A Tale of Two Tripods

In August I was giving some thought to buying a small, portable tripod for my Nikon DSLR.

I wanted a tripod that was more portable than the traditional, large Quantaray tripod that spends most it its time in my closet.

The Quantaray is a perfectly good tripod, but it is not easy to carry when I'm hiking any distance. As a consequence, I rarely pack it around Mount Rubidoux.

I've used a small Gorrilapod with my point-and-shoot camera for some time. It is small, light, and well suited for taking photos on the mountain, since its flexible legs can be adjusted to level the camera on uneven boulder surfaces.

Joby, the maker of the Gorrillapod, recently released larger models which will hold DSLRs and video cameras. I was about to order one when the Email shown above arrived in my In box.

I sent a verification of my address, as requested, then ran a search on the T-Pod. It appeared to be small enough to fit in my small backpack, and it looked like it might be useful in places on the mountain, so I put off the purchase of the Joby SLR-Zoom. Information taken from the Web on the two tripods is shown below.

I guessed that the T-Pod might work for my purposes, and I was certain that the Gorillapod would, but I was without either one while I waited for the T-Pod to arrive.

And waited.

And waited.

The postal carrier knew about the expected T-Pod. The UPS driver knew about the expected T-Pod. The location of the tripod remained a mystery.

It's always possible that a package has been re-routed, even via Tierra Del Fuego, judging by a case of apples I once received from New York State. The apples appeared to have been baked at the equator, frozen near the Antartic, baked at the equator again, then refrozen in Colorado before being delivered to me.

After two months had passed by, I sent an inquiry to Becky Owens, Marketing Coordinator, the author of the eMail shown above. Fifty-some days have passed by, but Becky Owens hasn't replied to my inquiry.

It remains a mystery...