A few weeks ago, I bought a light stand from someone on taperssection.com. (Tapers use light stands to mount their mics many feet up in the air.) I had been seeing a lot of 9′ stands on ebay and such. A 9′ stand is plenty tall enough for taping at clubs and such, but I wanted a taller stand for DMB concerts and similar situations. When I taped the DMB shows in Florida this year, I was clamped to a 16′ stand — I didn’t want one quite that tall. So when this 13′ stand popped up, I jumped on the deal. I had it shipped to work, and it arrived this Friday. Due to my trip to south Florida, I didn’t have a chance to take the stand out of the box until tonight. Wow. This thing is tall, and it’s built like a tank. It’s a Calumet stand, and made by Manfrotto, one of the better stand companies. And it’s air-cushioned, which is nice. At one point, I was extending it, and nearly put a hole in my ceiling. Oops. Good thing I didn’t.