From: bjs@uts.amdahl.com (Barry Sherman)
Newsgroups: rec.photo
Subject: Re: Monopods and air travel
Date: 16 Apr 92 19:24:58 GMT
Followup-To: rec.photo
Distribution: na
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

ben bauer writes:

>This discussion of monopods and air travel reminds me of
>an anecdote.  I few years ago I was travelling to the
>Dominican Republic and a boisterous high-school baseball
>team was on the flight.  They were being abnoxious (half-
>loaded) and one of the guys was politely asked to surrender
>the baseball bat from his carry on as this is considered
>a dangerous weapon and should not have cleared the carry on
>inspection anyway.  Well there I was sitting with my Cullman
>monopod, a 16" metal rod with a good 2" diameter.  It seems
>that this hunk of metal was not considered dangerous but
>a wooden bat was.  Maybe I was just lucky.

Ah yes, then there was the case of my walking stick.  I made a walking
stick (or 'staff', or 'third leg' if you've read Colin Fletcher on hiking)
about 10 years ago.  Nice piece of well aged cottonwood.  About 5 feet
long, with bends at just the places where I held it while hiking.  Very
light but nicely strong.  To protect the tip I drilled a hole in it and
epoxied in a length of 1/4" steel rod.  I ground the rod to a point
after the glue set and found it to be excellent - it caught on the roughness
of granite and held well on logs when crossing streams, etc.  After a few
hikes the tip ground down to a soft, gently rounded shape but it still
worked well.

Then one week I flew to Seattle for a vacation and took the walking stick.
In San Francisco they told me to carry it on and store it in the cabinet where
clothing bags are hung.  When I returned from Seattle they said nothing
at the check-in line.  But then when I went to board they wouldn't let me
on with this "weapon".  I mean they really looked as if they thought I was
a dangerous person and weren't sure whether to confiscate the walking 
stick or to arrest me.  They told me that I could check the stick but
there wasn't time to do so before the plane left (Yes, my mother always tried
to get me to allow more time ... :-)  so I returned without the stick.  
Although I've since fabricated a nice one from store-bought ash, it just isn't 
the same.
 
I mean, really.  Stab someone with a spear the radius of whose tip is about
1/4"?????  I really think that my Gitzo tripod is a more formidible 
weapon and they've never said anything about *it*.

Barry



-- 


|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Barry Sherman, Amdahl Corp.       | "Any fool can face a crisis - it's     | 
| bjs@ruts.ccc.amdahl.com           |  this day-to-day living that wears you |
|                                   |  out." - Anton Chekhov                 |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Amdahl, being a corporation, is a legal fiction.  Therefore it is incapable|
| of holding, let alone expressing, opinions.  Unfortunately, this has been  |
| said of me as well.                                                        |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
From: andyc@hplsla.hp.com (Andy Cassino)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 20:14:59 GMT
Subject: Re: Rectilinear Fisheye Lens & Panoramas
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA