Quandary...

My review of the Sig Sauer P365 is up at Shooting Illustrated...

...and so is my review of the Gen5 Glock 26.

I want to buy both review guns, but I can't afford both and only need one. Argh.
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The future is surreal...

Dear 1986 Me,

In the future, we will use an instantaneous form of international communication to argue about the appearance of the president's junk.

The future is surreal

Best,
2018 You

PS: Still no flying cars.

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

1,300 rounds.

Yesterday morning saw me back at Indy Arms Company with the Wilson Combat EDC X9 and another two hundred rounds of ammunition.

I'm trying to work up speed again, which is requiring me to try and get some grip strength back into my left hand. On round number 1,279 I got my left thumb in the way of the slide closing fully, so I'm not going to count a user-induced malfunction against the gun.

This makes 1,300 rounds down, 700 to go.
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QotD: I Don't Get It Either Edition...

"“Unboxing Videos” are an internet phenomenon I will never understand. Rank them up there with eating Tide Pods and finding Kardashian women fascinating."

I absolutely don't get the fasincation with sitting there and staring at a box while listening to someone drone on about what's inside it. It's even less explicable than the painfully dull "tabletop review".
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Well, that explains it...

Looking at the sticker on the box, the camera somehow got inventoried as a 1Ds and not a 1Ds Mark II. They're probably scratching their heads over why some woman keeps calling and claiming she owes them $300. As a friend of mine noted, once a bar code is on something, to the average employee it might as well be engraved in stone.

I last spoke with customer service yesterday afternoon about 4:30. They said they'll call back.

Even with the thoroughly mediocre EF 35-135mm f/4-5.6 lens I had laying around, this thing does okay. I can't wait to slap some real glass on it.

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Doing the Right Thing can be tough...

I've just made the phone call to KEH and now I'm waiting on them to call me back, so I suppose I can tell the story in public now...

"So, I had posted on my blog a couple weeks ago about how I wanted a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens for shooting action stuff and indoor sports and such, but they were too expensive. 

Well, one of my blog readers emailed me and said he had an older non-stabilized Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L lens that he'd sell me for $250. Even these old ones are bringing $600 on eBay, so it was very generous. Because lens is more important than camera, I took him up on the deal. 

I stopped shooting Canon several years back. I still had the Canon 20D in the house, but I'd given it to Bobbi, and it's an APS-C camera, and this lens deserves a full-frame sensor.  On a lark, before shopping for a Canon-to-Sony adaptor, I went to go see how much the oldest Canon full-frame bodies were going for used. KEH Camera Brokers had the EOS 1Ds (state of the art in 2002!) for $299. 

"What the hell," I thought, "Blogorado's coming up and PNC has raised the limit on my card. It might be fun to play with out on the range." 

The box arrived Saturday, and when I opened it up it was like that scene in True Romance where they open Patricia Arquette's suitcase to find a fortune in cocaine instead of dirty laundry. 

KEH had sent, not an EOS 1Ds, but an EOS 1Ds Mark II. This is the next generation of pro-grade Canon from the one I bought. I checked the invoice and the serial number matched, but this was definitely a Mark II, and according to their catalog should have been $625 instead of $299. 

Now I have to call KEH in the morning and see what they want to do. Even though it's going to be a financial kick in the ribs, I'm tempted to ask if they'll let me just put the difference on my charge card. In the meantime, I'm just enjoying holding what was an $8000 pro-grade top-of-the-line camera in 2007."

I sometimes wish my parents hadn't raised me right.
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Travel Hassle

On longer trips, like the ones to New Mexico or New Hampshire, my carry-on bags are stuffed with my MacBook Air for work, my iPad for entertainment and light writing chores, and a heavy Dell gaming laptop. If it's just a short trip for work, I leave the gaming rig at home, but that's still two items I need to drag out of the carry-on at the Security Theater checkpoint.

Yeah, I'm that person who waves you around her as she struggles getting all the crap out of her bag and into the trays.

That's why this was good news:

The next time you fly, your bag may undergo a computed tomography, or CT, scan. 

Indianapolis International Airport is one of 15 airports using technology similar to a medical imaging scan to look inside your luggage.

It would be way more convenient to just toss the bags on the conveyor and scoop them up on the other side without having to unpack and repack them.

I've considered paying for one of those pre-probulating services, but I just don't fly frequently enough to make it worth it. I don't know where the tipping point is, but currently I'm only flying three or four times a year, and that ain't it.
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Umame

The nobles and rich people back in the day didn't know what they were missing when they let the kitchen help make off with the shanks and tails and suchlike...

Yesterday's dinner started out with some beef shanks and ox tail browning in the big stew pot. All that marrow and connective tissue was going to make for a super-savory stew.

Here Bobbi has added the stew beef and some diced rutabaga...

After adding white onion, fennel root, carrots, beef stock, crushed tomatoes, and other stuff, the final result looked like the picture above and tasted absolutely delicious. Bobbi has a more detailed recipe up on her blog if you would like to duplicate this repast.
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Stay In Your Lane

Hurricane Florence on @MeetThePress? Dammit, Chuck, I watch your show to yell at senators, not for the weather.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) September 16, 2018

Ugh.

I really didn't want to go out there and walk this morning, but I guess that's part of it, the doing of things you don't want to do.

I'm debating going to the range today and grinding out more round count on the Wilson EDC X9. I need to finish that up and start writing it up so I can get started on the Autumn of DA/SA.

Lazy Day...

Like last weekend, I slept in on Saturday, which means I'll have to go out and walk tomorrow morning before Meet the Press comes on.

Other than a quick errand to Meijer for sodas and dinner fixings, it's been a lazy day around the house. I got some writing done, but not as much as I wanted to, so tomorrow will be serious catch-up time.

Have a picture of Huck:

Sony a7 II & Sony 24-70mm f/4 Vario-Tessar T FE OSS

Light My Way

Caleb, at the Lone Wolf Distributors blog, wrote back in August about the importance of properly identifying your target before shooting:

"Understanding the role of a WML for home defense is critical to using it – WMLs aren’t for searching, they’re for target ID. Here’s the scenario: there is a person in your home that you believe to be a threat, you point your gun at it that’s equipped with a WML and see that it’s a 6’9 dude with white power tattoos and a machete, so you light him up. Good clean shoot. Same situation, but this time your light reveals your teenage son sneaking in after curfew. Because you had a WML, congratulations you didn’t shoot your jerk kid!"

This, interestingly, brings up the additional possibilities allowed by the newer, brighter weapon-mounted lights, like Surefire's 1,000-lumen XH35 seen here...

There's enough light from those that you can often positively ID targets with spill, with the gun still in a low muzzle-aversion position. Alternatively, an XH35 on a pistol held in a high muzzle-aversion position like temple index will usually reflect enough light off the ceiling of a room to light the room reasonably well.

While the lens on the light is protected by Thyrm Clens, the body of the light can get pretty grody on a short gun like this. I got the masking tape idea watching blog reader rremington shooting at TacCon this year...

Have some flowers...

Here's a pretty flower to look at while I'm sitting here waiting on the little white van of happiness to drop off my latest order from Lucky Gunner. (Thank you, Patreon subscribers!)

I love the convenience, because if I order before 3PM Mon-Thu, the ammo usually hits my porch before the range opens at 10AM.
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Awareness

I am thankful for the pretty decent built-in speakers on the iPhone 7 plus, because the last couple days I've been able to listen to Ballistic Radio while doing my morning walk, and I refuse to use earbuds (also known as "target indicators") while out walking in the middle of a large settlement of apex predators.

Besides, if I got jacked while out walking while listening to Ballistic Radio on earbuds, I would never ever be able to live that down.

Not to mention being able to hear cars and stuff like that. I'm always amazed to see people jogging or bicycling in the street with earbuds or even headsets. It seems like the texting driver and the Bose-wearing cyclist are just a match made in insurance heaven.

Actually, about the only time I use earbuds is when I'm on airplanes. I just don't like being deprived of a sense like that.

When I'm playing World of Warcraft here at home, I almost never get the full stereo effect from my Logitech G930's, because I usually leave one ear uncovered so I can hear Bobbi and the cats.
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Your House Isn't a Free-Fire Zone...

So, one time back in the day, when I lived in Cookie Cutter Courts apartment complex, I stayed up for most of a weekend playing...I can't remember, but it was probably Diablo II...at a LAN party. And then because I had errands to run on Monday, I only got a couple hours of half-assed sleep Sunday night. I ran errands during the day and then sleep-rode my motorcycle to the airport for work, clocked out at about 0100 and rode home so tired I was practically hallucinating.

I stopped one flight short and stuck my key in the door of 213 instead of 313 before realizing my error.

So that much of soon-to-be-former Officer Guyger's statement to authorities rings true.

However, she states she found the door ajar, that she issued the shadowy figure she encountered commands to stop, and only shot him when he did not comply.

In other words, her statement ticks all the boxes for an unfortunate shoot that will likely result in a plea deal on manslaughter charges and the end of a career in law enforcement. Especially if her claim that she didn't turn on the lights and realize she was in the wrong apartment until she was already on the phone with 911 is borne out by the recording of the call.

The angry public is clamoring for murder charges, however, and if soon-to-be-former Officer Guyger fudged any part of her statement in order to make her case look better, it will bite her in the ass.

So, back to my oft-repeated mantra of "Your house is not a free-fire zone," with the newly added codicil: "...especially if it turns out it's not your house."

For fifty bucks, you can use this:

For 9.06¢ per kWh, you can use this:

And for free, you can use this:

"WHO'S THERE?"

Maybe so...

It's certainly helped me through a rough year.

Because it's just a hobby, I know it does for me a lot of what shooting used to do. With shooting, unfortunately, I have learned the lesson that adult film actors do: You can turn anything into work.
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Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #173...

After 3,785 I suppose I owe you guys a teardown, some macro photos of a filthy gun, and a writeup. And I owe this poor gun a bath. Reliability has been stellar, BTW. Go figure.
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A tentative feeling of accomplishment...

See all that snot on the picture? That was stuff on the sensor of my Sony a7 II. The vibrating self-cleaning process didn't dislodge it, and it didn't blow off with an air bulb, and so that meant cleaning the sensor. (Actually the glass protector on the sensor.)

I ordered up some swabs and solvent and pondered my options. There was nothing like a clean-room sort of environment inside Roseholme Cottage, but it was 68 degrees and humid, with dead calm air outside. If I was going to have the body cap off long enough to swab something, sitting in the corner on the front porch was as good a place as any.

Once finished, I shot the clouds at f16, and the spots seemed to be gone. I'll take it out for a spin later today.
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Overheard in the Hallway...

TV Announcer: "...the new book about beloved First Lady, Betty Ford."

RX: "Who ever writes a book about a First Lady the people hated?" 

Me: "Hillary Clinton's ghost writer?"

Riddle Solved...

So I'd thought I'd tracked down the mystery of the automagically imported files on Lightroom CC. I went into the settings of the app on my phone and turned off the feature that auto-imported photos from the camera into my Lightroom catalog.

Then I came home from lunch with Shootin' Buddy yesterday afternoon, sat on the front porch finishing up a column on my iPad, and came inside to futz around on the desktop computer. I opened Lightroom, and there were the phone snapshots of lunch! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Strausberg chili dog with a side of cauliflower salad at Liter House.

So this morning I hit the Googles to see what was up. The answer was simple enough that I felt a little silly. Since all the Apple devices share photos to the same pool, the Mac desktop computer and iPhone had been commanded to stop uploading grocery lists and screen caps to Lightroom, but the iPad was dutifully chugging away. Fixed that now.
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