I was out with one of my brothers about a week ago on his little run around Tropical Fish stores in the South East about a week ago when something rather bizarre took place.
He had previously worked for a company called Gates as a salesman for Ford cars and had been there a number of years but started of his working life, as we all did in my family save one brother and sister, working with animals. The job he now does he had previously done prior to working for Ford and his old boss who had been friendly with our whole family wanted him back.
Since this had happened I had a few calls on some mornings asking me if I wanted to go out with him on his run and due to my lack of much to do, hence my other BLOG about Computers and Gaming, getting out and seeing what was around in the world of Fish, Amphibians and Reptiles was a good thing for me.
What happened a week ago is that we ended up in Leighton Buzzard and a nice store run by a couple of very friendly people. Impressed with the little store and the offers they had available I was wandering around from section to section and walked through a doorway to see the pond section. As I did so I looked immediately to my left and was presented with a variety of objects that caused me to freeze, do a double take and have me scratching my head while my jaw was now dragging around the floor.
There before me was a plimpf and atop it was a selection of telescopes, I I should say OPTICS. These were all of the Celestron variety and comprised of several reflectors along with a, guessing here, 6 inch Maksutov Cassegrain Goto Scope! There were also a few other choice things with one being a monocular and this would have been a good choice for any one of my brothers and me, any three of us, as we had recently got into birdwatching and had kitted ourselves out with binoculars.
We got chatting to the chap that ran the store about this curious inclusion of optical equipment in what is in essence a pet store? At the counter I was then presented with binoculars before I then realised there were several on the shelves behind the man I was talking to. He presented my brother with a Celestron Skymaster 15x70 Binoculars and I turned to my brother, who asked me if they were any good, and said err you know my Revelation Astros that are 15x70? He said 'yes' and I replied well they are the SAME binoculars! He looked puzzled and I said that these binoculars are all made by the same firm and that the casing coverings are then all put on by the different firms. Adler, Revelation and Celestron all use the same binocular and it has a good reputation especially for its pricing.
I have no idea what my brother thought when I used the words Maksutov-Cassegrain and Ritchey-Chretian among others as I had never really got that technical when speaking about scopes with him before hand. But then the subject was mainly about binoculars anyway though he does watch out for the Perseid Meteor showers each year.
So you can walk in and buy a Goldfish, an aquarium some fish food and a 6 inch Maksutov and then head home, safe in the knowledge that you can watch your goldfish swimming around when your not gazing at the Sea of Tranquillity, Orion's Belt of the Crab Nebula and dreaming of what is out there?!
As I stated the the people in the store that has NEVER happened to me before and I have been in thousands, literally, of Pet Stores and it made my day!
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