Greetings from Santa Cruz!

I moved into college at UCSC last week, and have just gotten settled in. I know there's more interest in flashlights (and tools/gadgets in general) up here than there was in Santa Barbara. I'm looking forward to any get togethers and the occasional trip to T.A.D gear in San Francisco. Any flashaholics in the Monterrey bay area? :wave:

Hi KeyGrip,
My daughter just returned to UCSC for her third year of studies. It's a beautiful campus and with all the forest and trails between colleges it should be a flashaholic's dream at night. I wonder how the racoons might react to strobe mode?:huh:

Dunno about the strobe mode, but one night I saw a campus security officer lighting up some raccoons with an Inova (T4 or T5). The raccoon, while not enjoying the situation, didn't seem to be phased at all. I have to say I'm really impressed by how dark it gets here. And if that's not enough, there are actually caves not twenty minutes from where I live.

Just avoid annoying the banana slugs with you're light. It may cause a sit in.

gorn said:

Just avoid annoying the banana slugs with you're light. It may cause a sit in.

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nah. the campus' expansion in recent years is actually causing a drastic reduction in the banana slug population by taking over its natural habitat. Talk about irony.

I don't think the UC regents or the students care much about that though. It's kinda like in Cal, you won't expect to find a bear walking around.

shakeylegs said:

...I wonder how the racoons might react to strobe mode?:huh:

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I went camping a few weeks ago and a few of the masked raiders entered the camp next to us. I deployed my NovaTac P85 and hit them with the disco (disorienting) strobe. It worked like a charm. They actually ran up a tree and as far as I can tell never returned!

NovaTac 1, Racoons 0.

Hey 270, weren't you the guy who was attacked by the mountain lion?

KeyGrip beware of big cats at night!

kelmo said:

Hey 270, weren't you the guy who was attacked by the mountain lion?

KeyGrip beware of big cats at night!

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great memory, it was I(or is it "me", eh, too tired for proper grammar) that had a brief encounter with a big cat, but that was in the oakland hills somewhere in the vicinity of Tilden park. I guess technically wasn't an "attack" as much as a very close encounter, since it wasn't much more than a few small scratches(I was lucky). A few years ago one of those was spotted near some sorority houses up near Clark kerr and caused a scare but i guess there wasn't much food in the refuse bins to keep it around.

mountain lions are very rare to see around the central coast area these days due to housing developments pushing further and further into the hills, but they are around, though not as much as the more remote areas inland. It's good to be prepared, as much as you legally can, which is not much. The way I look at it, after coming to terms with what I want to see possible and what today's social climate dictates, I rationalize it in that I have a much higher statistical probability of dying from caffeine overdose so I'm not sweating it....

kelmo said:

KeyGrip beware of big cats at night!

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Thanks. The warning signs posted on the outskirts of campus made for quite an interesting first campus visit. The upside is that the school advises students not to walk at night without a flashlight! (sweet). At the moment I'm more likely to be harmed by drunk people. Oh well.