Smallest Minority needs our help!

Kevin Baker, author of the blog The Smallest Minority, has had a serious health issue pop up that has him in the hospital and unable to work. His loved ones have set up a GoFundMe to help defray some of the costs since he's exceeded his paid sick time already. I've already kicked in a few bucks.

Please help him if you can. He's a good dude.
.

1913 Avery tractor

I find this tractor mechanically intriguing, especially because everything about it is out where you can see it. Shot with Sony a7 II and 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 lens.

This is usually under a tent awning in the middle of the tractor park, and is a dark object, so it's usually been tricky to shoot. In 2014 it was parked under the sky, however.

That State Fair was when I was still using the EOS 20D and the 18-135mm zoom as my walking-around setup. I took a lot of my favorite pictures with that body and lens.

State Fair!

STATE FAIR!

A post shared by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on Aug 17, 2018 at 10:37am PDT

You know what's voodoo? Snapping a pic with your cell phone and then post-processing it in Adobe Lightroom right there on the phone.
.

Skull sweat.

Some reviews are harder than others. The one I'm working on now is really hard.
.

What I hate...

...about the license model of software "purchasing" is encapsulated in the picture below:

I am positively swamped under deadlines, and Microsoft has decided that it can't remember if I have an Office subscription on this machine or not. Never mind that I was using Word as recently as last night.

So, I have to re-purchase everything because I simply don't have time for lengthy phone holds today.

Kids, once upon a time, you would buy a box with some things in it that were shaped like the "Save" icon, and you would stick those in a slot like a giant thumb drive, and you would load the "Program"...which was like an App, except it didn't constantly tie up your machine with unwanted bloatware updates...onto your computer, and there it would reside. It would function until you decided to sell the machine, at which point you could stick the "Save" icons into the next computer and install the "Program" on it and keep using it!
.

QotD: Overabundance Edition...

From a brilliant interview with Penn Jillette:

"For 50 million years our biggest problems were too few calories, too little information. For about 50 years our biggest problem has been too many calories, too much information. We have to adjust, and I believe we will really fast. I also believe it will be wicked ugly while we’re adjusting."

Go read the whole thing. I've always liked Penn's take on things, and he just keeps getting better over time.
.

Not my bag, baby.

I used to painstakingly link and annotate and generally write as if every abbreviation and technical term needed to be explained to my readers.

Then I decided that took too much time and that I'd rather write to an audience of smart, curious people who knew how to use search engines, anyway.
.

Vexing.

Shooting Illustrated has a thumbnail review up of the Taurus Spectrum with an included Viridian laser.

I've made some fun of Taurus's Spectrum before, but not for the concept.

It's a gun for non-gun-people, for non-hobbyists.

I have friends who are in IT, who are programmers, who build PC's for fun, who root their Android smartphones, and then I have friends who just, you know, want a phone.

Similarly, people who don't make firearms a hobby...or even have much interest in them as objects in and of themselves...have Second Amendment rights, too. These are people who are going to own the one gun and never belong to gun fora or gun groups on Facebook any more than they belong to garage door opener or lawnmower groups.

There's a definite place in the market for an iGun. A gun marketed to people who want to buy a self-defense appliance maybe because it looks cool and they can personalize it and that's okay.

 But from all I can gather, this disappointment (the latest in a long string of disappointments) from Taurus ain't it. See, the thing about an iGun is it needs to run reliably without the attention of a hobbyist owner or trips to the manufacturer.
.

All Linky, No Thinky...

In lieu of me having to come up with something creative to post today, allow me to direct your attention to other people's creative posts:

• Historical Research


• Eighties .mil sidearm size comparison


• Unpossible

The Inner Life of the Cat.

Bobbi's post this morning is wonderful, as are the comments on it.

The social software of the domestic cat is still very much in beta, and is mostly built on a kludge of kitten-mother relationships. This is why a full-grown cat will nip you on the back of your ankle while you're cooking at the stove. That's how a kitten signals its mother to lie down and let it nurse.
.

Skin In The Game

"I wish there were more people like me in the NRA!"

"Well, I know the only surefire way to ensure that there's at least one more people like you in the NRA. Now are you going to hop down out of that wagon and help me pull, or are you going to just sit up there and bitch?"

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) August 12, 2018

We prefer Justice to be kinda squint-y.

E'rrbody wants the laws applied with perfect blind evenhandedness...until they're pulled over for 48 in a 35. https://t.co/yLsCo1IeZc

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) August 11, 2018

Overheard in the Office...

RX: "Alexa, is the president of the United States insane?" 

Alexa: "The president of the United States is Donald Trump. Did that answer your question?"

Alexa is sometimes unintentionally hilarious.
.

Busted gear.

I flew home from New Hamster on Wednesday and didn't set my gaming laptop back up again until last night. (I've been pretty desultory with my unpacking schedule since everything involving luggage is such a pain in the butt to do with only one load-bearing hand.)

Anyway, my long-serving Razer Naga was wedged in among my clothes where it was nice and safe from rough handling in the baggage compartment.  But something took all the starch out of the left mouse button, which no longer *clicks* when pressed. Now it's more of a...well, there's not really an adjective that springs readily to mind. The button still functions, but now there's almost no tactile feedback.

And of course the Naga like mine has been discontinued and replaced by a more expensive V2 with a button layout I don't like as much. I'm torn between the new Naga or buying the equivalent MMO mouse by Corsair.

Git some!

So, does this mean that Space Shuttle Door Gunner will be an actual MOS now?#SpaceForce

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) August 10, 2018

Argh.

Being in more-or-less constant pain from this busted clavicle has made me super cranky. Plus I have a lot of shooting and writing to do on stupid-short deadlines, which makes me stressed.

I just wish I could teleport ahead in time a month or so and have this all behind me.
.

Current Project...

Working on a quickie range review of the new Charter Bulldog in .45 Colt for Shooting Illustrated. It's new enough that the instruction manual included with the gun doesn't even mention the .45 Colt Bulldog, only the .44 Special version.

Being a big-bore small/medium-frame revolver, plus being a Charter Arms, fills me with both nostalgia and also very mixed feelings. The first hundred rounds went okay, but it had a hard time with the primers on a few rounds of the Magtech. The range didn't have any rental guns in .45 Colt, so I was unable to check and see if it was the gun or the ammo.

Lemme tell you 'bout 8 Mile...

Sarah Jeong speaking authoritatively about Chinese culture because she lived in Korea until she was three is like me speaking authoritatively about Detroit culture because I lived in Chicago until I was ten.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) August 8, 2018

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #170...

EAA Witness P Match Pro in 9x19mm. Review coming soon.
.

Lesson learned...

Since I made the rookie mistake of not checking and wiping down my filter before shooting all those battleship pics, all of them looked like someone had sneezed on the lens.

The upside of that is I've gotten a crash course in Lightroom and Photoshop spot removal. Also, I purchased a container of wet lens wipes and put it in my camera bag, to supplement the microfiber cloth.
.

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #169...

The aft gunhouse of BB-59, USS Massachusetts, features three 16"/45 caliber Mark 6 guns.
.

This is timely...

Traditional Double Action Autopistols for CCW Carry | Active Response Training https://t.co/xWm343bqF2

— Greg Ellifritz (@GregEllifritz) August 6, 2018

I don't really see anything there I disagree with.
.

Outsourcing...

If you outsource quality control to the end user, just think how much money you can save!

The Winchester white box 9mm round above brought an HK P30L to a screeching halt.

Further, that lip on the bullet's heel, which is what caused the case to look like that, meant the bullet was wedged snugly enough in the chamber that when the firer attempted to clear the malfunction, the bullet stayed in the chamber and only the case was extracted. The powder was dumped into the magazine. This would have been a fight-ending malfunction.

Grousing...

The collarbone is still all jacked up. I guess you just don't knit up as fast at fifty as you do at thirty. (Funnily enough, I remember complaining after my big motorcycle wreck eighteen years ago that I wasn't bouncing back as fast as I did when I was twenty.)

Putting on a tee shirt involves laboriously threading it over the bad wing all the way up to the shoulder, poking my head in, and then wriggling the other arm up and in. It's an awkward process.

Another thing I noticed is that I apparently habitually put open-front shirts and jackets on with my right arm first. For the first month and a half, when I was religiously wearing the sling, this was no problem, since I'd thread my right arm into the sleeve of my gun burkha and then shrug it over my left. Now, though, nearly every time I put the shirt on, I reflexively put it on the wrong arm first, then have to take it off and start over.

Were I a profounder person, I'd insert something here about "training scars".
.

Oof.

Statistically speaking, you already know the person you're most likely going to need to pepper spray.

Consistency, how does it work?

“I’m desperately trying to ensure that the president can engage in the prior restraint of online information—specifically so that people can’t make weapons at home.”
“I see. What do you call yourself?”
“The Resistance.”

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) July 31, 2018

So, you think that there's a bumbling madman in the White House who is Literally Hitler, and that the military is made up of reactionary goons who swear fealty to this guy, and the police of the nation are engaged in a coordinated conspiracy to straight-up murder oppressed minorities...and also those are the only people who should have guns.

Your worldview is wack.
.

Sad but true.

So, if you go to any public range, you can see the marks from bullet impacts all over the place downrange. Some of the target carriers will be dinged. The tiles covering the ceiling baffles will have holes. There'll be divots in the floor and walls.

The vast majority of this is because most people just can't shoot worth a damn, but some of it is for a different reason.

It turns out that some folks...usually people who just come in to rent a gun, but sometimes even people who you'd think would know better...think that it's like a BB gun shooting gallery: that anything downrange is fair game to be shot at. They'll get bored with missing their target and deliberately shoot at the wall or floor or whatever until yelled at by range staff. Some people's kids, I swear.

Look, pretty much all that stuff downrange is, of necessity, bullet-resistant to a greater or lesser degree, but the only part of the whole ensemble that's actually designed to be shot is the backstop. Try and ensure all of your bullets land there, okay?

Also, although it pains me to have to point it out, there's a Rule Four angle here, too. Y'all remember Rule Four, right? "Be sure of your target and what is beyond it"? This means that if you're five foot one and you hang a B27 target at five yards and try and shoot it in the noggin, your bullet is going to impact the range ceiling just a few yards behind it. Similarly, almost anybody trying to shoot a Casino Drill on a standard target is going to wind up skipping bullets off the floor.

There's a reason that in a class like this on an indoor range, all the shooting is done with the targets right in front of the backstop.

So please, when using a public indoor range, be mindful of where your bullets will impact after passing through the target. This helps keep maintenance costs down and keeps the place from looking like hammered crap.

Return of the Swamp Thing

#JeffSessions is going to make sure Muslim cabbies don't have to pick up haram drunk passengers anymore! #ReligiousLibertyTaskForce https://t.co/YwKLa3tm2s

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) July 30, 2018

Ouch...

The way my shoulder feels right now, I kind wish home X-ray machines were a thing.

I suppose it's just a front moving through, but...ow.
.

Good TV...

Seasons 1-8 of House are free to watch with Amazon Prime video at the moment. I'd forgotten just what a great show that was...
.

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #169...

Supersonic .300BLK loads from Sig Sauer and Hornady. In the background is a Sig Rattler with a Surefire M600df Scout light on it.
.

Dunning-Kruger is a hell of a drug.

“In December 2015, Chad Myers and his wife Shawndalyn set out to solve a problem: They both wanted to carry concealed handguns, but many of the holsters designed to hold the guns were notoriously unreliable. Typically hooked to a waistband with a clip, they can fall off and fall down your pants, Chad noted.” 

 In other words:

“I just started carrying a gun and basically don’t know anything about it, but I have this genius idea for a product that none of the millions of others who have been doing this for generations have yet considered.” 

 This holster is the love child of naivety and arrogance of truly Olympian proportions. Nearly every crappy CCW gimmick, from Lethal Lace to the Handgun Sling, has this same stupid-ass origin story.

I know several folks with successful startups producing useful things, and that's because they got out into wider world and, via lots of training and/or competition, identified an actual void in the market and moved to fill it.
.

A Farewell to Carbs...

Well, while I was all jacked up with my arm in a sling, I figured I'd make the experience a little more tolerable by allowing myself to enjoy some of the things that I'd missed most on my new diet. So allowed myself to have some IPA, an order of fries here and there, the occasional hot dog bun...

Also, I didn't pay much attention to my calorie intake. Well, that's not accurate, actually. I still recorded everything I ate, but didn't care if I blew over the calorie limit every day.

Yesterday was my first day out and about without wearing the sling, since I wasn't planning on going anyplace crowded where my shoulder was likely to be jostled. (I might have overdone that a bit, 'cause my clavicle was hurting by nightfall...)

Anyway, since I'm gradually working my way back to light duty, I figured it was time to step on the scale and see how much damage I'd done, between lack of physical activity and indulging my every dietary whim. Fourteen pounds in two months and a week.

No worries. That's still twenty-six pounds lighter than I was this time last year.

Back to work, then.
.

QotD: Your Eyeballs are the Merchandise Edition...

"The media is in the business of selling your attention and will do nearly anything to get it." -Roberta X.

You know the drill. Go and RTWT.
.

Not exactly "pain-free", but...

I haven't had any Ibuprofen since yesterday morning but, absent my shoulder getting jostled, the pain is down to a manageable level.

I'm sure my liver and kidneys will be glad of this news.
.

Context matters.

This morning my tranquilo was yet again interrupted by someone sending me a link to yet another goofy gun accessory designed for "close combat" that was demonstrated by its inventor engaging in said "close combat" with an armless rubber dummy.

In the middle of this demonstration, dude did a slidelock load of his pistol and then fired finishing shots into the dummy's head. He did that reload standing there in arm's reach of the dummy. Well, it would have been arm's reach if the dummy had arms, but you get my drift.

I guess that's a valid technique if you get in a lot of fights with armless rubber dummies, but it's a little silly to expect someone's just going to stand there and let you reload a gun right up in their grill.

There's a reason I prefer stuff that's been proven to work against people who are trying their best to stop it from working. You need to pressure-test stuff against a resisting opponent, or it's all so much theoretical range ballet.

Tab Clearing...

• Generational LOL: The flawed theory of war.


• I bet this guy was fun at parties.


• Stirring Angst for Fun and Profit


• The Estonian Resistance.

Morning Routine...

So, every morning for the past couple months I've been toddling into the kitchen with a little salsa bowl, into which I deposit:

• One "old lady" formula multivitamin
• Two glucosamine chondroitin horse pills
• Three calcium citrate horse pills, and
• Three ibuprofen

That's enough calcium, glucosamine, and vitamin D that I should have fabricated a complete second skeleton at this point.
.

Writing Problems

The problem with having a bunch of writer friends is that we've all heard the same piece of advice a blue jillion times, and in turn we dispense it almost reflexively:

"I'm having difficulty writing right now." 

"Well, you know the solution to that! Apply ass to chair in front of the keyboard and just write."

Yes. I know how to write, thanks. The problem is that I seem to be experiencing difficulty doing it at the moment.

This is the equivalent of being told, when you're having difficulty walking, to:

"Just put one foot in front of the other!" 

"Thanks. I'm familiar with the mechanics of walking, yes. I've been doing it since an early age, but what I'm trying to say is that I appear to be having difficulty doing it right now."

And what chaps my ass is that the writing I do is the easiest, lowest, meanest sort. I don't need to come up with plots or characters or even story ideas. I don't need to have 80,000 words on an editor's desk in three months.

I write short little non-fiction columns and articles on dry technical matters, and I write them on request, rather than on speculation. All I need to do is spit out my opinion on the requested topic when my string is pulled, and I seem to be experiencing great difficulty doing that at the moment.

This is where some writer friend chimes in with "There's nothing special or creative about writing. It's just a job and you do it like any other job."

Hey, people find themselves unable to deal with their job...face burnout...all the frickin' time. I know people from accountants to auto mechanics to dentists who found themselves unable to deal with the thought of one more stuck spark plug or nasty cavity.

I don't think I'm burned out on writing, but it's like there's a magic force field around the MS Word icon on my desktop that manages to deflect my cursor someplace else, like Safari or Lightroom*, every time I get near it.

I'll bust out of this like I have every time before, but dammit, if you can't vent whinily on your own blog, where can you vent?


*And yes, before someone suggests it, my work computer doesn't even have games on it. I have a Mac mini desktop that only has MS Office, Adobe Creative Cloud, and whatever bloatware came with this version of OS X. The games are on a Dell laptop that doesn't get booted up before 6PM.

Saturday Morning Rambling

So I'm actually watching a golf...tournament? match? game?...whatever, and finding it moderately interesting. Not a sport I've ever had the faintest urge to try, but there's obviously a ton of technique involved.

What I'm really paying attention to are the photographers, both the pros and among the spectators. What kind of clod holds an iPad up to take pictures in the throng around a green? The people behind you want to see Tiger putt, too, jerk.

More than one pro running a Nikon or Canon with big glass on a monopod has a Sony a6xxx slung around their neck that they occasionally grab one-handed shots with. That's interesting.

This led to a discussion on Facebook about sports photography, which bears some relation to the photography I like the most.

Kevin from Misfires And Light Strikes described the setup for shooting basketball games back in the days of film. That had to be some challenging work.

Photographing shooters on an outdoor range in daylight isn't terribly technically challenging, but indoor sports is something that's near impossible to do without equipment selected for the task.

Indoor sports photography with your typical f/3.5-5.6 "all-in-one" vacation zoom is an exercise in frustration. I once filled up a couple cards of awful, blurry crap for lack of the right lens, as well as zero experience in shooting that sort of action. I learned some things that didn't work, though, and am itching to try again.

Prime Day purchase arrived...

SureFire had sent an M600 DF Scout Light writer's sample for testing. Having used it already in the shoothouse as well as regular house-type houses in Alliance, OH, I have a pretty good idea how it's going to work...

Tactical Mom Jeans

But I also knew that there was one accessory that made a ton of difference in comfort, given my preferred light placement: The 45-degree offset mount. I ordered one from Amazon on Prime Day and it showed up on the porch day before yesterday.

You can see the offset mount better in this embiggenable picture of one of the other attendees.

Now I just have to switch the mounts out on the light and throw it on the house carbine.
.

That Sinking Feeling

This July Fourth, in the middle of downtown Indianapolis, a century-old brick sewer line collapsed, opening a sinkhole in the middle of the intersection of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The busy intersection was closed for a week while repairs were made, further snarling traffic downtown, which was already bad from having I-65 through the heart of downtown closed for a month for bridge repairs.

With that sinkhole repair only a week or so in the rearview, a crater opened last night beneath the intersection of Illinois and Maryland, right in front of Circle Center Mall, and just in time for thousands of people to arrive downtown for Summer Celebration.

The intersection of Illinois & Maryland. The impending sinkhole would be in the lower left corner of the photo.

Marion County's Republican party is seizing the issue and making waves:

"This is not what we want them to see," said Senator Jim Merritt, the head of the Marion County Republican Party. 

 Merritt believes it's time to take stock of the city's infrastructure and is calling for a public audit.

While the Unigov combination of Indianapolis city and Marion county makes the local government not quite the Democrat shoo-in of most big cities, the Republicans are still definite political underdogs. However, they got a mayor in office for two terms back in 2007 on the platform of plowing side streets clear of snow in the winter.

Current Democrat mayor Joe Hogwarts is having a rocky first term, with collapsing streets, thousands of massive, un-filled potholes, and what looks to be a third consecutive year of record homicides. If the GOP can scare up a candidate with more charisma than a dead tuna, next year's elections are likely theirs to lose.
.

Automotif CXLVIII...

Driving home from the range yesterday, I noticed this in the parking lot of the corner shop where I get minor stuff done on the Zed Drei.

I pulled into the parking lot and did an orbit while hanging the Nikon 1 J1 with the 10-30mm kit zoom out the driver's window.

My feelings toward the lines of the fixed-head coupe have softened over time. I used to consider the roof a bulbous abomination on the E-type's beautiful lines, but it's gotten to where I find it rather attractive from certain angles, like that rear quartering view.

Internationale

An interesting article at Rolling Stone about foreign fighters with the YPG...

“We ended up with a mixed platoon,” Franceschi says. “Ideological and ex-soldiers. We were sharing our perspective on revolution with the military guys, and they were giving us training and advice. It was beautiful to watch.”