Well yes, but that was a specific refurbed example. I still wanted the lens, just not that one - it may have been dropped, or just a soft copy in general. Especially on zooms, there is significant copy-to-copy variation, and I've seen amazing work from it. Manufacturers' standards (Canon's and others') are not what they might be in terms of "sharp enough" after service or refurb. So you roll the dice. That lens, specifically, is one I wanted for AG at her races.

And the races are also why I want zoom, because it's all well and good to say "reframe by walking" until your target has significant speed. Primes are amazing for slower-paced work though.

You and AG are two peas in a pod, I swear.

We found that an ant problem was due to sugar residues on the outside of bags of dried fruit like dried cherries, Craisins, and prunes :eek: . When we took fruit out of the bags and then reaealed the zipper bags, we transferred sugar to the outside of the bags. After we wiped the bags clean and put them into another clean Ziploc bag, the problem went away.

Fried once = glycemic index too low/healthy;

Fried twice or more = now we're talking. :thumb:

I'm ignoring your post as I think you wanted me to do. Correct me if I am wrong.

Yes, so we went up to Flagstaff yesterday. It was pretty nice up there. I first noticed our return to oppressive heat when we had gotten back down to 4000' elevation on the drive back home.

Look how perfect it is in Rock Springs right now: :)

Overcast
34.0 °F
Feels Like 26 °F
10.0 Wind from SW

A friend reported snow this morning in neighboring Green River!

I used to eat a couple of whole oats when feeding the horses at Turf Paradise. They were pretty darn sweet!

:roflmao2:

Part of the "sweetness" thing is how much you've been accustomed to hyper-sweetened food. Lots of people don't even find, for example, blueberries to be sweet. Crazy, but they're used to candy and ice cream and soda.

It's going to be hotter here today and tomorrow than Phoenix. :eek:

It's 87°A already.

Of course it started raining the second I stepped outside for my ride. The rain finally stopped at about mile 20, but it was still one of those get-in-the-shower-with-your-kit-on kind of rides.

Better than the couch, though. Much.

:thumb:

What temperature is your threshold for this?

Yeah, I was thinking that's what horses eat.

One old wives' tale for ant eradication is to feed them rice. Once consumed, it theoretically expands in whatever passes for their stomachs, and they will explode. I've tried it a couple of times on outside colonies, but they're rather ubiquitous around here, so I can't report complete success.

Obviously, no lens is perfect. That said, much of the criticism that I've seen leveled at the 17-40L has been by inexperienced users with unrealistic expectations. [MENTION=160999]Bah Humbug[/MENTION] can attest to the fact that I was once very active on the Canon forums, so I saw the complaints first-hand. The complaints are/were almost always about what the lens isn't as opposed to what it is.

L-series lens are fetishized, particularly by new-ish shooters. Because the 17-40L was (is?) the least-expensive L-series lens, it was often targeted by the "My First L" crowd. They'd go in with their Rebel (NTTAWWT) and slap it on thinking that it's going to be walk-around lens manna. It's not. It's not designed to be. It's designed to be a slow (optically) ultra-wide-angle zoom on a FF body. If ever there's a lens that screams "landscape!" it's the 17-40L.

On a cropped body, though, the focal length range isn't great and obviously the max aperture is underwhelming in a walk-around capacity. The people that bought it *should* have bought the EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS instead - a killer crop body walk-around lens - but because the L was $300 cheaper and because IT'S AN L!!!, they'd buy the L instead and then pan it when it didn't meet their (wrong) expectations.

TL;DR - the 17-40L is very much a specialty lens that is often bought with the (erroneous) belief that it would make a fine all-purpose lens on a camera body that it wasn't expressly designed for.

Exactly. Yesterday there was some crosswind, so that did break things up a little. Still, every time I just chill at the back until it is time to drope the hamer. Then I get droped. :(

I have decided to do what I do with most of my problems: Ignore it until it disappears or make it impossible for me to ignore it (re: asplosion.)

Right now still rocking the Ritchey Micro SPDs. My new bowling SPD SL shoes are waiting for me to decide which pedals to get. Weight weenism lures me into the fancy ones, then my bank account pushes me back into reality.

Lol, last year in the State TT, I was the last woman in my class to start. I passed my 30 sec woman on the first leg and was hoping to catch my 1 min woman at some point.


Last leg, I see a woman far up the road and I'm closing on her fast. Sweet!


Once I pass her, I am disappointed to realize that it wasn't a full-sized woman far away, it was a little girl kinda close.


Crushed her soul, though.


:D

Clearly a serious cyclist.

I would love to do some aero testing, but since I don't TT it would make zero sense. Still, the engineering PhD student (aka massive nerd) in me thinks it sounds really, really fun.

Are you looking at specific changes, or just to see what comes out?

That's exactly how you do it.

Somewhere in CA there's a little girl that gave up cycling because HP droped her. ;)

Riding in Europe doesn't sound very inviting anymore.

UPDATING: Nicky Hayden in hospital after serious bicycle collision with car - Motofire

Yeah, we're getting a nice break. Supposed to hit 100 again on Sunday, though!

Whenever I start sweating while driving with the vent fan only, no AC.

The website for the product says it can take up to 2 weeks for it to work. I will be more patient.

Stupid ants.