Failure Mode

Way back when I was still working at the 1-hour photo lab, call it 1989 or 90, we carried a few of the usual cheap blister-pack point & shoot cameras, as well as some more expensive Kodaks and a few Olympus cameras.

The most expensive thing in our department was the Olympus IS-1. It was a single-lens reflex camera, but the 35-135mm power zoom lens was built-in and non-interchangeable. Olympus called it a "zoom lens reflex" and it was yet another attempt by a camera maker to solve the saturated market for SLRs in the last decade or so of the previous millennium. (Basically, everybody who wanted an SLR had one, and now they had to figure out a way to separate people who were scared of knobs and dials from their money.)

Anyhow, the IS-1 was pretty spendy, several hundred dollars, which was more than I'd given for the '75 Ford Granada I was driving at the time.

A few years ago, when I was in the throes of the film camera bug, I spotted one for sale on eBay for next to nothing, and bought it.

When it arrived, I put a piece of tape over the film window on the back (those are almost invariably a source of light leaks), tossed a roll of film in the camera and put it on the shelf, pulling it down every so often to shoot a couple of exposures.

The other day, with fresh snow on the ground, I figured it would be an excellent time to finish off the test roll and see what kind of pictures the camera took.

When I pulled it off the shelf, the flash was in the raised position. I pushed it down, but it wouldn't latch.

The camera rattled a little and so I turned it upside down, with a hand cupped under it to catch whatever fell out...

See that teeny black object atop the lens barrel? That's the hook portion of the latch that retains the flash in the lowered position. The external release is the button along the lower right edge of the photo.

Apparently, over time the constant strain of the spring that raises the flash combined with embrittlement of the latch's plastic until the catch finally failed, just sitting there on the shelf, allowing the flash to *sproing* into the raised position.

It's probably not fixable, and certainly not worth fixing. The time and effort spent trying to bodge a repair would be be more efficiently spent buying a ~$20 replacement camera. (Or not. Olympus glass or no, a 35-135mm f/4.5-5.6 lens just doesn't sound as exciting as it once did.)

I'll finish out the roll that's in it and likely bin the camera, while pondering the disposable nature of consumer commodity goods...
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Scooters...

Lime scooters in South Broad Ripple...#southbroadripple #scooters pic.twitter.com/mLCrpIiCQh

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 15, 2019

That's odd...

So, the decocker levers and spring for the CZ P07 arrived courtesy of a Facebook friend the other day and, in preparation for swapping them in, I watched the YouTube installation video a couple of times.

As a result, I had such a detailed and involved dream about the task last night (including some weird oopsies, like the hammer inexplicably falling out, which is an impossibility during the procedure) that when I woke up this morning I was disappointed to find out that I hadn't actually done the job yet.
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Automotif CXLXIX...

There's just something about a 911 Turbo, the daily-driver supercar...

The camera I happened to have in the car, an EOS 5D MkII & 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, was probably a bit overkill for parking lot snapshots, but the subject was worth it, I guess.

Pocket camera...

This morning when I went out to dig out Bobbi's car and shovel the neighbor's walks, I had the little Fuji XF1 in my coat pocket...

Winter has arrived in Broad Ripple... pic.twitter.com/IFu2CAdJEs

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 14, 2019

That's no fun.

Shoveled the neighbor's walks this morning. She was worried about the mailman or delivery people busting ass on her front walk or porch steps.

The snow had started out pretty heavy, and landing on warmish ground, plus the sidewalks had seen foot traffic yesterday, so there was a pretty good base layer of ice under the powder.

Fortunately the sun will be out today and, while we won't get above freezing, we'll likely see 28°F, so hopefully I exposed enough dark concrete for solar heating to do its work. I'll go check after lunch and see if it needs some salty assistance.
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The worst thing...

...about being mired in the middle of the Great American Kulturkampf of This Current Year, and having friends across all points of the political spectrum, is that everyone... and I do mean everyone ...feels free to walk up and dump their current political gripe right in your lap.

"Oh, my God! Can you believe what that [harpy/moron], [Pelosi/Trump] just did? [She/He] wants to [raise your taxes to 100% to send crackheads to college/kill all the brown people]!"

Because surely every right-thinking person is as worked into a total lather over this issue as they are.

Look, if you can't even talk about politics without sounding even more distraught than [Alex Jones/the average NPR call-in listener], it's time for a complete news fast. I prescribe three weeks without FaceTwitter, talk radio (either AM or NPR flavored), and TV news.

Unclench. The world won't stop spinning while you're gone.
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Well, no sense putting it off longer...

I'mma finish a Mello Yello Zero and then suit up to shovel the walks.

After that, I'll toddle off to see what's open at 54th & College. Hopefully I'll be able to get ribs for lunch at Fat Dan's and then stop at Fresh Market on the way home and pick up stew fixings for dinner.

Last night we watched the third episode of Patriot, which is a fantastic show that Bobbi turned me on to.
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Winter is Coming Here

Coming down at an inch an hour some places in the 'burbs, but the urban heat island seems to be mitigating it a bit here in Broad Ripple.
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Unsympathetic Magic

It's funny about the snow, because even before it was in the forecast, I'd been musing that a moderate snowfall... about 3", just enough to cover the grass properly ...would be nice. Not enough to really impede commutes and enough for me to wander around and get some photos.

So the initial prediction of 2"-4" made me happy, like it had been sent to order.

Ensuing predictions are getting less amusing.
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Squirrel!

Sony a7 II and an old Leica Vario-Elmar-R 75-200mm f/4.5 with a K&F adapter.
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Winter is Coming

Yesterday morning, the news was predicting 2-4" of snow. Last night they were saying 3-5". This morning it's 4-7".
I do not like how this curve is trending.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 11, 2019

We haven't really had much in the way of winter weather so far this season (over 9" short on seasonal snow totals), so Ma Nature looks like she's fixin' to make up for that.

The only upside to getting over five inches of snowfall at once is that it triggers the city into calling out the private contractors to plow the side streets. Anything less than that, and you're on your own to slither your way to the nearest thoroughfare.
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An even Rebel-er Rebel...

When Canon introduced an inexpensive version of their EOS (Electro-Optical System) autofocus, auto-wind, auto-everything SLR cameras in North America back in 1990, they branded it the "Rebel" line. These are the ones that are marketed to Joe and Jane Consumer as a step up from point & shoot cameras.

Wonders are promised if you will just step up to the SLR, with pictures of mom snapping beautiful pics of dance recitals and dad catching dramatic shots of birthday candles being blown out. (Of course these are both super tricky lighting situations, and the slow zoom lens that ships with the Rebel kits is wholly incapable of achieving these results.)

In the early digital era came the first digital Rebel, notable for being the first DSLR with a price tag under a grand.

The Rebel had several cost-saving features, some more obvious than others, when compared to the contemporary semipro EOS 10D, which stickered for twice the dough. The body was plastic rather than magnesium, the LCD readout on the top was deleted, and the viewfinder used a pentamirror rather than a pentaprism.

Since then, the constant race between Canon and Nikon to get people into mass-market DSLRs has resulted in ever-increasing ways to de-content entry level models and drive the price through the floor.

The current bargain basement offering from Canon, sold as the 4000D overseas and referred to as the Rebel T100 in North America (where it's not officially available yet, so if you get one, it's gray market), takes the previous bargain-grade Rebel, and finds novel ways to cut production costs even further. The color LCD display on the back is shrunk from a 3" 640x480 to a 2.7" 320x240 unit, which is lower resolution than my Series 1 Apple Watch. The separate on-off switch is eliminated in favor of "OFF" just being another position on the mode dial.

The Near Field Connectivity that is common on current Canon DSLRs is also deleted, and a cost-cutting feature from the days of the old film Rebels makes its return: A plastic lens mount. It also uses an upgraded version of the old DIGIC 4 image processor, which was state of the art a decade ago, but hasn't been used in more expensive Canons for six or seven years.

One cost-saving measure I found interesting is the markings on the back of the camera. The more expensive 2000D has each button stenciled with its function, while on the 4000D, the buttons are all black and the back of the camera is stenciled in one pass.
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Penetrating Facts

.45 Colt 250gr LFP
.45 Colt 225gr STHP
.44 Spl 200gr GDHP
.44 Spl 200gr LSWC-HP
.38 Spl 148gr Gold Medal Match HBWC
9mm 124gr +P GDHP

All were stopped by the first layer of denim on the far side of the block. All but one look like they could be reloaded.

Incidentally, I'm really falling out of love with the Federal .38 Spl +P 130gr HST...

There's a bunch more stuff, photos, thoughts, observations, and even discussion at my Patreon page. (As well there should be, since it was Patreon funds that paid for the jello.)
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Meet the Contenders...

So the auditions for the polymer-frame DA/SA carry gun project have started.

When DA/SA guns meant "frames machined from aluminum forgings" and striker guns meant "the well-amortized Gen3 Glock design" there were huge differences in cost and weight that weighed on the pistol-buying decision.

However a trip to Gunbroker today shows that whether your choice of pistol is a Gen4/5 Glock, a Smith & Wesson M&P9 2.0, or one of the polymer traditional double-action pistols below, the street price is going to be in a narrow band in the low-$500-to-low-$600 range.

Let's look at the contenders...

I'm not going to lie, this is the tournament's top seed going in. I already have over 2,000 rounds through it, have the grip panels set up the way I want, and it's fresh back from a spa visit getting upGrayded with a Reduced Reset Carry Perfection Package.

Further, I can't ignore the effect of all the times Todd told me that this was probably the best carry pistol on the market today. Its downsides are the cost of magazines and replacement parts should anything break. Its upside is that, while all four of these pistols are snowflake-y to a greater or lesser degree, the P30 probably has the best aftermarket support of them all.

Further, much to the chagrin of all those wannabe-ballers who bought a P30 to flex on the poors, HK's re-juggling of its MSRPs means that the current street price of a P30 is actually less that quite a few models in the Glock catalog.

Probably the number two choice is the PX4 Storm full-size. It has the highest capacity and an easy upgrade path via Langdon Tactical. If I add the low profile safety and slide stop levers and the "trigger job in a bag", I'll have the rough equivalent to the gun I loved so much at SHOT last year.

It's a little snowflake-y, but some of that is offset by the availability of holsters and such from Langdon.

Another upGrayded piece, this is my second run at an SP2022. This one has had trigger work at Grayguns, and I've had five years of trigger work on myself since then, so we'll see how this plays out.

Thanks to production being locked in by a huge foreign contract, this is probably the most thoroughly-debugged Sig in your local showcase right now. They may up and decide to outsource P-226 decocker levers to a soup can factory in Malaysia tomorrow to save .0004¢/gun, but they can't do that with the SP2022.

The dark horse: The P07 is unabashedly the snowflakiest gun here. There are good online sources like Cajun Gun Works and CZ Custom, but you're unlikely to find much in the way of holsters, magazines, or accessories at your local shop.

Its one advantage is that it's the most Glock 19 sized of the bunch, a fluke since the local gun store had a used P07 on the shelf and no used P09's when I was shopping.

The P07 has the "Omega" lockwork, which can easily be swapped between safety-only and decock-only. Someone had switched it to safety-only and I have parts on the way to switch it back.

So those are the contestants. Let the games begin!
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Automotif CXLXIII...

This murdered out restomod 1983 Buick Regal T-Type was in the lot at Fresh Market when Bobbi and I went grocery shopping yesterday afternoon. (My involuntary gasp as we rounded the corner caused Bobbi to mash the brake, thinking that I saw someone about to hit us. Mea culpa!)

There was a For Sale sign in the back window. I got the number in case anybody was wanting an Eighties retro traffic cop magnet.
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Auditions have started!

View this post on Instagram

It begins @indyarmscompany ... #czp07 #berettapx4storm #grayguns #sigsauersp2022 #hkp30l #indyarmsco #pewpewlife #igmilitia

A post shared by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on Jan 4, 2019 at 8:49am PST

Unhappy New Year...

Sebastian's pretty dour regarding the RKBA prospects in the near future:

"I’ll offer some observations for 2019, because I think this is going to be a challenging year for us. In my mind gun people are suffering from a number of maladies..."

I don't disagree with him. You should RTWT.
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A new year brings a new blaster.

From December 2015 until the first day of January 2018, I was carrying Glocks. First a Gen3 19 that was pretty quickly supplanted by a Gen4 19, and that gun remained my carry gun until replaced by a 19X for the last few month or so.

The Year(ish) of TDA is finally off the ground, however, and I'm carrying the long-term test Langdon Tactical 92 Elite LTT until I determine my preference among the plastic fantastic below:

Off to the range this morning to get this party started...
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Wow.

“The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there,” he said breaking with the stance taken by past U.S. administrations that the invasion was an illegitimate power play against a neighboring nation. “The problem is, it was a tough fight. And literally they went bankrupt; they went into being called Russia again, as opposed to the Soviet Union. You know, a lot of these places you’re reading about now are no longer part of Russia, because of Afghanistan.”

That's, uh, that's not how that happened, there, Don. The communist government that had taken control of Afghanistan in a coup repeatedly invited the Soviets in to help them in a blossoming civil war. The Soviets kept refusing until the president, Taraki, was murdered and replaced by one of his cabinet ministers. Then Brezhnev launched the invasion.

Jesus, it's like the guy's knowledge of Afghanistan begins and ends with Rambo III. I do not envy Pompeo his job.
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Well, crap...

It's below freezing outside and barely supposed to make 40°F out there today. Tomorrow afternoon is gonna be a lot better for outdoors jello shooting. (Worst case scenario, I pester IAC to let me stay a little after closing on the weekend.)
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Going the distance (for a given value of distance.)

The U.S. military has a gun cleaning fetish that is a holdover from the days of corrosive primers (and black powder before that.) Boiling water cleaning and "white glove" intolerance for carbon have probably resulted in more guns being cleaned to death than shot to death.

In reality, most modern firearms just need lubricant, and even that's to a varying degree. Current polymer-framed guns like the Glock, where the "frame rails" are tiny little tabs with hardly any bearing surface that mostly exist to keep the slide flying in close formation with the frame, are tolerant of running pretty dry.

Occasional attempts to dispel these myths, like Uncle Pat's efforts with Filthy 14, manage to change a few minds, but the culture of squeaky clean remains well-entrenched.

Me running Filthy 14 in a class in '15, photo by Pat Rogers

I mean, you want to go into game day with a gun that's going to run, which means well-lubed and not terribly caked with residue.

Thus comes the widely misunderstood "2,000 Round Challenge" started by Todd Green. When logging in the results with the Ruger at pistol-forum, I read back a few pages and found this laugher:

"This is like driving your car 50,000 miles without any maintenance just to see if it would operate without maintenance. At the least you'll cause accelerated wear due to dirt and grime buildup."

This shows a stunning lack of the realities of lubricant, pistol wear & tear, the actual life expectancy of a modern quality firearm, how often people who shoot a lot actually shoot, and a host of other factors. This is unsurprising when you realize that the average pistol gets a box of ammo fired through it and then gets thrown in the safe until it's traded in on the next shiny thing on the cover of G&A.

The origins of the 2k challenge came about way back when Todd was still doing his year-long, high-round-count tests. When you're at the range every day (or even every other day) chewing through rounds, you'd spend as much time cleaning as you did shooting if you adhered to the traditional white glove standard, and Todd was known for his lackadaisical cleaning habits on these guns, which he carried.

In response, he pointed out that...

"It's really pretty arbitrary. The Challenge was begun after so many people balked at my, shall we say, "less stringent" maintenance habits. In my experience, just about any serious modern handgun, using something like Miltec, should be able to reach 2k without cleaning, without needing more lube, and without stoppages. 

The thing many people "forget" is that the 2,000 Round Challenge included absolutely no adding lubrication to the gun during the whole 2,000 round cycle. You clean & lube before you start, and then do nothing but shoot the gun until you hit 2,000. If you add some oil or grease during the 2,000 rounds, it's disqualified."

And he's absolutely right, as has been proven on these pages over and over again. (To say nothing of the results dozens of people have logged at pistol-forum.)

Commander Zero sussed this out and noted it in a post at his blog:

"As I was looking through her blog at all the other 2,000-rd tests one thing becomes clear: virtually any handgun from a reputable large manufacturer, using quality ammo, is darn near 100% reliable. Many of the failures that do occur in the tests that she writes about involve Wolf ammo, or bargain ammo of questionable pedigree. Not all, but enough to let me form an opinion about the ammo. The point being that if you buy a new, modern manufactured handgun in 9mm (that isn’t a Remington R51) and feed it quality (not high grade, just ‘quality’) ammo, you will probably achieve monotonous reliability."

With quality modern pistol and factory magazines, the "2,000 Round Challenge" is a test of lubricant and ammo more than anything else. If you've got visible lube weeping from the rails, you're probably still good to go. The idea that two cases of ammo dramatically accelerates wear on a pistol that should be good for, at a minimum, fifty or sixty cases of ammo (and which .0001 percent of users will ever see) is hilarious.

And even if it did, allow me to quote member JAD at p-f:

"Oh no. I would hate to wear out a gun."

It is finished...

Pistol: Ruger P-89
Caliber: 9x19mm
Ammunition: 800 rounds of MagTech 124gr FMJ, 550 124gr Blazer Brass FMJ, assorted other FML to include Remington, Federal, Sig Elite, S&B. Also some Sig V-Crown
Dates of testing: 13 November 2018 - 2 January 2019
Total rounds fired: 2000
Stoppages: 0
Malfunctions: 0
Breakages: 0

Comments: Lubed with FP-10 before starting. Visible FP-10 still weeping from rails today. Awkward to shoot. Crazy reach to trigger for DA first shot. Vague single-action trigger. Massive slide reciprocating that far above where your grip stops on the light aluminum frame makes it like shooting a Shake Weight. Vague sights, with a tiny front that dirtied fast.

Initial range trips produced laughable attempts at "speed"...

Three and four round strings struggling to dip much below .5 splits and spraying bullets everywhere...

Two months later, big goofy mag dumps dipping into the low .3 range show that, even with a difficult pistol to shoot well, one of the easiest performance modifications is two cases of ammo...

Danger Signals

Here's a bump for a fantastic piece Kathy Jackson wrote a while back that lays out a pretty good toolkit for identifying dangerous products in the CCW firearms industry.

Number seven on her checklist is one of my personal top "DANGER WILL ROBINSON" red flags:

"If the company founder begins their pitch by explaining that they designed the product just a few weeks after they bought their first firearm because they “couldn’t find any other way” to carry the gun, they might be a nice person – but they didn’t know what they were doing when they designed that product. Be extremely cautious and skeptical of this purchase, and be at least three times more cautious than that if you yourself just began carrying a gun."

Go and read the whole piece. It's not terribly long, but has an excellent industry insider viewpoint.

Plans afoot!

Just got some Clear Ballistics gel blocks in. While I have other plans for two of them, tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day for a range trip, and so I'm probably going to try something out...

I haven't shipped the Charter Arms Bulldog XL back yet, and so I'm going to take it, my 296, and maybe my 629, along with a 2" .38 Special and my 9mm CCW gun and shoot some jello for shade-tree science.

I have some of the popular self-defense loads for each and, while I'm pretty sure of the results, it'll be fun to get some photos. Hypothesis: I'd probably rather use 9mm 124gr +P Gold Dots than, say .45 Colt 225gr Silvertips or .44 Spl 200gr LSWC. See, while the popular self defense loads for these things are heavy, they're also slow and lack sectional density. (Fortunately they don't often expand through heavy clothing, because if they do, it robs them of what penetration they do have.)

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"$5 says that's not an AOW..."

OOCQOTD: "If that mope had a tax stamp for that thing, I'll eat my hat. Dude wouldn't know "subtle trolling" if you strapped him in that Clockwork Orange chair and made him watch a 24-hour @radicaleb video marathon."

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 2, 2019

Apocalypse Now!

Wait, I knew I had something for this apocalypse!#GovernmentShutdown #PostApocalyptic #TEOTWAWKI pic.twitter.com/mOs8ShFs9d

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 2, 2019

Helping a friend...

A friend of mine lost his brother over the holidays. His brother, a decorated USMC scout sniper veteran of Fallujah, left behind a wife and child. They're in agriculture in Wyoming and funds are tight at the best of times, so my friend has started a GoFundMe to help them out. You can donate here: Link. Thanks for anything you can do.
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2019

This grim cyberpunk dystopia is a lot lamer than I was promised, tbh fam.

I was promised Blade Runner, and I got Idiocracy.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 1, 2019

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Happy New Year!

Another year to get better at stuff than you were last year!
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Nearing the finish line...

This P89 was cleaned (by which we mean it had a bore snake pulled through it) and lubed (by which we mean FP10 was glorped onto the rails, chamber hood, and muzzle) back around the first of November.

1,870 rounds later with zero maintenance, it has experienced zero malfunctions.

I'll note that these were big goofy mag dumps at seven yards, shot entirely at a sub .5-sec split pace, decocking for the first shot. I feel bad for having put in enough trigger time to shoot this dumpster fire adequately. Its ergonomics are clumsy, the trigger is mediocre, the sights are subpar, and it's like shooting a Shake Weight, but it's reliable and if you put in the time, you can do work with it.

If someone had $200 to spend on a gun, I can't think of anything more effective at the price point.

This brings the round count to 1,770 rounds since the weapon was last cleaned or lubricated, with no malfunctions of any type to report. Only 230 rounds left to go.
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Meta af

Embedding a tweet that's a screenshot of a FB discussion is about as meta as it gets.

It's true. pic.twitter.com/lV3an8CEMn

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 30, 2018

Well...

Slept late, watched Meet the Press and the Hoosier-specific business week in review show that follows it, and then dozed for a bit.

I am entirely out of several varieties of clean clothes, so I'd have to do laundry before even thinking about leaving the house.

I also have three cans of Diet Dew left in the fridge, which is barely enough to get me rolling in the morning.

Fortunately, with Amazon's PrimeNow service, I can get the soda delivered for about the exact same price it's sold down the street, plus a five buck delivery fee and a tip for the driver.

I think ten bucks is an absolutely worthwhile price to pay to not have to change out of pyjamas and face the weekend shopping crowd. I'll just throw a couple bottles of diet tonic water and a 32GB SD card in the cart while I'm at it.
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Got out of the house again today.

Made it to the range, and then to lunch.

Writeup tomorrow. Almost finished with the Ruger test.
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Orthogonal Man!

I asked if Spider Man was strong.
You responded by telling me he has radioactive blood.
That doesn't answer my question.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 27, 2018

They're doing it again.

Maxpedition, that is. They're repeating the Buy-One, Get-One sale on their legacy gear for the next three days. It's good stuff; I've been using the Fliegerduffel Shootin' Buddy gave me as my travel suitcase for the best part of a decade now.

This isn't any kind of affiliate link and I doubt Maxpedition even knows I exist, I'm just a fan of their stuff.
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Pre-Assault Clues...

Tab Clearing...

• A look at the '73-'75 Pontiac Grand Am, which is something of a forgotten classic.


• The differing expectations of photographic privacy in the US & France.


• An extinct giant cow species!

Merry Christmas!

I would like to wish all the imaginary people in my computer the merriest of Christmases!

Hope you all have a wonderful day spent with the people you love.
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Today in History...

Friday Range Day

 I had the pistol bay to myself Friday morning!

Another early trigger break on the lower fifty rounds, and a spastic hand squeeze or two on the upper.

The gun is still chugging along, using up the last hundred rounds from that case of Magtech with aplomb.

This brings the round count to 1,770 rounds since the weapon was last cleaned or lubricated, with no malfunctions of any type to report. Only 230 rounds left to go.
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Thursday Range Day

Another hundred rounds of the Magtech got run through the Ruger at Indy Arms Co on Thursday morning.

I was pushing for as much speed as I could get out of the thing. You can see the two rounds where I got a little aggressive on the trigger prep in recoil, cranking them off before the sights had settled.

The gun went through the normal cycle of operation all one hundred times.

This brings the round count to 1,670 rounds since the weapon was last cleaned or lubricated, with no malfunctions of any type to report. Only 330 rounds left to go.
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Chaos Six resigning...

So POTUS announces an abrupt and immediate withdrawal from Syria and has apparently directed plans to be drawn up for a withdrawal from Afghanistan. Mattis is resigning over it.

Here's the thing: Trump ran on four basic campaign promises...

1. Build the wall
2. Repeal & replace Obamacare
3. Bring back jobs to America
4. Get our troops out of foreign wars

The Mueller investigation is still in full swing and there's a hostile incoming House of Representatives getting sworn in in a month. The stock market is doing a paralyzed falcon impersonation.

Which is the only one of those four promises he can throw as a bone to his base without the help of any other branch of government before Pelosi is Speaker of the House again?

Yuuuuuup.

While I think it's past high time to work up a withdrawal from Afghanistan, an abrupt pull-out, leaving NATO allies holding a full diaper that they're only holding because they honored their commitments in the immediate wake of 9/11, is a dick move. I'd probably quit over it, too.

We should have done this in an orderly manner eight years ago, not in a half-assed hurry to boost the poll numbers of a flailing presidency today.
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"Why do you take a camera everywhere, Tam?"

Because I never know when there'll be a good-lookin' critter like this posing for a photo op at a traffic light!

Someone knows they're pretty, alright...
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Automotif CXLXII...

1977 Pontiac Trans Am. My favorite year for the Firechicken, looks-wise, but well on its way to the nadir of performance.

The once-potent 400c.i.d. engine was strangled down to 180bhp* in base form (200bhp in the L78 version.) '76 had been the last year of the mighty 455. By 1980, even the strangled 400 would be gone, and the standard Trans Am motor would be a 301.


*That means the base 6.6L V-8 was down 9bhp to the 2.8L straight six in the Zed Drei.
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It's called "criminal confinement"...

...and it's a felony, kids.

A spokesperson at IMPD said there are "very limited circumstances when someone can be detained by the public. Acting suspicious is not one of them. We recommend that folks call police so we can investigate."

Do you want to wind up like George Zimmerman? Because this is how you wind up like George Zimmerman. Your toter's permit is not a Batman badge.
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Tuesday's Range Notes

No matter how fun an activity is, you can turn it into work. If you don't believe me, ask a porn actor. I made it to the range with the Ruger on Tuesday, but yesterday, I couldn't begin to even.

It's a joyless shooting appliance, and a lot of work to shoot well at speed. Work, I might add, that I obviously wasn't willing to expend on Tuesday. I was shooting plenty fast, alright, but the wheels came completely off in the accuracy department.

The gun itself continues to run fine. A firm grip does tend to induce the occasional BTF (brass-to-face) but that's what eye pro is for.

This brings the round count to 1,570 rounds since the weapon was last cleaned or lubricated, with no malfunctions of any type to report. Only 430 rounds left to go.
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Ugh.

We're at that time of year where it gets dark before dinnertime.

I can't wait for the solstice. If I can just make it until the solstice, the days will start getting longer again.


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1,420

I had previously mentioned Saturday's range trip. I arrived in the parking lot just as they were unlocking the front door and turning on the "OPEN" sign. I had 150 rounds of Magtech 124gr FMJ with me, fifty of which was already loaded into magazines.

I put the TQ and blowout kit in the range tray photo as my usual "I am not on the range alone" signal but, as it turned out, I managed to chew through my 150 rounds in big, goofy mag dumps at seven yards before they managed to get any other range customers out there with me.

The gun ran fine.

This brings the round count to 1,420 rounds since the weapon was last cleaned or lubricated, with no malfunctions of any type to report. Only 580 rounds left to go.
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Useful pointers if you're new to film...

It seems weird to someone my age, but anybody much under 40 grew up in an era when film photography was the province of artistes and dinosaurs. I mean, it still sort of is, but it's definitely seeing an upswing in popularity.

Digital has been mainstream pretty much since the turn of the millennium, so if that's what you've always shot and would like to dabble with film, the video has some good pointers on what to look for when browsing the dusty offerings you'll run across.
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Overheard in the Hallway...

RX (singing): "A duck is an animal with its feet on the ground..."
Me: "It knows that a Dardick shoots a tround!"
RX: "That's a pretty smart duck."

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 17, 2018

Good news, bad news...

I shot film pretty consistently all through 2015 and then it sorta ground to a halt.

I don't develop film at home because there's not really any way to do so here at Roseholme Cottage. It's a tiny frame structure completely devoid of windowless interior rooms, and even the basement has glass brick windows along the long walls. I could use a dark bag and tanks, but that's a pain.

Anyway, what happened was that as that year drew to a close, I'd built up a backlog of around a dozen rolls of exposed film, plus a couple test rolls loaded in cameras, and I was like "That's it. No more film shooting until I reduce this backlog."

To send them in to The Darkroom, I need to pull out my little portable printer (which I'd bought for more or less this purpose), print out my order form, stick it in the little film mailer along with up to four rolls of film (the most that fit in one mailer) and send it off.

So discovering that Robert's could do it on-site was a revelation.

Without thinking, I dropped the stuff off and, as though I were back at one of the photolabs where I worked when Bush the Elder was still POTUS, breezily answered "Oh, just give me 4x6 prints!" when asked what service I wanted.

It wasn't until later that I realized my mistake.

See, when The Darkroom developed my stuff, they not only sent back the sleeved negatives and a set of prints, they also sent a CD-ROM of the .jpegs, and also uploaded the .jpegs to an account where you could access them.

So I've got cut and sleeved negatives of these latest rolls, and 4x6s...but that's not how we look at photos anymore. See? I'm holding this nice pic of a '64 GTO on Portra 160 up to the screen, and you guys can't see it.

I don't have a scanner, either. Robert's charges $3.99/roll for scanning at the time of developing, or $5.99/roll after the negs have been cut. I should have dispensed with the prints and just got them scanned. Oh well, next time.

Also, several of these rolls were test rolls to check certain old cameras for light leaks and such. The bad part is, except for a couple of pictures that immediately tie them to a certain camera at a certain time & place, I have no idea which roll went with which camera. The good part? At least none of them show the artifacts that would indicate light leaks.

Also, I was sure that the pictures of the GTO and of my mom & dad that I shot with the EOS 1N had been shot on Tri-X. Turns out it had Portra 160 in it.
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Well, that went swiftly.

Showed up at the range with fifty rounds already in magazines and a Q-PT target in hand and proceeded to Ricky Bobby my way through a hundred and fifty rounds before anybody else got out on the pistol range.
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It's that time of year again...

...the time when people start making "best of" lists, that is.

The Online Photographer has a top ten cameras list, for those who don't shop the used cases the way I do. (Well, actually, a few of those offerings have been out long enough that pre-loved models may be findable.)
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Zoo

Yesterday morning I dragged feet getting out the door to the range, and when I got there at about quarter to noon, the parking lot was jammed full.

I'd forgotten that Indy Arms Co was hosting a three-day-long "Glock Days" sale event this weekend.

The idea of waiting in line to shoot on a public range jammed nut-to-butt with customers was...let's go with "less than appealing", so I hung a u-turn, drove home, and walked to Twenty Tap for lunch with Bobbi instead.

I'm hoping to get out the door early enough that I hit the parking lot just as they're opening today. I'll check in, do my quick mag dumps, and get out before it has a chance to get crazy busy.
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Geas

I really, really want to wrap up this 2k test and get on to other things, but I hate loading magazines on the firing line at the range, which limits the number of rounds I can shoot in one session. See, I have three fifteen round mags and a ten-rounder, which is enough to hold a box of ammo. (Well, I have a Ram-Line mag, too, but I'm not using it until I've completed the 2k test.) This means I load fifty rounds while making idle chit-chat in the showroom, then I go dump them downrange and load them up again on the line.

Yesterday I went ahead and brought 150 rounds, which meant two cycles of loading out on the range.

The upper grouping is the 147gr Speer Lawman, and the lower is the Magtech. All of this was just big goofy mag dumps, fired as fast as I could get a sight picture (or faster, as is evinced by that one egregiously dropped shot.) I'm actually getting a little good at shooting this thing, which makes me feel dirty.

There were no malfunctions of any type to report. This brings the round count to 1,270 rounds with no malfunctions of any type to report. Only 730 rounds left to go.
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From elsewhere...

Every law you pass to make it easier to get the bad guys ends up used against the good guys. Every one: RICO, PATRIOT Act, all of them. If you hand the government a hammer, it's only a matter of time before they stop pounding nails & turn around and crack you in the head with it.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 13, 2018

Zombies!

"This is where the past two years of topsy-turvy politics have left us: A class of politicians who simply believe they cannot be killed off. As Andrew Rawnsley put it in June 2017, "Britain has a zombie prime minister" -- and now Britain isn't the only one."

Actually, I think zombie politicians would be an improvement over the vampire politicians we have now. Better to shuffle about mindlessly than suck the body politic dry of tax dollars while pooping out red tape.

And you could get away from zombie politicians by closing the door.
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1,120...

Because the Ruger often lives in a lockbox locked in the trunk of my car in the unheated garage overnight, I get to discover the very low temperature properties of FP10. They aren't great, tbh fam.

The thermometer in the Zed Drei said it was 27°F in the garage yesterday morning. There's plenty of visible lube still weeping out of the rails, but it was distinctly congeal-y, and the slide was noticeably sluggish until the gun had been heated up by the first couple mag dumps.

I was pushing as much speed as I could on that lower A-zone at seven yards. With this gun that means high .3 splits so far, not helped by the fact that the smallish, dirty front sight gets lost against the dark colored target.

There were no malfunctions of any type to report. This brings the round count to 1,120 rounds with no malfunctions of any type to report. Only 880 rounds left to go.
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Film is not dead...again.

So I just found out that the Robert's Camera downtown develops film on site. I hadn't shot any film since late 2015 or early 2016 because I'd accumulated a ten-roll backlog and sending it off to The Darkroom three rolls at a time is a pain in the arse.

I dropped them all off at Robert's yesterday. The color will be done by Friday and the B&W by next week.

I busted out the EOS-1N in celebration!

The 1N is the second-to-last pro-grade film body produced by Canon. It was superseded by the EOS-1V in 2000, which remained in the catalog until earlier this year. The handling and controls are almost identical to the digital EOS-1DS MkII I've been using, so much so that I almost always catch myself "chimping" after shots, only to find myself staring at the camera's blank backplate.

If you already shoot a Canon EOS DSLR, this would be an easy way to get into film. Used ones are available for around two bills at the Amazon link above, and all your EF (but not EF-S) lenses will work on it. Even if you'd never shot film before in your life, loading and transport is completely automated.

Learning how to load film into a Barnack Leica is like trying to master origami, with the bonus that if you get it wrong, you trash your shutter. With this thing you just pull out a bit of leader to the handy marking inside the film compartment, close the back, and go. When it shoots the last image, it rewinds automagically. (I'll note that the camera calculates the number of shots you get by reading the DX code on the canister, rather than by the motor feeling tension on the spool, so no eking out that 37th or 38th exposure.)
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Social Self Defense

The unspoken bogeyman in the self-defense industry is the actual statistics of self-defense. If you don't live in the 'hood and avoid entertainment districts late at night and don't do drugs, your chances of being hit by random violent crime are really pretty small.

But rather a lot of violent crime isn't random. Statistically speaking, you probably already know the person from whom you're most likely to need to defend yourself.

And there are levels of predation that are not violent, and not necessarily criminal. There are people who transgress boundaries all the time, sometimes with no intent other than hoping for a date, and some because they actually derive pleasure from causing others discomfort.

Does this sound uncomfortably familiar? Then you need to read Creepology. I just finished it and it's a fantastic read. It's a rare self-defense book that's this relevant, useful, and well-written. Highly recommend.
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Careful you don't dislocate your shoulder...

So Time's Person of the Year for 2018 is a group of people that Time is calling "The Guardians". As in  "the guardians of the truth", by which they mean journalists.

That's practically autofellatory.

Meanwhile, at CNN the editorial department has relinquished their guardianship of the English language and gone fully post-literate. Chris Cillizza, thrashing about in grand mal Trump Derangement Syndrome, writes:

"If you believe that this is all going according to plan, then you may have missed the last two years of the Trump presidency. This is a President who freelances, disassembles and denies at every turn. He wanted Ayers. Ayers didn't want to commit for two years. That's the story."

In the magnanimous spirit of the season, I'll give him "disassemble" as a typo, autocorrect, or possible text-to-speech error for "dissemble" (although it's still sloppy editing on someone's part) but what the hell does he even mean by "freelances"?
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"I come to you with only Karate, Empty Hands..."

Canon 1DS MkII & 24-105mm f/4L

Tale as old as time...

John Doe/Jane Roe gets a CCW permit, tries out a couple of off-the-rack holsters from their local gun store, finds them uncomfortable on their regular belts from The Gap or Macy's or wherever, and after six months of this, invents some dumb new way to carry a gun.



This is how we get everything from Lethal Lace to folding Glocks.

Magnecarry fails on nearly every point of a "What makes a good holster?" checklist. It's a bad holster and you should feel bad if you bought one.
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Metastasized...

Almost all government departments, bureaus, and programs start out well.
For instance, once upon a time, the House of Representatives was 59 dedicated patriots who had never met a career politician.

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

A pleasant surprise.

Finally got around to reading The Martian. This was a pleasant instance of the book being as good a book as the movie was a movie. Perhaps slightly better, as the the text version allowed more detailed descriptions of what exactly was happening; the movie had to dance a tightrope of expository dialogue versus just hoping the viewers picked up on what Watney was doing. It did it well, but the text is better. Quite a page-turner for as tech-heavy a piece as it is.

Incidentally, this is another one of those things like the movie Gravity, where find myself wondering "Is this really science fiction anymore, or is this just an action movie in an unusual setting?" I mean, the tech in Gravity & The Martian is less farfetched than the "caterpillar drive" in the movie The Hunt for Red October.


(Yes, magnetohydrodynamic propulsion is a thing, at least experimentally, but it's not some undetectable silent propulsion system.)

Trust.

Good post by Bobbi today, worth reading in its entirety.
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Halfway Point

The other day saw another hundred rounds of Magtech go downrange through the P89, which continues to function without issues.

This brings the round count to 1,020 rounds with no malfunctions of any type to report. Only 980 rounds left to go.
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The inevitable backlash will be just as awful.

Me: "Well, that's the dumbest thing I'll see all day."
The Universe: "Hold my beer." https://t.co/s5rIk1QcrC

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 3, 2018

Overheard in the Hallway...

So, cats and dogs interface with the humans in their lives very differently. Dogs have good, well-developed socialization software, being pack hunters who operated in large, extended family groups in nature.

Cats, not so much. The socialization software of the cat is very much still in beta and is buggy as dammit. And how a cat relates to its human is based on the only real social relationship cats have: The cat treats you like its mommy. (This is why you might get nipped on the back of the ankle around feeding time; that's how kittens let their mom know it's time to lie down for nursing.)

Anyhow, when engaging Rannie in the sort of one-sided conversations people have with their pets, I sometimes refer to Bobbi as "the nice mommy", since she's a much softer touch than I am with regard to treats and such.

Tonight, as business was being concluded in the kitchen and the front part of the house, Rannie was trooping along between Bobbi and I. As we turned in separate directions in the hall, Bobbi headed to her room (and its electric blanket) and me toward the office, I said to my cat "Rannie, you should follow the nice mommy. She's headed to a very warm place."
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More squirreliness...

Taken with the Sony a7 II camera & Sony FE 24-240mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.
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I was a little cranky this morning.

I just accidentally saved my ENTIRE Lightroom catalog to my "Gun School Pictures" directory. Twice.
How's your morning going?

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 3, 2018

Robots taking jobs!

"Fifteen people, plus or minus a few. Their work is used for an hour and a half, at least twice that for Producers and Directors, and an added hour for Audio and Floor on prep and clean-up; the full-timers work shifts that include another hour of news at noon or 10/11 p.m., but they've got to be paid for eight hours and kept busy -- and not one of these people is involved in the collection and reporting of news..."

Bobbi has a fascinating piece on the effects of automation and technology on the operations of the local TV station.

Also, engineering spaces and studios have gotten a lot colder. See, when they were built, the problem was how to keep them cool enough, since they were jammed with powerful analog transmitters and ultra-bright incandescent studio lights. Now that everything's digital and LED, buildings that used to be kept warm by waste heat...aren't.
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omg ded

Oh god I nearly peed myself. I was laughing so hard that Bobbi called from the next room "What happened? Did someone get their arm caught in a grain auger?"
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Local readers...

Tomorrow evening is another "Introductory Self-Defense Shotgun" class at Indy Arms Company, the last one of the year.

These two- and four-hour evening and weekend classes are a real boon for people who can't scare up a free weekend and the dough for a hotel room and a two-day class.

Almost halfway there...

This makes 920 rounds of ammunition since the weapon was last cleaned or lubricated, with no malfunctions or stoppages of any kind to report. 1,080 rounds to go.
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Mobility

So, when they gave me a sling in the ER after I broke my collarbone back in May, I figured I was going to be the best sling patient ever. When they gave me a better one at the orthopedics clinic, I strapped that thing down tight and even slept in it.

When I finally got to the ortho doc and told him this on my four week visit, all beaming with pride, he looked pained. Nobody had told me that after the first few weeks I was only supposed to wear it when I was out of the house, to keep people from bumping into my healing flipper. Instead, I had essentially immobilized my elbow and shoulder joints for a month and a half and now was going to have to rehab those.

All my life I have put jackets and coats on with the right sleeve first and then fishing behind myself with my more dextrous left hand for the other sleeve. Since May, I've constantly had to remind myself to do it the other way 'round.

As of this past week, I finally have enough mobility and lack of pain in my left shoulder joint that I can put my coat on normally again. Yay!

The internet likes gun pictures, right?

Harrington & Richardson .25ACP pocket pistol... pic.twitter.com/8NWLZ4fplx

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