Thursday, June 25, 2009

Reservoir Canyon cave

Lights: Ra Clicky 140Cgt, SureFire L1

Received my replacement tails from HDS and took them for their first use inside a cave at the base of the grade. I used the Cgt and L1 and found that it's true what many say, that caves have a strange ability to absorb light. With the Ra and SF both on high, I had a combined output of around 210lm (250 with burst) and it was merely adequate after coming out of the sun. The L1 was clearly more useful, its focused spot lost less light to the dark walls and filled the narrow space well with its spot.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Death of a Stallion

Me, Ian, Katie
Lights: Me - Ra Clickies 140Cgt & 100wwCT; Ian - NiteCore D10

In the evening I went out to return some stuff to Ian and buy Sam's red L1. I got to Linn's a little after 10, hung around for about an hour talking cameras and stuff with Ian while the closing finished. We left around 11.30 and he immediately took off while I called Sam to let him know I was coming. I pulled onto Main and my phone started ringing, so I stopped at the intersection and answered; it was Katie. She asked if Ian had left and said she'd just heard someone crash badly at the bridge right below their house. I told her Ian probably hadn't had time to get there yet but said I'd check it out anyway....

I arrived at the bridge, drove slowly past, and saw a damaged car with no lights on sitting on the other side of the rail with its nose facing back towards the park. I kept going to the park, turned around hurriedly, and raced back to the scene. I parked as close to where they were as I could, saw two people just out of the car, got out to ask if they were ok. The guy, tall and very clean cut looking, came up and started telling me he'd just crashed his car (obviously), etc., and made it clear he wanted me to stick around and help. He appeared completely fine, the girl with him was a little shaken up and had injured her left hand, so I was more worried about her. Fortunately, Ian returned with Katie a couple minutes later, he'd been going through there at about the same time and seen him losing control, went home to get his light and Katie. I hadn't gotten a good look at the car yet since it was in the shadows and I was busy looking them over and trying to help, but when I finally saw it in the light I realized it was a *Nice* car. Turns out it was a gorgeous dark blue metallic Ferrari 575M. Pretty tragic. Eventually the fire department/ambulance/sheriff/chp/Ron the tow truck guy (that's who all showed up) started arriving about 10 minutes after we called. Quite a scene. Ian got to help the tow guy by telling him how to get the F1 gearbox in neutral. Ian and Katie took the girl back to the hotel, I followed the tow and chp, watched the tow guy take the car to his house for the night. I got home at 1:30, after spending almost two hours there.

Ian and I used our lights to clear away small debris from the road and redirect passers' attention towards the water treatment plant, hoping no one would notice the smashed up Ferrari hiding behind us and pull over to possibly create more trouble. We also helped them check the car interior for their stuff, search through purse, etc.