I received my very own Summit Stone in the mail the other day and so did Emile and Lynn. If you’re not familiar with these artistic little pebbles here’s what they are about. (from the Summit Stones & Adventure Musings blog)
“I call these “Summit Stones”….. After gathering these small rocks for many years, while out on adventures, I now splash a bit of paint on them and give them back… The musings here and in the “Adventure Muse”, reflect on the nature of adventure experiences… They too, are a means of passing forward…”
These little rocks are beautiful. The idea is to keep them as a memory of a trip, inspire you to dream up your next adventure, or to leave on a summit for someone else to find and enjoy. The concept is simple and a great reminder that adventure is more than a journey, but an inspiration of journeys to come.
I got a chance to use this product this weekend when I was camping at the DSG festival. It was bright, reliable, and lightweight. The beam produced by this LED is focused and creates a perfect circle on the ground. I loved that aspect because my other headlamps all shine an ambient light over a larger area. The Coghlan’s LED Clip On Headlight focuses that light on the most important area, the spot right in front of your feet.
It comes with a red lens that drops down over the bulb area and makes the light more soft. Somehow during the night that red lens got lost, but the light works just the same. The only reccomendation I could make on design for this product is that when that red lens is up it covers the on/off button, so you have to slide it down to click the button.
My favorite feature of the light is that it has a clip. So you can either strap it to your noggin with the traditional strap, or just clip it on the visor of a cap. I am a hat guy, so this came in handy for me.
Retails for $11.53!!!! You can’t beat that with a stick people….
Are you an Audiophile? Are you a bike commuter, mountain biker, or festival goer? If so, this could be the next big thing for you.
The Skullcandy Link Hydro Pack is a backpack that is completely wired, with speakers on the shoulder straps, a built-in mic, internal laptop case, and a half-gallon hydration bladder. You can put your cell phone in a side pocket, plug it into the wire , do the same with your mp3 player, and take off. As you ride or roam you can answer the phone by pushing a button on the shoulder strap and just talk, no headset required. You can also jam to your favorite music with headphones or through the shoulder straps. Volume can be adjusted, and you can switch back and forth between phone and mp3 using the controls as well.
I used this on my commute last week and flatted out on my bike. I hopped off to change the tire and sat the pack on the ground. I turned the headphones off and turned the shoulder speakers on and listened to music while I changed my tire… or didn’t change it. I forgot my tire changing tool, so… I listened to music while I waited for my wife to come pick me up. It was sweet.
My only worry with this backpack is that I wouldn’t take it on a plane since as it goes through the xray machine at the airport it might look slightly suspicious with all the wires inside. But, for any other use, this thing is amazing. Pretty soon all our electronics will be wired into our clothing and run through solar panels made into the material on the shoulders. I’m calling it, you heard it hear first folks…
Retails for $139.95
Comes in Orange/Grey or Camouflage (you won’t be sneaking up on anybody while rocking Metallica though…
Most of my dealings with this knot have been in rock climbing but this knot can be used anytime there is a need for a stopper knot or to splice to ropes together.. There two types of figure eight knots.
Double figure-of-eight knot is used like an overhand loop knot. This type of knot can be used in prusik climbing when used in conjunction with a Swiss seat, a climbing rope, and locking carabineer designed for climbing.
Figure-of-eight splice knot is used to quickly and effectively splice two ropes of equal, or unequal diameter together. This knot consists of a loose figure-of-eight knot made in one rope, and feeding the lesser diameter of the two back through the figure eight starting from the original knot’s running end and retracing the rope through the figure eight until the second ropes running end is parallel with the first’s ropes standing end, essentially creating a figure-of-eight within a figure-of-eight. This can be a permanent or temporary approach to splicing ropes together and the anatomy of this knot allows two ropes to be spliced without slipping, however, it causes strength loss as with most knots.
The following image is from Pro-Knots which produces plastic, easy to use knot cards. I have one of these for fishing knots and carry it with me in my boat bag just in case I need a quick reference.
Here are some random pics from the Dirt Mud, Sweat, and Gears Festival in Fayetteville Tennessee. They put on a great race this year and we met some cool people, vendors, outdoorzy members, racers, and spectators. There were stitches sewn into legs, tendons torn, clogged wheels, a mess of dérailleur hangers broken, lots of Outdoorzy t-shirts given out, Gary Fischer himself was on hand representin, several frames, and some full bikes were given away, and $125 worth of gift certificates to the Outdoorzy Store were awarded.
Tinker Juarez came out on top in the men’s solo division, Pua Sawicki for the women’s. And the National Mountain Bike team came in 2nd in the “Here for the Beer” category, with JmacTN getting the award for crappiest/muddiest lap.
Outdoorzy is headed down to Fayetteville Tennessee today to hang out at Dirt Sweat and Gears. We’re a sponsor at the race and will be giving away swag, camping out for a few nights, listening to bands, watching the race, and rubbing elbows with the mtb community. It’s one of the premier mountain bike races in the southeastern US.
Change is hard. Today I left a job I’ve been at for 10 years. I know it is the right thing to do. Everything in my life for the past year or more has been steering me in this direction. But it’s still a difficult thing to leave people you care about and to leave a secure, familiar environment.
I learned quite a bit from this career I’m leaving behind. Quite a bit about what you should do in business, and what not to do. I’ve also found my “professional persona.” I know what I believe in and I definitely know more about how a business operates.
What will I do now you ask? Well, I’m actually busier for the next few months than I have been for the past year. I’m traveling, doing some remodeling projects on my house, writing, working more on Outdoorzy, launching an online magazine, consulting, sleeping in, doing a week on the AT, several multi-day paddling trips, spending more time with my wife, heading down to the Bahamas, and hopefully doing a bit of relaxing along the way.
Thanks to everyone who has supported me through this transition period. I promise I’m not going crazy.
The half hitch is simple knot and is basically a variation of the overhand knot. If the half hitch is tied by itself, it slips very easily and cannot hold anything. However, the half hitch occurs as a component in many more complicated knots to bind the standing part of the rope to the opposite end. This knot was used twice in the standing end of the Trucker’s Hitch to bind the knot to prevent the rope from slipping.
I received my very own Summit Stone in the mail the other day and so did Emile and Lynn. If you’re not familiar with these artistic little pebbles here’s what they are about. (from the Summit Stones & Adventure Musings blog)
reliable, and lightweight. The beam produced by this LED is focused and creates a perfect circle on the ground. I loved that aspect because my other headlamps all shine an ambient light over a larger area. 
