Reply hazy, ask again later...

Went down to the IU orthopedics clinic yesterday.

Exchanged my janky emergency room sling for a better one. Apparently the figure eight braces are uncomfortable and don't promote any better outcome than a good sling. Doc said it didn't look like it was going to need surgery, but took another set of X-rays to confirm that opinion.

We set an appointment for four weeks to make sure everything was healing apace.
.

There we go...

Pentax Q-S1 with 8.5mm f/1.9 lens. My name pronunciation guide. #tealcamera #pentax #pentaxqs_1

A post shared by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on May 30, 2018 at 3:43pm PDT

Scratched an itch I didn't even know I had. #TeelKamera
.

A matter of perspective...

Neat video. It's a good explanation of the "why" behind why we don't use wide-angle lenses for portraiture (and it's not because of "lens distortion".)
.

Tab Clearing...

• Designers are weird.


• Internet beefs are real world beefs that can have real world consequences.


• Are "Restrooms for Paying Customers Only" signs inherently racist? (When everything is racist, nothing will be racist.)


• Soviet heavy tanks.

Today's the day...

Ortho appointment scheduled for 2PM today.

Here's hoping they can just set it and put me in a figure-eight brace and send me on my merry way.

I haven't the time, money, nor inclination for surgery.
.

QotD: Japanglish Edition...

Bobbi commenting on how translations sometimes cause futon mouth:

"* We don't use the word "futon" in English the same way it is used in Japanese, I'm told -- for them, the fluffy soft mattress is the futon, and the futon frame has its own word. Possibly "spanner.""

Those who know, know.

TFB reader/commenter Valorius shows off his @hecklerandkoch P7 with a custom chrome finish from Custom Creationz and custom light rail. Sweet! #hkp7 #hecklerandkoch #9mm #firearmblog #tfbtv #pistols #handguns #edc

A post shared by The Firearm Blog (@firearmblog) on May 22, 2018 at 12:34pm PDT

Is that a rail or a radiator?

Only half-kidding, because cooling fins would definitely be a worthwhile addition to the dust cover of an HK P7. The gun was not designed with 1000-rd/2-day pistol classes in mind. Folks I knew who took P7s to gun school usually had two or three of them and rotated through them as they got too hot to stuff down your trousers.

I like the traditional Heckler & Koch magazine setup, as well.

Via TFB...
.

Happy Birthday!

It's Bobbi's birthday today. Go wish her a happy one!
.

Tiny Tankies...

PzKpfw NbFz V advancing through Roseholme Cottage's back yard.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3, Olympus M. Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 EZ

Char B1 bis lying in wait for advancing Neubaufahrzeuge in the ambush at Patio's Corner.

Pentax Q10, Pentax 02 5-15mm f/2.8-4.5
.

Oh, put a sock in it, Diamond.

So, one Michael Diamond recently wrote a chiding little piece about the dysfunction of American civilian gun culture, by comparing it to the hard-nosed serious firearms professionalism he'd acquired in the Army.

I mean, thank you for your service and everything, Mike, but from what you've written, you were an intel officer in the reserves for seven years. I'm hard pressed to think of a gig in the United States Army that would give you less exposure to firearms that doesn't require a degree in medicine or divinity, and frankly I'm coming up empty.

"Although I had fired countless live rounds over the years on various military weapons ranges..."

As a matter of fact, Mike, I'm pretty comfortable making the statement that I probably expend more ammunition in any given month than you did in your entire seven year career, since you likely never busted a cap outside of required qualifications.

As has been brought up by fellow blogger McThag, the U.S. Army pistol qualification is barely a sobriety test, let alone any sort of marksmanship challenge.

Mike also references the Army's neurotic clearing barrel culture:

"Even without any ammunition, before entering a building every soldier had to demonstrate his or her weapon was empty by pointing it down toward a barrel of sand and pulling the trigger, causing it to make the “click” sound of an empty weapon (hopefully)."

Fortunately the Army appears to be taking baby steps toward getting over its fascination with all that unnecessary administrative gun-handling in the name of "safety".

Since you seem to like to harken back to stuff you learned from your part time gig twenty-five years ago to make you sound authoritative, Mike, here's a phrase you might remember from back then:

Memorial Day 2018

Remember.

.

Decent sale this weekend...

MassAmmo has 50-rd boxes of Federal Premium 9x19mm and .40S&W jacketed hollow point ammo, including HST, for under $20/box. And $12.99 flat-rate shipping!

I'm not being compensated for this in any way. Indeed, I'm pretty sure they don't even know I exist, and I only alerted you guys after I'd snagged a slight re-stock for testing ammo in anticipation of hopefully being back to shooting in three or four weeks.
.

Sigh...

"Hi! 

Thank you for choosing IU Health Physicians Orthopedics! 

In order to speed up your check-in for your appointment on Wednesday, please fill out these three pages of question-dense forms and have them with you when you arrive. 

Question One: What problem can we help you with today?"

Well, I broke the shoulder ON MY GODDAM WRITING HAND.

.

TANSTAAFL

Putting larger sensors in smaller mirrorless bodies isn't necessarily a cure-all answer that creates the magically portable camera that still has awesome image quality. Whether it's in a giant Nikon pro body or a comparatively svelte mirrorless Sony, a full-frame sensor is still going to need a full-frame lens hung off the front of that camera.

Pictured below are some roughly comparable midrange zoom lenses for three different size sensors:

At left is the Olympus M. Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6, which is the basic little kit zoom for Olympus Micro 4/3 cameras. It's collapsible to make it more portable for carrying, but it's shown here in its ready-to-shoot state.

In the center is the Pentax 02 5-15mm f/2.8-4.5, which was the kit zoom for the Pentax Q system. It's a teeny little thing, barely the size of a shot glass.

Lastly, the right-hand lens is a Sony 24-70mm f/4 Vario-Tessar, which is a zoom for a full-frame Sony sensor. Being a constant-aperture f/4 lens makes it a little bigger than a cheaper variable-aperture lens of the same focal length range, but even its 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 stablemate is still the size of a middlin'-size coffee mug.

Thanks to the magic of equivalence, which has both upsides and downsides, all three of these lenses have pretty much the same field-of-view range.
.

Small Victories.

Lawnmower dude showed up.

It's crazy expensive as a one-time service, but it looks like it could be scheduled weekly or bi-weekly for a non-prohibitive sum. Depending on what I hear at the doc's on Wednesday and how things develop with Bobbi's knee over the next week, we may wind up having to do like the bourgeoise do and schedule someone to cut the grass this summer.

I'm not generally in favor, but what're you gonna do?
.

So over this.

On the one hand, I separated the fracture twice again today. Once trying to use a keyboard at my normal keyboard height and again cleaning up a ******* cat turd on the floor. I don't have the energy to try to put it back together again.

On the other hand, I'm only on ibuprofen today, because I've been trying to stretch the three day's supply of hydrocodone I was prescribed so it will last the week and a half until I see the osteopath to find out if it can be set or if I'm going to need surgery or what. I figure it's best used to make sure I can fall asleep, and so during the day I just rub some Vitamin I in it and walk it off.

On the gripping hand, the lawnmower dude still hasn't shown.

I've had better days, y'all, not gonna lie.
.

QotD: Bad PR Edition

Some people have no clue how awful they come across, especially if 95% of the people they spend their time with are dependent upon them for a living and therefore inclined to tolerate a certain amount of asshole-ishness. Take Michael Bloomberg, for instance...

Smartest strategic move Everytown has made is pushing [Bloomberg] into the background and using him as a wallet rather than a face. What we need to do, conversely, is make sure everyone knows Everytown is Mike Bloomberg. I won’t mention them without his name if I can help it.

Urban Privilege

So with me being laid up for the nonce and Bobbi not getting home until 7:30-8:00PM on weekdays, we're having to explore alternate solutions to common errands.

Between Amazon and Wally World, we haven't discovered much we couldn't get delivered (indeed, staples such as dish soap, detergent, paper towels, and TP were already being handled with Dash Buttons.) Bobbi did need to fetch cat litter, as our preferred brand isn't delivered by Amazon.

We're in a food jungle, or food swamp, or whatever the opposite of a food desert is. There are grocery delivery services we haven't bothered trying, and as far as prepared food goes, we can get pretty much any kind of cuisine delivered from about 10AM-Midnight seven days a week. My next-door neighbor has been good about calling when she was going to the grocery and asking if I needed anything.

The front lawn, which rain had kept me from mowing last weekend when it started to need it, is looking pretty jungly, but it turns there's an app for that: Plowz & Mowz is apparently like Uber for your lawn. It's supposed to conjure up some cat who will buzz-cut the front lawn any minute now. I'll let y'all know how that works out.

I miss a lot about living in more rural environs, but there are some upsides to city life, too.
.

*pop*

From Facebook at about 2AM this morning:

Pretty sure I reduced the fracture today. There was a kind of grinding pop and I got all sweaty and light-headed for a bit. Oh, and the gap in my collarbone went away. 

Seems my sling was too loose and I’d been pulling my shoulder in the wrong direction for the last couple days. 

So when it popped into place, I held my arm in that position until Bobbi got home and asked her to take the slack out of my sling. 

Now I’m sitting here worrying about finding a good semi-sitting sleeping position. 

I just wanna get told I don’t need surgery on Wednesday.

Sensor Sizes...

When the Nikon Coolpix P7000 finally ground to a halt, I went for a while using a Ricoh GXR with the P10 lens/sensor module installed. I'd never really meant to try using the GXR as a shirt pocket camera; I'd only bought it to use with the A12 module and Leica M-mount lenses, but I'd bought the spare body on eBay and it came with the P10 module, so...

On paper, it should have been at least a wash. The Ricoh interface and control layout on pocket cameras is handy and easy to use, both cameras had nominal 10MP resolution, both could shoot in RAW, and I was going from an equivalent 28-200mm lens on the Nikon to a 28-300mm equivalent on the Ricoh.

However the P10 had a smaller 1/2.3" sensor to the Sony's 1/1.7", which generally translates to noisier images at higher ISO settings. And I'd be spending more time at higher ISO settings, since the lens on the P10 could only open to f/3.5 on the wide end, versus f/2.8 for the Nikon, a difference that was exacerbated by the disparity in sensor sizes.

I tracked down the other pocket zoom module for the GXR, the S10. It had a larger sensor, still 10MP but a 1/1.7" CCD like the Sony's. The lens was slightly faster, opening to f/2.5 on the wide end, but it was only a 24-72mm equivalent. I was getting okay results, but as I began getting better with my work cameras, I started wanting better results from my pocket fun cam, too.

This is how I wound up playing with Micro 4/3 format, and eventually settling on a used Panasonic Lumix GF3 with a collapsible lens as my pocket "go everywhere" camera. The Micro 4/3 is generally considered to be the smallest of the large sensors, being about the size of a 110 film negative.

While there are some APS-C sensor cameras very nearly as small as the GF3, the bigger sensor needs bigger glass. Every time I tried to slide the NEX-5T and its 16-50mm collapsible lens into the document pocket of my shirt, the heavy glass would cause it to rotate nose down and I'd start getting bruises on my ribs from the corners of the camera body. The little GF3 doesn't suffer from this malady.

So I thought I was done with small sensor cameras until Bobbi cracked a joke while she was cooking a couple weeks ago:

"I'm surprised Tamara Keel doesn't have a teal camera."

OMG, why hadn't that silly play on words ever occurred to me?

I remembered that Pentax made some bitty little mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras that harked back, stylistically, to their Auto 110 SLR from the '80s, and I spent much of the first part of last week down the rabbit hole of the Pentax Q, looking for a teal camera for Keel, Tamara. I took a gamble on one last Thursday, and it showed up yesterday...

The Q10 has a little 1/2.3" sensor, like the Ricoh P10 module, which means that the bitty little kit zoom lens on that camera is a 28-83mm equivalent.

That's "aqua", which is a little too blue, so I guess I'm still looking for "mint".

I'm guessing it's not a common color, but it will provide some happy hunting on eBay for a while to come.
.