Top 5 things to travel with if you want the TSA to give you some extra special lovin'....

   Ok- not a photography post per se, but lots of photographers travel, and as I am getting ready for a cross country trip, I was wondering what to post before I take the workstation apart. The answer is this list, inspired by the bottle opener I used to open a beer to celebrate completion of packing.

   A while back, when I shot a fundraiser for the Travis Manion foundation,  and one of the favors was a fifty caliber round that had been turned into a bottle opener.

   It's my favorite bottle opener, more sturdy than an other one I own, works like a champ, and as I used it, I wondered what would happen if I stuck this in my carry on and went through the TSA checkpoint. (If you want to get your own, you can do it here).

  DISCLAIMER: I actually have no idea what would happen if you tried to bring any of these things through security, you will probably wind up arrested, and most assuredly miss your flight. Without further legal notices, here comes the list.

5) Bullet Bottle Opener. As I mentioned above, this is the best bottle opener I have ever used. And it doesn't hurt that I think the browning Ma Deuce .50 cal is one of the two best weapons ever created- the other being the 1911 .45. Seriously, if the design of the weapon has remained basically unchanged and still in use for roughly a century or so, you have to figure they did something right.

4) Bullet Pen. Along the same lines as the bottle opener above. I actually had one of these before there were hundreds of companies making them, I got mine from a gunners mate on my second ship who made them in his garage in his spare time. Hope he is getting rich off the royalties from all the copycats these days, can't find his original site anymore.

3) Bomb alarm clock.  I think in the pre-911 days these used to be in the SkyMall catalogue, now I cannot even imaging the hilarious chaos that would ensue if someone put one of these in a carry on bag and went through security.

2) Hand Grenade Paper Weight. Yeah. Same as above. This might get you thrown to the floor with guns pointed at your head. But still hilarious for everyone else.... once they realize they aren't going to die.

1) Atomic Bomb Shot Glasses. I mean, you have to finish your drink before you go through the checkpoint anyway, because heaven forbid someone tries to use perrier to take over the plane.... may as well do it in style as you await your lawyer.....

  Ok- those were in no particular order, and again, you may get arrested for bringing any of those to security, but the idea amused me so I felt like posting. It actually annoys me that we go to such great lengths for security theater which doesn't really make us safer at all. Chances are, the TSA wouldn't notice if you had any of these in your carry on. Seriously, looks like you have about a 95% chance of getting something past the window dressing that was put in place as a knee jerk reaction. But real security would take work, and training, and learning to actually deal with people instead of relying on money and technology to fix everything.

   Thankfully, I will not be flying the friendly skies cross country, as I am sure this post will get me on a watch list somewhere along with the rest of the babies and other horrible threats. (in defense of the TSA, some of what my son has done in his diaper and around the house could legitimately be classified as explosive.....)

   Now I am rambling. To take it back to photography, what we have in our airports isn't real security, it's the photoshopped version... everyone knows it's fake, but we all pretend to believe it.

  That's all for tonight, I'll post more once I am up and running in my next place. Enjoy your flight!

Photo Editing- it's all in the wrist... carpal tunnels that is..... (GEAR REVIEW: Anker Vertical Ergonomic Mouse)

    So, for those of you who haven't been following along, in addition to photography, I also moonlight as a circus acrobat. I primarily focus on aerial arts, but have also started working on partner acrobatics. For the past few years, I have been working on my handstands, and until very recently I was getting decently close to being able to hold a one arm handstand.

   Then my right wrist started bugging me. This happened about two months ago, and I finally was able to nail down the cause- long hours spent on the computer working on images, blog posts, web site updates, job seeking, etc. Pretty much everything except shooting the images these days involves sitting at a computer working. Since I am still in the Navy for a few more years, a good portion of that computer time for me is on a ship, and let me tell you, Navy ships were NOT designed with ergonomics in mind. That is starting to change a bit, but if you look at the furniture on most ships in the fleet today, it isn't really any different from what you see if you go to see a WWII battleship museum. I can't say my home setup was much better either, because it just wasn't something I thought about. Until now.

   So, I started to notice things, like the angle my wrist was in while using my mouse. It was bad. Can't change the mice on the work computers, so for that I will be using a wrist rest. For home, after some research, I decided to purchase a vertical mouse. Based on reviews, I went with the Anker Wireless Vertical Mouse.  Hell, I figured for $20.00, not much would be lost if I hated it. Luckily, I don't.

   I have only been using it for a short time, but I can already feel a difference. My wrist, for example, isn't getting sore as I sit here and work on this post. I actually haven't noticed my wrist at all since I started using the vertical mouse, which is something I couldn't say with the regular mouse. I even switched back to the old one for a bit just to check, and the difference is night and day.

  There is definitely a slight learning curve involved in getting used to the new hand orientation, but despite what a lot of users said to the contrary, it was pretty quick and painless for me. After about 10 minutes I was using it as easily and thoughtlessly as I had ever used a mouse. It's embarassing to admit as a photographer, but I wasn't able to get a good clear picture to show how it fits in the hand, mostly since I am right handed and do not own a selfie stick. The nearest thing I can relate to how it feels is that it seems rather like the feeling your hand has in a catchers' mitt or a baseball glove, grip wise, just without the external leather.

   The mouse itself is a nice texture, giving a pretty comfortable grip. The neutral wrist angle is comfortable as well, even without any other changes to the ergonomics of my desk. the wireless worked with my macbook pro (yosemite 10.10.3) right out of the box. The one caveat is that this is technically a five button mouse. In addition to the left/right click buttons and the scroll wheel, there are two thumb buttons that are supposed to be FWD/BACK buttons. They do not function right out of the box as FWD/Back, at least not with my setup. The scroll wheel picked up the same hotkey functionality from my regular mouse, left and right click were the same, as expected. The back button on my setup mimics my F3 hotkey to display all windows, but the FWD key does nothing. From the reviews I read before buying, I knew the FWD/Back buttons didn't work on Mac without doing some hacking and installing some other programs (which I haven't done, so I won't speak on any further) so having one do something was a nice surprise. I may even be able to change that by playing with the preferences, but it isn't something I need so I haven't worried about it.

   Tracking was flawless, whether just on my desk or on the Mouse Rug I usually prefer to use. The mouse is setable to 800, 1200 or 1600 DPI, via a selector button on the mouse. This brings me to my only actual criticism of the mouse- there is no way to know which setting it is on at any given time, so not really sure how much use the button or the changeability actually is. I am not a graphics designed, and for detail work I am using my Wacom Pen Tablet, so it isn't a deal breaker for me, I am just a geek and would prefer to know which settings I am in. The only other minor gripe is that batteries weren't included. Luckily, as a photographer I tend to have tons of spare batteries lying around. It takes 2 AAA batteries, easy to change, and supposedly long life, but that report will have to wait.

   If anything changes after extended use I will update this, otherwise for $20 this mouse has already given my wrist enough relief to be well worth the money, and if you are having carpal tunnel issues it's definitely worth a try.