"Oh, I don't approve of this at all, and would you please stop referring to me as a 'bunny bag'."

Spent another funderful few days in the Madison area with the gang at Eagle Optics. I brought Cinnamon in this morning before I headed back to the Twin Cities and people were lining up to be disapproved of. Dan asked if Cinnamon disapproves of Eagle Optics...Cinnamon disapproves of everything, except maybe broccoli--fortunately there was some in the break room refrigerator so I was able to avoid being fired by her answer.

On a side note, I have to say that Dan has been a pretty good boss so far, but his cool points really went up this week when he presented me with a box clothes to wear to shows and festivals. I'm usually not one for dress codes--it's that inner 15 year old who still refuses to wear anything but black. But these are good sturdy fleeces with the Vortex logo (you can never have too many fleeces when you live in the northern states). I even got some shirts and blouses to wear, that are actually in female sizes and fit-I'm so relieved.

Cinnamon continued her disapproving rampage at the office and had an immediate disapproval prepared for Mike McDowell--apparently there are not enough rabbits in his blog and way too much about digiscoping. Mike had me go through his sparrow quiz, which I didn't do too bad, I missed the last sparrow, but juvenile sparrows are not my forte.

To the right is a photo of Mike between phone calls at his desk with a pair of the new Vortex Razor binoculars. Dan got some samples in to take to Bird Watch America, and of course all of us wanted to play with them and feel what they are like in the hand. We were like little kids sneaking around a fresh box of Twinkies. They feel great in the hand and should be pretty sweet when the final touches are added.

It looks like I'll be heading out again later in January. I need to make sure that I am prepared to answer all types of binocular questions when working the booths at birding festivals. Ben wants me to spend some time answering the phones and getting all sorts of optics questions thrown at me or working with customers who come in to visit Eagle Optics in Middleton. I think I'll do okay, I'm getting better with technical questions, but I get all the prices confused. But I figure if I can keep track of all the different types of Droll Yankee feeders and their prices with or without trays I should be able to learn it for binoculars too. Plus, it's always fun to hang out with the gang, you never know what's going to come up. Mike and Jason got into a conversation over Mike's favorite binoculars under $1000 which led to Jason doing optics comparisons on the counter (left)...at least that what I hope he was doing.