Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/07/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I am back a few hours ago from a trip to south-central Alaska. (I reognize that those in the Land of the Nearly Midnight Sun refer to Anchorage as 'South-East Alaska' but this is persiflage: South-East Alaska is Skagway, Juneau, Sitka, and points South-East of there.) I took a full Leica battery, minus my Viso gear. Upon opening my pack, I was astonished to find that I was lacking both my Official LUG Abrahamson Soft Release and the rubber cap for the flash contact for my M6; upon reflection, I suspect that my wife's granddaughter is the cause of this but to locate these now will require a comprehensive scouring of my "tree house" home office, and so be it. I have a spare Soft Release, thanks to Tom, and I will find a replacement cap for the flash connection somewhere and sometime: I gather that this is not the season to approach Leica USA about minor items such as this. I shot three slide rolls, one K64 at the Independence Mine at Hatcher Pass and another Ektachrome one at Seward and a third at Denali and at the sea-sides of Anchorage. Interspersed among these were pictures taken on my Rollei d41 and my wife's Fuji digital cameras. The Leica shots were made on lenses ranging from a 4.5/21 Carl Zeiss Biogon adapted to Leica M to a 3.4/135 APO-ASPH Televid. We will see how these shots came out once the slides are returned from the lab. I am both fiscally challenged and cheap. My wife's daughter works for ComAir, so we flew on her permit. Getting up there wa not a problem but returning was a nightmare: my wife flew on a Family Pass, which gave her a priority on the standby list but I, as a step-dad stand-in, only rated a "Buddy Pass" which put me at the very bottom of the standby sorts. In the end, we flew back through Salt Lake City (a grand airport, with LOTS of smoking areas!), NW Arkansas (and we spent a very short night as the first guests in a new hotel, an odd experience), and Atlanta (an airport for the chemically pure: akin to Dulles, it has entire concourses without smoking accomodations). Yes, I insisted that my wife go on and leave me to my own devices but, then, she knows me and realizes that I am not a fit person to leave unaccompanied in a universe where the bureaocrat buffoons have managed to force us to sit through lectures on how to use a lap belt. (I kid you not: these morons are now presuming that you are dumber than they may be, and God save the Mark! Is there anyone so stupid or so ill-advised as not to know how to work a seat-belt? We endured lecture after lecture on this very subject.) Otherwise, it was a grand, though exhausting, exercize. Marc msmall@aya.yale.edu Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir! NEW FAX NUMBER: +540-343-8505