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Love ya, Wayne! As for me, I got my cast off. I ran a couple errands, walked around a bit, and it's definitely stiffened up on me since and is sore, but what the hell, I'm not going to care about that, I'm happy!

EOSD1426 by drjlo1, on Flickr The 13.3" Vaio Ultrabook certainly looks great and is very portable (compared to the 15.6" Asus), which is why I bought it. But after messing around with Windows 8, I just could NOT stand it. Bypassing Win 8 by installing "Skip Metro Suite" and "Classic Shell" is highly recommended.

New Steven Wilson solo album, Alan Parsons engineered it. http://stevenwilsonhq.com/sw/new-album-details Four videos of recording sessions

Not unique enough to ID you with all the other matches that come up - Try sending me a friend request ...

Your boxes arrived today, Dinny. Take it back!

Invite sent

Japan, the UK and Canada all have the same movies, video games and rap music and yet far, far less gun violence. Nice try NRA, but that argument doesn't hold any water.

So the cast is off!!!!! I walked out of the doc office, wandered around Whole Foods for a bit, and it feels pretty good. It's definitely sore, but nothing unmanageable. Right after I left Whole Foods, I went over to Vince's new shop, since it was only a couple miles away. Mike, John's already been there, but if you go, it's a bit hard to find as it's sorta way back in an industrial complex (Boca Design Center). Very cool small shop he's still getting set up. Don went over there with him. Right now, the only bikes he's selling are Eriksen and Scott, though that will change. I talked to him quite a bit, and I'm actually going to have him fit the Calfee for me. It's going to be an old school fitting, minus all the technology, but I trust him. He asked if I had a picture of the Calfee, which I did, and he said he didn't think it was going to be as much of an issue as I had thought with the seat height. He pointed out that the Vitesse that is currently on the bike has pretty high rails, and just switching saddles, if necessary, would take off the height I was worried about. He also said that I could sell it in seconds flat as the honey colored is supposedly rare and wanted. Anyway, Wednesday is the day! Mike, that looks like fun, and I'm definitely jealous as I'll never be able to do that. John's talking about getting a mountain bike now, and I fear I have lost my riding partners.

I'm semi-delinquent in my gift giving, arg! But both exchanges are at least partially in progress despite the queen not sending me her address. Heh, I have my ways and she'll getting a package early next week, hopefully at least part of which will arrive before Xmas.

How convenient for the NRA to momentarily take issue with the lack of a government database

M-lens on a Nikon will not focus to infinity. Voigtlander makes a few M-mount cameras that wont set you back more than a few hundred dollars - the Bessa R2 is cheap as dirt if you can find one. B&H has a used R2a (with aperture priority) for $400. If your comfy with full manual I'd wait for an older and cheaper R2 to come around. Voigtlander has a SERIOUS advantage over Leica in that the flash sink is 1/125 or better. Leica seriously sucks with 1/50sec. That extra stop can be nice if you want to play with fill flash in daylight. On that note The bessa does not feel like a Leica in the hand so just get an M6, keep it pristine (or buy a beater and just deal with it) and flip it at the end of the class. An M2 or M4 would also be on the list, with a handheld light meter. The shoe-mount-meters (voigtlander, Sekonic, Gossen) are quite easy to use once you get the hang of it. I like that you can meter with the handheld with your camera in the bag (or dangling around your neck which is almost equally stealth), set the camera without lifting it to your eye which is very stealth, pull it out and snap in about 3 seconds. If you are comfy with an external meter (will your class require to do this anyways? I find using the external meter forces me to pay more attention to the light, which is always good too - just a weird psychological thing I guess) you could also go REALLY old school with one of the 1960-70's era Japanese fixed lens rangefinders. These cameras have really nice lenses ignoring the $10-50 they usually cost. Considering the $10-50 they cost this is an extremely solid option. As an added bonus a lot of these cameras use leaf-shutters which sink at any shutter speed (even 1/500 sec!) so they open LOTS of options for flash in daylight. My facebook album "Wandering NYC 4/14-4/15" was shot entirely with a Minolta Himatic 7 that I bought for $15. I LaLaLove my M3, but the 50mm frames can be kind of hard to see with my glasses on. The lack of reasonable 35mm options is kind of a killer for me because 35mm is my normal.

Yay Vicki!!!! Here's to hoping that you're well and truly on the mend. Like Aerius I wear full fingers because the trails I ride are congested enough that if I didn't my hands would get torn up. I tend to wear either MTB specific shorts with a liner or bike shorts with baggy shorts over the top 'cause that's what I like to do. I have actually found that baggies can be a problem though and will be lookin at other styles for next year's season. I actually picked the Jekyll up from its first tune up yesterday. The shop ended up having to disassmeble the rear suspension arm to correct a shaft that was improperly installed by C'dale. This was evidently at least part of the reason for the clunk that I was experiencing when I first picked it up. Everytime I look at the Jekyll I crack a smile like a kid on Christmas. Can't wait to get back to road and mtb riding in 4 months or so...