Golden Keys

I found a small mussel shell on the beach at Marine Park while I was blipping last Friday. The outside was weathered to a beautiful pastel blue (my favorite color), and I put it in my pocket for a possible future blip. I decided to give it a try today.

My macro lens is a manual-focusing Olympus OM lens, used with an adapter to fit my Panasonic GH1, so it has no focusing aids. I found it very difficult to focus on the shell, and thought it would be easier to focus on something with more clearly defined edges. I was right.

Can you guess what these are? They're hex (short for hexagonal) keys, also referred to as Allen keys or Allen wrenches, but that's analogous to calling a vacuum cleaner a Hoover. I don't know how the Hoover company feels about that, but according to Wikipedia, "The Allen® name is a registered trademark, originated by the Allen Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut circa 1910, and currently owned by Apex Tool Group, LLC. Its genericized use is discouraged by this company."

These are not your common or garden variety hex keys, and I'm not just referring to the gold finish. The cleverly machined ends allow the keys to be used at an angle -- a very useful feature when the bolt or screw to be tightened would not be accessible with a standard key.

They look very nice on my pegboard!