Review of “Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac (2CD/Blu-Ray)”

August 25th, 2021


On August 23, 2021 I received the 2 CD/1 Blu-Ray set of “Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac” from Amazon. I quickly popped the Blu-Ray in my A/V system and settled in to watch the video of the concert. I had been looking forward to watching the Blu-Ray since seeing a clip from the concert on YouTube the week before. I was not disappointed: the concert video was outstanding!


The concert featured many great guitarists and other musicians playing homage to Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac’s early music. Among the guitarists were Rick Vito, David Gilmour, Jonny Lang, Pete Townsend, and Billy Gibbons. Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones played bass on several songs and John Mayall played piano on one. Also, Christine McVie sat in on two songs.

The core band for the concert included Mick Fleetwood on drums, Rick Vito, Jonny Lang, and Andy Fairweather Low on guitar, and Dave Bronze on bass. Dave Bronze was Robin Trower’s bass player and played bass for Eric Clapton for 4 years. Andy Fairweather Low was a popular artist in Britain for many years, and toured with George Harrison and played in Eric Clapton’s band for many years.

Rick Vito was in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and replaced Lindsey Buckingham in FM in 1987. I’ve been a big fan of Rick’s since I saw him with FM in concert in Dallas in 1987. Billy Gibbons, of course, is the front man for ZZ Top. Billy blew me away when I saw ZZ Top in Rapid City on their Eliminator tour.

During the concert the musicians who weren’t in the core band took turns taking the stage to play in two or three songs.

I’ve loved early Fleetwood Mac since my college roommate at South Dakota State University introduced me to them. I have listened to their early albums scores of times over the last 45 years. Love of FM’s early music undoubtedly is part of why I enjoyed the concert so much, but the concert has a lot to offer to music lovers who are not familiar with FM’s early music.

I own a fair number of rock concert DVDs and Blu-Rays and I have watched many other concerts on streaming services and cable TV. This celebration of Peter Green and early Fleetwood Mac is one of the best concert videos that I’ve seen and heard. Of course, a great concert video starts with great music and this one has outstanding music in spades, but it also has great video quality and camera work (something that is sadly lacking in many concert videos).

For me, one the highlights of the concert was Rick Vito and Jonny Lang playing lead guitar off each other on “Black Magic Woman”. If you think that Santana originated “Black Magic Woman” you’re not alone, but you are wrong. Peter Green wrote “Black Magic Woman” and Fleetwood Mac recorded it in 1969, a year before Santana covered it in 1970.

Another highlight was original FM member Jeremy Spencer playing on “The Sky Is Crying” and “I Can’t Hold Out”. Jeremy abruptly left FM 50 years ago to join the “Children of God” cult in California and hadn’t played with FM since. Jeremy wanted his performance to be about Peter Green, not himself, so his participation in the concert was kept secret until the last minute. Jeremy played two of Peter’s songs and just blew me away. I have always thought of Jeremy as the least special of FM’s early guitarists but his great talent was obvious on those two songs.

The final highlight that I’ll mention is David Gilmour and Kirk Hammett on “The Green Manalishi” (the last song that Peter Green recorded with FM). Kirk is the guitarist for Metallica and owns Peter Green’s famed Les Paul (famed for its extraordinary tone). Kirk has loved Peter Green’s music for years and told Mick Fleetwood that he always played an early FM song as part the sound check before Metallica concerts.

I highly recommend this video to 60’s blues fans, Fleetwood Mac fans, and fans of great music in general. If you are a Peter Green fan, this CD/Blu-Ray set is a must have for the concert video. At the time this article was posted the set was available on Amazon for $21.

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What Makes This Book Worth Reading: The Chalice by Robin McKinley

September 22nd, 2020

The Chalice is ISBN 9780399246760 (C) 2008.

What makes The Chalice worth reading? One good reason The Chalice is worth reading is because it is by Robin McKinley and everything that I’ve read by Robin McKinley so far has been worth reading. If you haven’t read anything by Robin McKinley yet, this book is a great place to start.

The Chalice is a beautifully written, relatively short (263 pages) fantasy with a main character (Mirasol) who lives out her love for her people and her country. The Chalice is worth reading because Mirasol is a good role model: she is strong, intelligent, caring, and dutiful.

The Chalice tells how Mirasol deals with her new found responsibility to bring peace and harmony back to her land after she is unexpectedly chosen (by the magical land in which she lives) to be the current Chalice.

The position of Chalice is the second highest position in the region (the highest being the feudal male Master) and is always filled by a woman. The woman who is Chalice has a magical relationship to the land and all living creatures in the land. The woman who is Chalice acts to bind the people to the land so they exist in harmony. The woman who is Chalice is a type of Earth Mother.

Mirasol, her people, and her land are facing a crisis due to the untimely death of the previous Master and Chalice. The position of Master is normally hereditary, whereas the position of Chalice is not. The previous Master dies without an heir and the previous Chalice dies without an apprentice. As a result, Mirasol assumes her role without any of the training that an apprentice Chalice normally receives. She begins her service while the region awaits the return of the previous Master’s brother from exile (to a mystical religious order where he became something not quite human) so he can assume the role of Master.

In some ways Robin McKinley’s books remind me of Lois McMaster Bujold’s works. Like Bujold, McKinley is a wonderful story teller whose characters are exceedingly sympathetic and likable. Like Bujold, McKinley has won multiple awards. McKinley has won The Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown (a YA novel) and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Sunshine (definitely not a YA novel but very good reading for adults).

The Chalice has a well-deserved 4.5 star average rating at Amazon.

Publishers Weekly said The Chalice is “Perfectly shaped and eloquently told…A lavish and lasting treat.”

School Library Journal said “Readers who long for beautiful phrases and descriptive writing will find themselves drinking in this rich fairy tale as if it were honey trickling down their throats.”

Like many of McKinley’s books, The Chalice is suitable for readers of all ages.

Next in this series I’m going to give credit where credit is due and cover What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton.

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Thoughts on Installing an Apex Trigger in the S&W M&P 2.0 Compact

August 8th, 2020

I recently installed an Apex Flat-Faced Forward Set Trigger Kit in my M&P M2.0 Compact and I am pleased to report that the resulting trigger pull exceeded my expectations. With the Apex trigger my M&P is almost as shoot-able as my favorite custom 45.

Now, I’m not saying my M&P Apex trigger feels exactly like a great .45 trigger feels because my Apex M&P trigger has just the slightest, barely noticeable, subtle hint of a springy feel. What I am saying is that the Apex trigger gave my M&P 2.0 Compact a great trigger pull that made the gun much more shoot-able.

With the Apex trigger my offhand groups at 15 yards shrank from 3″ average to a 2″ average, which is about as good as my 65 year old eyes and hands can do.

Another benefit to installing the flat-faced trigger is that the bottom of the curved factory trigger would bump my trigger finger slightly with every shot. After shooting a couple of magazines, my trigger finder would start to get sore. The flat-faced trigger completely eliminated that problem.

Installing the trigger was not as straight-forward as I hoped it would be, but that was largely due to Apex’s failure to provide any guidance on how to install the trigger in the package that the trigger arrived in. The package contained no reference to the videos on Apex’s web site, no reference to Apex’s YouTube channel, and no reference to the important Apex PDF chart that tells which spring combinations to use to get different pull weights.

Nor was installation information easy to find on Apex’s web site. Apex really needs to have someone thoroughly audit their website, fix broken links, and improve the product pages so they link directly to the videos, charts, blog entries, and other references that customers need in order to install the trigger.

Installation Resources

This installation resources link at the bottom of some of Apex’s pages gives a 404 error: https://www.apextactical.com/installation-resources

This very useful installation video was needlessly difficult to find on their site.

This essential chart of which springs produce specific pull weights is also needlessly difficult to find on their web site. The trigger product page really should have a link to this chart.

Eventually I found a reference to the Apex Installation Video YouTube channel, but for some odd reason, the channel doesn’t have any M&P 2.0 videos!

This YouTube video on installing the Apex trigger by Hammer Striker is pretty good and was quite helpful.

Installing the Trigger Bar

I had never disassembled an M&P 2.0 before I installed the Apex trigger. Installing the trigger was pretty straightforward except the step to pin the trigger bar to the Apex trigger. For my trigger, the step to pin the trigger bar to the trigger required an astonishing amount of force to move the pin even the smallest distance.

Randy Lee with Apex demonstrates how to use a vice to move the pin in this video. At about 60 seconds into the video Randy mentions applying “a little bit of pressure.” If you watch the video you will notice that Randy actually had to apply what I consider to be a very large amount of pressure to the vice handle. Moving the pin on my trigger took much more force than you see in Randy’s video. I had to really bear down on the vice handle and then I’d hear the pin pop and the pin would move slightly. I had to do that about four times before the pin was close to being flush with the surface of the trigger. I don’t know how you’ll move that pin if you don’t have a decent size vise.

Maybe some triggers and pins are not as tight as mine was. For triggers and pins as tight as mine, I don’t think you would be able to move the pin with just a pin punch. Just something to be aware of if you decide to install an Apex trigger for yourself.

Conclusion

If you like the S&W M&P M2.0 but you don’t like the factory trigger then I highly recommend that you get an Apex Flat-Faced Forward Set Trigger Kit. The trigger kit ain’t cheap (around $170 in August 2020) but the Apex trigger has made my M&P M2.0 compact much more shoot-able and putting bullets on target under time pressure is what it’s all about.

The Apex Flat-Faced Forward Set Trigger Kit that I installed is here on Apex’s web site.

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What Makes This Book Worth Reading: The Long Price Quartet

August 2nd, 2020

The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham
ISBN 978-1-250-18658-4

This post is about a four-book fantasy series by Daniel Abraham that was published in one volume as “The Long Price Quartet”. The four books in the series are:

  1. A Shadow in Summer (2006)
  2. A Betrayal in Winter (2007)
  3. An Autumn War (2008)
  4. The Price of Spring (2009)

Daniel Abraham is one half of the team that writes as S.A. Corey (the team that wrote The Expanse).

What first attracted me to the series were the outstanding reviews from other authors and book review sites. On the strength of those reviews, I purchased the first book, “A Shadow in Summer,” at Half Price Books on clearance for $2.00. I enjoyed the book so much that when I finished it I wanted to be able to read the rest of the series immediately. The cheapest way to get the other three books was to buy the four book omnibus edition from Amazon. (I put the first book up for swapping on paperbackswap.com and it was claimed within two days.)

Authors who praised the series include George R. R. Martin, Connie Willis, Kate Elliot, Brandon Sanderson, Jo Walton, and Patrick Rothfuss.

Connie Willis (Grand Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy) said it is “utterly original and incredibly seductive.”

Brandon Sanderson said it was “Exactly the kind of book I love.”

Locus described it as “Heart-stoppingly surprising and exciting”

Kirkus Reviews said it was “Impressive”

SFX wrote it was “A compelling, emotionally brutal and edgy fantasy that’s genuinely worth of comparison with genre heavyweights like George R. R. Martin…exceptionally well written.”

Bookpage said it was “Full of hope that nen and women can be equal and that systems which degrate us can be changed.”

Asimov’s Science Fiction’s review praised Abraham saying that “Abraham has an interesting set of distinctive characters, a good sense of plot, and a fresh take on several of the usual fantasy tropes. He’s also willing to examine real-world issues a lot of popular fantasy doesn’t look at.”

The four book series spans a period of about 70 years set in a low-tech world dominated by city-states that are all that remains of a fallen empire that once dominated the world. Each city-state has a sorcerer that has cast a spell that forced a different aspect of nature to become embodied in a human-like form, under the complete control of the sorcerer. The sorcerers are known as poets and the embodied powers are known as andat. The andat constantly struggle against the sorcerers who control them desiring nothing more that to be released from their enforced embodiment and servitude.

A few generations before the story begins the empire fell when the poets waged war with their andat against other poets unleashing forces so powerful that world-wide cataclysms resulted. Other countries that have no poets of their own have no great love for the remains of the fallen empire but they cannot risk open conflict with the city-states without suffering retaliation from a poet and his andat.

But the country of Galt has advanced more technologically than the rest and is constantly scheming to undermine the fallen empire and its poets.

Author Abraham has created a fantasy world with intricate customs and interesting cultures. The fallen empire’s culture is Eastern (oriental-like) whereas the count of Galt is more Western-like.

The system of magic is quite unlike anything I’ve encountered in fantasy literature before. At the beginning of the series only men can bind nature forces into andat and only selfless men who are unlikely to abuse their power are trained to become poets. By the fourth book in the series, attempts are made to train women to be poets. The results are world-changing.

The series is refreshingly free of explicit sex. In fact, there’s not much sex in the series at all. Abraham puts his energy into dealing with other, non-sexual, adult themes and he does so very well.

One other positive aspect of this series is that Abraham has finished it, so you won’t have to wait an inexcusable amount of time for the author to wrap things up (unlike Patrick Rothfuss and his Kingkiller Chronicle that has been waiting for the final book for more than 9 years).

I’m very glad that I didn’t wait to get used copies of the last three books in Long Price Quartet and I recommend it highly.

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What Makes This Book Worth Reading: Prospero’s Children

May 6th, 2020

I just finished reading Prospero Regained by L. Jagi Lamplighter. Prospero Regained is the third and final book in Lamplighter’s “Prospero’s Children” series. The series consists of Prospero Lost, Prospero in Hell, and Prospero Regained. This post covers all three books.

Prospero’s Children is about the long-lived, magical Prospero family. The head of the family is the mysterious magician Prospero from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” The main character of the series is Prospero’s oldest child, his fair daughter Miranda.

For the last 500 years the family has been working to maintain order in a chaotic world by using their magic staffs to restrain various spirit forces from running amok. Miranda is the CEO of the global company that is the public face of the Prospero family.

The first book opens with the disappearance of Prospero at a time when many of his children are estranged from each other. The series is about Miranda’s efforts to unite her half brothers and sisters in an effort to first find their father and then to rescue their father from hell.

Lamplighter is quite creative. She nicely weaves together different mythologies and world history and original ideas. My favorite of Lamplighter’s original creatures is the Cheer Weasel. (A smack in the face from the Cheer Weasel is guaranteed to make anyone laugh.) One of Prospero’s sons was the Pope (twice, actually) so Lamplighter has mythologized some Roman Catholic history and made it an important part of the story.

The plot is interesting and everything is nicely wrapped up in the end.

For me, the main deficiency in the series is in the dialog. Miranda Prospero’s inner voice is almost painful to to read at times. On the plus side, the book is quite tame sexually by modern standards. Although there is no explicit sex, one rape occurs. I hate rape as a plot device, but I have to say that Lamplighter handled it well and it was not gratuitous.

For those of you with impressionable teens who might read the series, be aware that the idea that redemption after death is possible is central to the story.

Some reviewers have compared the Prospero’s Children series to Roger Zelazny’s Amber books. The only real similarity is that both series feature long-lived families, some of whom are magicians. Lamplighter’s writing is definitely not up Zelazny’s standards. But then again Roger Zelazny is one the best science fiction writers of all time and the Amber books are one of my favorite series. If you haven’t read the Amber series, find a used copy of the Omnibus edition that contains all nine of the original books and enjoy.

The three volumes in the Prospero’s Children series have good reviews (averaging 4 stars) on Amazon. I give it 3 out 5 stars. If the dialog was better, I’d give it 4 stars. The series is entertaining but not compelling.

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What Makes This Book Worth Reading: “The Scar”

April 12th, 2020

The Scar by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko
ISBN 9780765329936

What makes The Scar worth reading?

Sergey and Marina Dyachenko are award winning Russian authors who were honored as the European Science Fiction Society’s Best Writers of Europe at Eurocon 2005.

I bought The Scar at a library book sale because of the awards that the authors had won and because the description of the plot interested me. The Scar is about Egbert, a egotistical philanderer with an overabundance of courage and self-esteem and no respect for anyone else. Egbert is transformed into a coward after he is cursed by the mysterious “Wanderer” for killing an innocent student in a duel that Egbert arranged so he could have the student’s fiancee.

The first part of the book establishes Egbert’s abilities and un-likability. The rest of the book describes Egbert’s life as a tormented coward and his struggles for redemption.

The Scar is well written, interesting, and unusual in its character development. I would read it again.

Amazon has used copies for reasonable prices.

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I Won’t Buy Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto

October 29th, 2011

I own all of Coldplay’s CDs except Mylo Xyloto (and I mean I own the actual physical CDs, not MP3 versions).

I look forward to hearing Mylo Xyloto, but, I won’t purchase it in any form until Coldplay makes it available on Spotify. Coldplay has refused to release Mylo Xyloto to any streaming music sites reportedly saying that they want Mylo Xyloto to be heard as “one cohesive work” and not split up into songs.

Really? How stupid do they think we are?

  1. Is Coldplay not going to release any singles from the album? Oh, wait; they’ve already released three singles from the album.
  2. Do they think that people who buy the CD aren’t going to rip their favorite songs and ignore the rest?
  3. Do they not realize that many of us who listen to music on streaming web sites listen to the entire album?

There are lots of bands releasing great music that aren’t working against their fans’ interests. I think I’ll buy their music instead of Coldplay’s.

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A Welcome Addition to the Family

July 24th, 2011

I’m excited to announce a new member of the family.  After a five-month wait, my Hill Country Rifles custom rifle arrived on Thursday.

Hill Country Rifles Custom Rifle

Here’s a closer look at the action and scope:

Hill Country Rifles Custom Rifle Action and Scope

Why am I excited?  Consider these features:

  1. Stainless steel left-hand Stiller Predator action (a high quality Remington 700 clone).
  2. 20″ stainless steel Hart #3 match barrel in .308 Winchester.
  3. Timney match trigger.
  4. McMillan Edge Technology stock with Pachmayr Decelerator recoil pad.
  5. Talley Light Weight Rings.
  6. Weight without scope: 6.5 pounds
  7. Leica ER 2.5-10x42mm riflescope with AquaDura lens coating.
  8. Weight with scope: 7 pounds 9 ounces.
  9. Guaranteed 0.5″ three-shot groups with Federal Premium Vital-Shok 165 grain Sierra Game King ammo.

One of the great things about this rifle is its ability to shoot small groups.  Below you can see signed test targets from Hill Country Rifles showing that the rifle will shoot 0.4″ groups with Federal Vital-Shok ammo loaded with Sierra Game Kings, and 0.17″ groups with Federal Gold Medal 168 grain Match King ammo!

I’m waiting on some Federal Gold Medal and Vital-Shok ammo to arrive, but during my first range session with the rifle I shot a 0.7″ group with some Federal Fusion 165 grain ammo that was in my gun cabinet.

One of the bad things about this rifle is its ability to reveal  the deficiencies in my shooting skills. I won’t post images of the rest of the three-shot groups that I got with the rifle that first time out, but they were fairly mediocre. They were:

  • 1.5″ – Nosler Custom 165gr Accubond
  • 1.9″ – Winchester Supreme 168gr Ballistic Tip.
  • 2.0″ – Federal 150gr Fusion

This will be the first time I’ll be able to hunt with a left-hand rifle in many years. I can’t wait for deer and antelope season!

Here are the targets that came with the rifle demonstrating that it more than meets the Hill Country Rifles guarantee. (There really are three shots in that first target. )Three-shot 0.463″ group with Federal Premium 165 gr Game Kings

Three-shot 0.175″ group with Federal Gold Match 168 gr Match Kings

Three-shot 0.7″ group with Fusion 165 grain ammo

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My Experiences With Streaming Video from Netflix

February 3rd, 2011

If you’re considering buying a device that will allow you to watch Netflix movies and tv shows on your TV, you might be interested in this article.

A few months ago my wife and I started thinking about signing up for Netflix so we could watch television shows and movies over the internet. We have a pretty good internet connection through our cable provider, Mediacom, but I wasn’t sure I’d be satisfied with the video quality provided by Netflix since we tend to watch only High Def programs these days. I hesitated to purchase a device to stream Netflix shows until I could check out the video quality for myself.

Well, my youngest son got a Apple TV box for Christmas and while he was home over the holidays he hooked it up to my entertainment system, connected to his Netflix account, and streamed some TV shows and movies. The video quality was good enough to totally eliminate my concerns.

After that, it was just a matter of deciding which of the many Netflix-capable device on the market to buy.

Over the years I’ve learned it’s wise to do careful research before buying new equipment of any kind. By doing so I’ve avoided buying the wrong stuff on many occasions.

So, over the last few weeks, I spent many hours researching options for using Netflix over the internet. I considered the pros and cons of Blu-Ray players with Netflix support, Media Players with Netflix support like the Seagate FreeAgent® GoFlex, and set top boxes like the Apple TV and various Roku models. A few weeks ago I was all set to buy a Roku XD|S. The Roku XD|S is reasonably priced at around $100, supports dual band 802.11n Wifi (the fastest wireless protocol currently available), and outputs 1080P video.

My Roku XDS order was all ready to submit at Amazon and then a little voice told me I needed to do a bit more research into the Sony PS3. (Another important lesson I’ve learned over the years is to listen to that voice.)

So I did a little more research into the Sony PS3 on the AVS Forum web site and sure enough, what I learned made a compelling case for getting the Sony PS3 instead of Roku XD|S.

What changed my mind? The PS3 is the only device to which Netflix will steam 1080P video and Dolby 5.1 audio! Netflix limits all other devices to 720P video and stereo audio.  That’s a huge difference to anyone who cares about video quality and audio experience. Although 720P looks okay on some HDTV’s in some viewing environments, it is visibly less sharp on many large, quality TVs. And stereo just doesn’t compare to Dolby 5.1 audio for modern movies and TV shows.

True, Netflix will probably provide 1080P & Dolby 5.1 to other devices someday, but for now, in my opinion, the PS3 is the clear choice as the best device to use with Netflix.

Unfortunately, the PS3 is also one of the most expensive options for using Netflix, with an entry level cost of $300.  Still, the PS3’s greater cost may be reasonable when you factor together the PS3’s higher quality video and movie-quality sound with Netflix, its ability to play games, the fact that it is a top quality Blu-Ray player, and it has the ability to stream music from a home PC to your entertainment system. The latter feature may not be important to most people but it was important to me because it allowed me to move my D-Link DSM520 Media Player from my main entertainment system to my upstairs stereo system.

Weighing against the PS3’s many good qualities, however, are the PS3’s lack of a dedicated remote control and its lack of wireless 802.11n (the PS3 has only wireless 802.11g). Note that the Apple TV and Roku XDS both feature 802.11n.

The lack of a dedicated remote control can be overcome by spending $20 on Sony’s Blu-ray disc remote control, but the lack of wireless 802.11n can be harder to overcome. Although wireless 802.11g speeds are theoretically capable of supporting hi-def video, real world performance can be marginal, causing video dropouts, buffering delays and reduction of video quality from Netflix.

My home network is a combination of wired and wireless connections but the entertainment system downstairs is not close to a wired outlet, so at first I tried using the PS3’s wireless capability.  I thought the 11g wireless might be sufficient for my purposes because the PS3 would be the only device using wireless most of the time. Unfortunately, although the wireless connection worked okay some of the time, it didn’t deliver consistent high quality results.  To confirm that it was the wireless connection and not my home network in general, I temporarily ran a 100 foot network cable between my router and the PS3.  Using the network cable, the PS3 consistently delivered top quality Hi-Def video from Netflix.

So, to achieve faster network speeds I either had to run network cable to my entertainment center (made difficult by the layout of my finished basement), purchase powerline network adapters (which work well in some homes, but not all homes), or add a 802.11n wireless bridge like the D-Link DAP-1522 Xtreme N Duo Wireless Bridge/Access Point  to the PS3.

Powerline adapters and wireless bridges would add $100 to $150 to the cost of the system. I already had network cable and jacks on hand, so running cable would only cost me time and ingenuity.  Given the $300 cost of the PS3, I decided to bite the bullet and spend an afternoon running network cable through the basement to the entertainment center.  The work went fairly well with only a modicum of wasted time. Now that the system is up and all the work is done, I’m very happy with Netflix and the PS3.

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The Gerber Tempo Flashlight: Good idea, poor design. Not recommended

August 22nd, 2009

I got my Gerber Tempo in April 2009 and have carried it on my keychain until this week (August 2009) when it became too unreliable to trust.

Although there is much I like about the Tempo, I cannot recommend buying it because it is less durable than it should be due to a fundamental design flaw.

The Tempo’s design flaw is that the LED is too exposed. The tip of the LED is flush with the end of the flashlight which virtually guarantees that other items in a pocket or purse will push against the LED. This flaw caused my Tempo to break after four months of light use.  I have to wiggle the LED to get the light to come on. Sometimes a slight wiggle is enough, but often I have to play with the LED for 10-15 seconds to get it to come on and stay on.

Other users/reviewers have experienced the same problem with their Tempos.

If the LED were covered or recessed more deeply (like the LEDs in the excellent Infinity model) the Tempo would be a winner.

On the other hand, if you plan to store your light where there’s little chance of other objects
rubbing against the LED the Tempo might serve you well.  It puts out a decent amount of
light for its size, has a solid feel, and uses readily available AAA batteries.

For now, I’ve replaced the Tempo with a similar-in-size Dorcy flashlight. The Dorcy is cheaper, feels cheaper, has a lens cover and seems to be about as bright as the Tempo.

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